Chosen Solution
I ordered a broken wii u off of ebay. The console works fine, but the gamepad is broken. The auction said it was taken to a non nintendo repair person for a cracked digitizer. The auction said it wasn’t working. I received the gamepad and system and tested it. The gamepad’s touchscreen was working at first and I was able to sync it to the console. I did notice that it wasn’t the most responsive screen. The second time I powered it up to test a game disk, the gamepad digitizer stopped working. I also noticed some buttons didn’t do anything. I can’t navigate the menu with the dpad. Of the xyab buttons, only x will do anything. I’m guessing something went wrong with the repair or a defective replacement digitizer. I’ll likely have to replace the digitizer. I’m just wondering if it would be easier to replace the whole screen? The screen is working and replacing just the digitizer would be cheaper. I’m not sure which I want to do. What I’m not sure on is the buttons. I would imagine that I could navigate the menu with the dpad, or am I wrong about that? I think the A and B buttons were working when the touchscreen was working.
I would recommend you to first take a part the Gamepad and look at the connections for the buttons. Sometimes things were not put together correctly and if you look that you do it correct then it might work. Wii U GamePad LCD Display Replacement
I replaced the touch screen and that appears to have fixed my problems. I did leave off the plastic bezel that was on top of the old touch screen. Does the gamepad need that? Here is a pic of the bezel that was sitting on top of the old touch screen.
