Have an iPad air 5th gen in my circle that is barely used.
Given as a gift to a kid, they did “something” that totally FUBAR’d the USB-C port.
It will now not charge or communicate at all via the USB-C port. The port will accept a plug mechanically just fine, but electronically something is really messed up.
No warranty/apple care left on it,
Apple store has said “We don’t fix USB-C ports alone, we replace the motherboard, and that motherboard will cost you more than it’s worth”.
An independent repair shop (ubreakifix) has said the same.
Wanted to try a “hail Mary” to see if there’s any other options out there before I just put this up on ebay as not working/parts.
Original purchaser is very pissed - iPad got about a week’s worth of use before the “event” (whatever it was) happened and then the kid just stuffed it away for a year before saying anything.
Anything soldered these days is a major PITA to fix. When SMT came along 30 some-odd years ago, I could work with most components, and it wasn’t easy. Nowadays, fuggedaboudit. Everythng is so small you’d need robotics to facilitate repairs.
Yeah, I came across some youtube videos saying “easy fix for USB port on ipads”, but they left out that they used some VERY specialized tools to work with.
Got the stupid “external” charger on order, hopefully that’s enough of a fix.
Did you try a different USB-C cable? Some devices today are picky on cables. I’ve seen it happen with our phones and tablet. Try a good quality, high speed cable, and see if it works.
Yeah, it ain’t a bad usb-c cable. Both apple store and the repair shop had some specialized tool/cable pinout reader that they used to declare the USB-C port dead.
Will it show charging if ya fiddle with the cable? Sometimes cold solder joints will become detached from the mobo, if that is the situation, the connector MAY be reparable. If it does not show charging after fiddling, the mobo is probably fubar.
I’m interested to know if the induction charging works.
