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7.9 inch display / Model A1432 / Available in black or white / Announced October 23rd, 2012 / 16, 32, or 64 GB capacity

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iPad does not turn on, rapidly disconnects, and does not charge?

I have a first generation iPad mini I got broken from a friend, and it has a multitude of problems. At first, I thought it was just a dead flat battery, that's what the symptoms pointed to, so I replaced the battery. Once I did this, I discovered some more problems:

The ipad does not seem to charge. For the first few days it did, but got very hot while plugged in and eventually stopped altogether.

The ipad does not turn on at all, no "dead battery" screen, can't do recovery mode, nothing.

The ipad, during those first days when the new battery would charge, it would detect as in recovery mode whenever plugged into itunes, and prompt a reset.

And now whenever I plug it into the computer, it just keeps connecting and disconnecting, showing up in itunes as in recovery mode for a split second before disconnecting and connecting again, all the while making that annoying USB connected jingle in windows.

I'm assuming the board is fried in some fashion, but I'm no expert and I figure somebody here probably is, I hope I've given enough information, if anybody has any ideas they'd be much appreciated.

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You could have any number of issues:

- You do have corrupted data and will need to DFU restore your iPad. Force DFU and try to restore. If it stabilizes the connection and successfully restores, test it to see if there is any other funky behavior.

- You may have gotten a bad battery. Using a different know good one can help you rule this out. If you have to purchase a new one, get it from a reputed seller. Bad batteries are the norm, not the exception. This is why I get my batteries almost exclusively from iFixit.com since they carry some of the best batteries out there.

- You may have ripped the battery gas gauge off the board (next to the battery connector) and the battery is reporting wrong values to the board.

- You may have a charging issue and the charging circuit needs to be addressed.

You will need a very systematic approach to narrow it down. I'd start by DFU restoring, and report back with findings. And yeah all data will be lost.

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I ran the DFU restore multiple times during those few days I had power, and each time it would just prompt another immediately after it was done.

May I ask what this battery gas gauge looks like? I'm fairly certain nothing came off the board when I had it open, but my friend said he took it into a repair shop beforehand so you never know.

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A tiny filter located near the battery connector. If you look closely at the battery connector, you will see small components. Most are capacitors, one of them is a filter on the gas gauge line that goes from the battery to the board. It is very easy to pry it off and not notice. Or break one pad off the board. If you see two tiny pads with no component on them, there is a big change this is it.

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As for your device constantly going into restore mode, I would now guess some other parts of the board (other than the gas gauge) are at fault.

Are you sure you were in DFU? As in iTunes was telling you there is a device detected in restore mode, but your iPad screen was black?

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As for the former, I can't really see anything that looks out of place, but I've taken a (not very good) picture just in case http://i.imgur.com/CxK6x35.jpg

as for the latter, yes it was in DFU mode, the ipad would shut off if I didn't unlock it right away and not turn back on, and would then detect in itunes as in recovery mode.

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It seems everything is in place.

You need to make sure your battery is ok at some point.

You need to trouble shoot the board to look for missing voltages or shorts by the NAND chip which holds the info of your iPad.

You'd also need to rule out bad connection between board and computer by troubleshooting the charging dock, and tristar.

You'll need to "peel it like an onion" as in try to solve what seems to be overlapping issues. Not sure what kind of tools and skills you have to pursue this.

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