This silver iPad Pro 11 came to us from out Blairgowrie way. It's the second generation model from 2020, the 128 GB one, and it landed on our bench on a Wednesday afternoon with a charging port fault.
On this model the USB-C port isn't soldered to the main board. It sits on its own short ribbon cable, which the trade calls the charging port flex. Two small screws hold the port to the frame, and a connector at the other end plugs into the board under a little metal shield. That's good news when a port packs in, because the fix is one part out and one part in, with no soldering on the board at all.
Getting to it is the slow bit. The screen has to come up first, and on an iPad Pro it's glued down all the way round, so you warm the edges and work a thin plastic pick under the glass a little at a time. Rush it and you can crack the screen. Nobody wants a new screen on top of a new port. Once the screen's up, the shield comes off, the old flex unplugs and unscrews, and the new one goes in the same way.
The photos show the charging port flex on our bench mat. You can see the USB-C socket with its two screw holes, the black ribbon cable with a copper patch on it, and the connector that clips into the board. It's a small part, but it's the way in for the charger and for anything else you plug in by cable.
Before we marked it ready, it went through our post-repair test. That reads the battery too, and this one showed 83% health after 797 charge cycles. Apple designs iPad batteries to keep about 80% of their capacity at a thousand full cycles, so it's right on track. That many cycles is also a lot of plugging in and out over the years, and ports do wear.
It was ready first thing on the Thursday, the morning after it came in, and the customer had it back by lunchtime.
If your iPad won't charge, or only charges with the cable held at a funny angle, try a different cable and plug first. Fluff packed into the port can do it too, so have a look with a torch. If none of that sorts it, it's usually the port. On an iPad Pro that's a fixable job and you don't need a new iPad. Drop it in and we'll take a look.
Need the same repair? See our full Mobile Phone Charging Port Repair Dundee service for pricing and what's covered.
