Chosen Solution

Ifixit screen 1

Ipad Original Motherboard

Ifixit screen 2

Original iPad Screen After replacing screen, cannot select anything with touch. I can swipe but touch does not work to select anything. This is the second screen I have put in. The first only half the screen worked. This is the second screen. When I reinstall cracked original screen it works fine. Any ideas. the cables do not snap in place the same way as the original. They seem not to snap. They appear to be connected but will come off very easily.

Michael Simonello  this “When I reinstall cracked original screen it works fine. Any ideas. the cables do not snap in place the same way as the original” sounds like you are having issues with the connector. Yes, it is possible that you have gotten another bum digitizer but it is also possible that this is a connector issue. Worst case would be a bad touch IC. Take some good pictutes of your connectors and post those with your question. That way we can see what you see. Use this guide Adding images to an existing question for that.

Because you asked, “Does the screen need to be physically attached to the base in order for the touch to operate correctly?“ I just assume you haven’t tried operating it without it attached to the base. You should try that and see if it operates properly because as oldtutkey03 said it doesn’t have to be attached as long as it’s connected. I have seen generic parts customers bring in they ordered themselves act up because of exposed conductive traces being shorted by the metallic body of the iPad which can usually be fixed by covering those traces with kapton tape. In most cases you can tell the quality of the digitizer by looking at the color of the traces. The higher quality digitizer tends to have smaller gold or copper colored traces and the lower quality digitizers have larger silver colored traces. If it still does not work without being attached to the base than it may not be the traces, possible defective part or could be the ultra-rare software issue, which I only bring up because you said the original works fine, to me that points away from the touch IC. For that I backup if possible and just reformat the device but I definitely wouldn’t rule out a problem with the touch IC.