About 3 or 4 years ago I got my first graphics tablet, which happens to be the Genius i806x MousePen. And like most people who have Genius tablets I have encountered a lot of issues with mine.
I’m not talking about issues that can be simply solved by changing the batteries, still make sure that you’re using good batteries or else you might get frustrated using this graphics tablet. I don’t know if this happened with anyone else but it seems that not all brands of batteries work for my Genius.
The first serious issue I want to talk about is when the pen seems to be stuck in a “clicking” state which can be very frustrating. This seems to be a very common issue with the Genius pen. Mine had this problem for a very long time, and due to that I could only use it with paint tool SAI… I have no idea why. I couldn’t use it with Photoshop or any other program.
What doesn’t help: After hours of researching on the internet I found something that suggested to “tap” the pen on your palm a few times. Tried it, doesn’t help at all.
Solution 1: If you don’t have what I call the “Engineer’s spirit” that is willing to perform major surgery on your electronics, then you can still use your Genius with paint tool SAI.
I would set the Click detection pressure to be at least 20% and that’ll solve the problem for SAI. When using your graphics tablet with SAI, it is a must that you connect the tablet to your computer BEFORE you turn on the program. Don’t ask me why.
Solution 2: Includes opening the pen and performing heart surgery on it.
I have found this article about fixing a tablet pen. It’s for a Wacom bamboo pen but it’s basically the same technique that I used for fixing my pen. The Genius pen has the same main structure so you can open it in the same way and push the little electronic board out. In the Genius pen you will have too copper wires coming out of the sides of the coil, if these two wires are not touching the pen will be stuck in a “clicking” state. You may want to try and hold the disassembled pen together with the wires touching and test to see if this is going to solve the problem. I didn’t feel there was a need to use glue on the pen’s coil so instead I just taped the wires together on top of the coil “the wires touching each other and touching the coil at the same time”.
So now my Genius pen is all good and clicks only when I tap it on the boards.
That’s when I had to face a new issue with the Genius tablet… The pen stops clicking 
Second Genius problem: Pen stops working in Illustrator.
This had me seriously frustrated at first because I was freelancing during my study breaks “Yes I am that adventurous” and I didn’t have the time or the energy for unreliable electronics.
When it comes to Adobe products you have to turn on the program BEFORE you connect the Genius tablet. Don’t ask me why.
So what happened is that at first everything was fine I turned on Illustrator and connected my Genius, it was working fine until I minimized the program to do something else then came back and now the pen stopped clicking. Just like that, it was still working as a pointer though. So I could see the pen moving on the screen but I couldn’t click anything. One solution could be to stay in Illustrator and never minimize the program which is quite limiting and frustrating.
Anyway here’s how I solved it. I know it may sound a bit weird but it worked for me.
Solution: Once you’ve opened Illustrator or Photoshop or whatever you’re using and connected your tablet, open the tablet settings thingy which usually comes when you install the tablet driver from the Genius site. Mine is called ioTablet so I just type this in the start menu search and this is what I get:
You’ll have to set the Pressure Sensitivity to the very minimum and then click “Apply”. Now you can finally use your tablet with Illustrator normally, and the pen should work just fine even if you minimize the program and come back to it later.
Unfortunately, you will have to do this every single time you connect your tablet or restart your computer. I’m hoping to find a better solution, but for now this is what I’m doing.
I am honestly a bit disappointed with this tablet that I will never buy another Genius product ever again, I know a lot of people have the same brand and have been using it for years without any problems. But because of the issues mine had, I decided my next tablet will probably be a Wacom as they are a lot more reliable and have better customer support.
The Journey 