We can’t win them all. This was one of them. While some people would say that Maybe I should not write blog posts about when I was not able to repair a iPad I feel that it is better to be honest about such things. After all the problem with this one was not that I was not able to repair the iPad but that the iPad was not cost effective to repair.
Black Screen iPAd.
The client brought in an iPad with a blank screen. The screen protector was cracked but it looked like the glass itself was intact. We could hear the notifications come into the iPad but the screen was still black.
There is a common problem with Apple products and smart phones. This is when the screen turns black and nothing you do seemed to get them to go on again. Most to the time this is a software issue and resetting the device or disconnecting the batter is enough to get the iPad working again. However this one was different.
The problem with iPads is that it is very hard to open them without cracking the display or the LCD. This means that I am very cautious about doing this kind of repair and most of the time I refuse to. The reasons for this is that the LCD is very expensive and I would have to add the cost of the repair or eat the cost myself.
DFU and Restore did not work
There is software that we use to restore software on the iPads. Most of the time this works nicely. However this time The device kept rebooting over and over again.
I decided that there could be an issue with the battery so I disabled the iPad and allowed it to charge overnight. Making sure that I had the iPad connected to a known good cable and a MacBook with the latest version fo the OS I started to put the iPad into DUF mode.
DFU mode is a deep clean of the iPad software that removes any software issues and firmware problems. It also destroys at the data on the iPad except for the account lock
Still works but bad news
I could tell that by the voice assistant on the iPad that the DFU mode did its job however there was still no screen. Giving a really good look at the iPad I noticed that the frame for the iPad was slightly bent. While that does not sound like a big problem it is.
So you understand in order to do any repairs on an iPad, I need to go through the screen. So this means that if the frame is bent then that glass is never really going to go on straight again. While it sounds like it might be easy to bend the frame.. but it is not. The frame has to be perfect otherwise it can break the glass or the adhesive will not do its job. Either way it is not a good experience for the client and not cost effective
Turns out the kid who uses the iPad got really angry at game and slammed the iPad on his knee and did not tell mom.
All Ipad repairs are a minimum of two hours
I pads are always a time consuming repair. This means that opening up the iPad would be 2-3 hours to do the repair. So labor alone this would be a big expense for the customer and there is a chance that the repair would not work.
Because of the age of the iPad and the amount of labor it would cost regardless of the success rate of this kind of repair, I recommend to the customer that they did not go through the repair and consider getting a refurbished iPad.
iPad that would not boot turns out to be a loose connection with the LCD. While the fix may be easy to do … getting the iPad put back together so a child would be safe in using it is a totally different story.
Can’t win them all
So no I did not win this one. However being honest with the customer is always the best policy. Most of the time a blank screen is a sign of software issues. Sometimes it’s a hardware issue.