iPad iPad 3rd gen grey stripe through screen

[sorryiwasdreami]

Waking up one morning I found a grey stripe through the screen of my iPad 3rd generation. It is approximately 2" thick and runs the entire width of the screen about 1/4 of the way from the bottom.

The grey stripe prevents viewing anything on the "bottom, white" layer. For example, in Safari and mail, you can read the text over top the grey stripe but it blocks out the white background.

The machine has never been dropped or abused in any way. Software restore, hard reset, and software update, and restoring from backup do nothing to fix the issue.

Anyone else experiencing this? If so, do you know if it is a hardware issue (likely). Is it the screen itself or graphics chip?

Thanks

 

[NorthSeaBeach]

I feel for you. What a bummer. Can't tell the cause, like you say, probably hardware. At least you are now justified to upgrade. I'm going to hold on to my 3 at least untill the next release or it running in the ground like yours did (knocks on wood). Really a shame.