I think this might have been from iREB also. Because it blue screened my comp, and that's when it all started. So It may be jailbreak related. Thanks for watching! Lol.
Sorry I didn't get around to this. My advice would have been that it sounded like a hardware issue, which it seems it was since physically manhandling the innards fixed it. I can say with almost certainty there is no way this was caused by software / jailbreak. It just sounds like a bad screen connection, as you yourself suggested.
Glad you got it "fixed". And very glad I didn't have to bend my iPad like that!
Exact thing happened to me but I managed to update it using only a mac book nothin else , I hit alt plus restore and gave the firmware path n it displayed low battery icon yeeeeehaaaaaaa