Apple iPad 4 Power IC Change Micro-Soldering Repair

When we got our hands on it, the iPad 4 (an A1460 model) wasn’t turning on. It turned out that the other store had only carried out some basic diagnostics- typically what we’d expect most “no fix, no fee” repair centres would offer– and had ruled out the battery and the dock.

We were able to identify the problem as being a faulty USB IC 1608A1 (also known as U2 or U5900). This is the Power IC chip that handles the USB interface and also deals with charging. Since it wasn’t working, no power was getting from the USB charging port to the board.

This problem can often be caused by using cheap USB cables or low-quality in-car charging devices.

The chip is covered in underfill, and after removing this around seven other components came off as well. Apple uses underfill to protect the chip, but this also makes it more difficult to repair. We put the components back on the board- which involved quite a bit of micro-soldering- and replaced the 1608A1 with a brand new one.

The iPad is now charging and in working order. However, it required a new battery because the store we took it from had tried to reflow the chip without removing the board from the case, and had actually melted part of the old battery. Let’s be blunt- this wasn’t just incompetent, it was incredibly dangerous! Lithium ion batteries store a large amount of power, and have a reputation for catching fire and/or exploding if mistreated or used in a damaged condition.

It’s bad enough that this happened to the battery in the first place, but if there hadn’t been the problem with the USB IC, we suspect it probably would have been returned to the customer with the potentially lethal battery still in place.

Enough said- but for more on the economics of “harder” repairs such as this and why we were able to fix it when our typical “no fix, no fee” rivals probably couldn’t, you might find our article on the subject enlightening.