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2015 13" MBA Freezes

C

crrcoal

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 20, 2012
25
0
Hello,
My early 2015 13" MBA has suddenly starting freezing randomly. It was occurring when on facebook in Firefox. So I uninstalled firefox and noticed it was also occurring in safari. Then it started happening when trying to open apps. So I updated to High Sierra and still had the problem. I did first aid in disk utility and then ran diagnostics. No issues were reported. The freezes were still occurring so I went to the Apple store. The genius ran his tests and said all hardware looked good on his report. He suggested a full clean reinstall which they did. Got home and still having the freezes which seem to be more frequent. The MBA is out of warranty and no applecare. Could it be the SSD going bad? Any ideas? Appreciate any help/advice. Thank you!
 
Yes the genius did the resets prior to doing the clean reinstall. Now I hate to ask a stupid question, but how would I set up the USB 3 drive for the MBA to boot from?
 
To remove the drive, you will need a 1.2 mm pentalobe screwdriver to remove the bottom screws and the bottom panel. Once the bottom panel is removed, disconnect the battery. Take a 1.5 (I think, can't quite remember) pentalobe to remove the ssd. Reattach the battery, replace the bottom panel, connect a USB 3 drive to the MacBook, hold the option key down during the boot process, select the USB 3 drive as the boot device. I mention USB 3 because booting over USB 2 will work but it will be much slower in use.

In order to boot from a USB 3 drive, you need to have the OS pre-installed on the drive.

Do you have another Mac and USB 3 drive?
 
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One other thing you could try is checking the SMART status of the SSD, which can help identify a failing drive. You would need to use a third party program to do this, as Apple's built-in SMART monitor does not provide any metrics, and can report failing drives as being healthy.
 
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I think we solved the issue. Seems to have been a game app on Facebook that was causing the freezes. So far (knock on wood) the MBA has not frozen since that game was deleted.

Thanks all for your help!!
 
Spoke too soon! It crashed. All I get now is the flashing folder with ?. Sigh.
 
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