Sync 2> Sync 3 conversion intermittent black screen

Heys guys I found a OEM sync 3 APIM out of a 2018 F350 on Facebook for a good price, I got it installed and it turned on and worked fine on the initial try, putting everything back together I noticed it would go black or do weird glitches when I bolted it down, almost like I pinched a wire but I didn’t, thought it was the amazon nav I bought cause the connector was hitting the dash and getting pinched kinda when bolted down, more of just a harsh angle, took that off and left it off and put everything back together.

flashed my asbuilt data that I had from when I tried this conversion before with a replica unit and seemed well, cycled the key probably 8 times during this process and the screen and stuff functioned as expected.

Now all of the sudden it’s back to black screen no start up splash screen nothing. Audio still works and will sometimes flicker the screen on before turning back off. I unbolted and bolted the unit down multiple times while I was installing it trying to figure out what the deal was with it and after doing some research I’m leaning towards potentially a loose or bad LVDS cable? I ordered one that will be here in a few days and will try to reseat my current one tomorrow. I’m just curious what anyone else thinks of this potentially being a bad apim.

The guy swears up and down it worked just fine for him he only took it out to upgrade to a kenwood for his subwoofers so I chose to believe him. Weird things to note is he “replaced the apim module not the screen cause it wouldn’t update” like 2 months ago and there’s no part number on the apim (so maybe he lied about replacing it?)

APIM part number per forescan: JS7T-14G371-CDC

Sync version 3.4

That APIM is missing the sticker with all the info on it. I would be 99.9% sure it is a counterfit APIM as there is absolutly no reason to remove the sticker.

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First question who did the custom config for the unit?

You can’t just drop a Sync3 APIM into a non-Sync3 native vehicle (2013 would have been MFT/Sync2 at best) and you can’t use your factory AB as it was for an entirely different module OS.

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That was my thought process as well just didn’t realize till I bought it. Gonna mess with the LVDS cable and worst case I’ll just find another APIM to try

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Good place to start. Hopefully thats all it is.

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how much did you paid for the apim ?