Chosen Solution

I bought a used iPad Air 2 it was restored, removed from an iCloud account - it was in fine condition and had no physical marks. iOS 11.2.2 Latest iTunes 12.7.58 However, when I try to setup it up. It will not activate - it says that the Apple Activation Server can’t be reached I tried everything ifixit.com is probably my last resort. PLEASE HELP In iTunes it says, and this is the weird thing, (I can’t remember exactly how iTunes puts is but it’s something like: “The Activation Status of the device cannot be retrieved because there’s a SIM-card inside and it’s protected by a PIN) This is a Wi-fi only model, people. I tried:

  1. Activating it through different Wifi networks on both channels and through iPhone tethering
  2. Activating it via iTunes on two different Macs running Yosemite and one Windows 10 PC
  3. Activating it through Apple Configurator 2 Please help!

What you bought may not be what you expect… I am speculating here but you may have an GSM/LTE version of the logic board inside a regular housing. There is a hardware “fix” that allows you to circumvent iCloud locked LTE boards. It allows them to function as a WiFi-only model though. Where exactly did you get this iPad? Do you have any recourse or ability to find out more about it’s history?

DO you think the activating it using a lightning-ethernet adaptor will work to activate it? The iPad is still able to find wifi-networks.