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Announced on October 16, 2014, the iPad Air 2 is a thinner successor to the iPad Air.

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Wifi greyed out after falling down

Ipad Air 2 Cellular

Hi all,

who can help me with my wife’s Ipad Air 2 Cellular 128GB? It fell down – at first we thought to be lucky. It crashed on the back leaving a heavy dent mark and a bended frame but the display was OK. But then we saw that the wifi / cellular function became inaccessible. The wifi icon is greyed out and the cellular option are no longer shown in the menu at all.

After reading several tips like resetting the network settings, turning on / off in flight mode or completely restoring in DFU mode I decided that it is definitely an HW issue. It seems that the mainboard is still OK. The Ipad still shows the MAC address and BT is working fine. So the communication to the radio interface seems to be working. So my assumption is that one of the antennas is broken. So I ended up with opening the ipad – worked fine. First I bent back the frame and disconnected all antennas – 3 cables, two going to top, one to the down side which seems to be connected to the housing. Unfortunately, I didn’t help – wifi is still greyed out. So my assumption is that either radio is checking the antennas for the right impedance / resistance or the dent mark in the housing is grounding some parts on the back of the mainboard.

This leads to four questions:

First, is there any chance to check the antennas for defects, maybe by measuring the resistance?

Second, is it wise to order a “new” set of antennas on eBay. They don’t costs too much but is there any chance that they will solve the issue?

Third, should I remove the board and hammer out the dent mark? Is there anything on the back of the board which could be grounded by the housing causing the issue?

Fourth, should I scrap the device and sell it as spare parts?

Scrapping it would be a shame though as it seems to work fine except for wifi / cellular functions.

Many Thanks, Daniel

PS: the dent mark is underneath the mainboard, near the right rim, rather in the middle where shilded part and the black foiled part are touching (on the same height where two battery cells are touching).

Answer this question I have this problem too

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Greyed out wifi is never an antenna issue. This is a board level problem for sure.

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What do you recommend to fix it? Should it be sent to a board level specialist for repair such as http://mendonipadrehab.com or https://www.ifixit.com/Business/10741/Re.... or would it be more economical to just replace it? Isn't that board replacement about $300?

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We wouldn't take a bent board for repair, and I'm not sure who would. If you can find someone nearby who microsolders you can see if they would take it. Otherwise, I wouldn't invest in parts for troubleshooting antenna issues on this board.

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@mayer ...since you called me out...

@jessa is certainly correct about the board vs. antenna...although it's not like she needs my validation ;>).

<giddy> Hi Jessa! </giddy>

As for a bent board, certainly lots of potential latent issues, even in the best of scenarios. However, it's not totally clear to me how badly the board is bent and what kind of damage it may have done to the logic board. If the OP could post some pictures, then we could tell him if it's worth attempting. An Air 2 still has a lot of value.

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May be helpful, in my case I found disconnecting the battery for 24 hours brought back Wi-Fi, but only for a week.I had a microsolderering friend look at it and he found that some Wi-Fi circuit had a residual charge in it when it wasn't meant to have one, he drained the circuit and the Wi-Fi came back again, for a week or so.

Looking into how to stop it happening again.

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Hello Did you managed to fix your WiFi issue. I am having same issue as well. I have to disconnect the battery for some time and it will work but only until it goes to sleep. If I sod goes to sleep the WiFi goes off. And I have to open iPad again. I am tired of opening iPad again and again. Did you find any permanent solution.

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Daniel Holländer will be eternally grateful.
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