A dead SSD and a hot air gun!

[abhi182]

My wife's 2014 macbook Air had been acting up lately and it woke up to the dreaded flashing question mark folder this evening
The only thing that worked was Internet recovery and disk utility couldn't even detect the SSD

I live in India and like elsewhere, Apple service costs a bomb!
Called a local Indy who quoted 16K INR (~225 USD) for a replacement SSD

Since I didn't have anything to lose, I thought of the bake-a-few-hours-in-the-sun fix my dad used to for iffy electronics back in the day
So I opened up the case, pulled out the SSD and subjected it to a few minutes of TLC from a hot air gun..
Then let the SSD cool down and put it back in.

Guess what, the laptop is up & running again!

Thought of posting it here for posterity's sake and in the hope it helps another kindred soul

PS: I did use a IR thermometer to monitor the temperature of the SSD and stopped the hot air treatment when the board hit around 155C

 

[Shirasaki]

Kinda surprised by your story but.
Backup all your data immediately and seek for a chance to buy a new laptop.
I also had a broken SSD just a few months ago. Luckily there are several Apple Store around me. Guess how much the price is? 800+ AUD which is 40k Rupees. And also luckily, I received a free replacement SSD at last.
So, again, backup your data, immediately.

 

[44267547]

Doesn't seem like something I would do. Probably not the smartest thing with the SSD, even if you are THINK your Monitoring the internal temperature. You have no idea what other damage you could be doing. But then again, it's your Computer.

 

[abhi182]

Kinda surprised by your story but.
Backup all your data immediately and seek for a chance to buy a new laptop.
I also had a broken SSD just a few months ago. Luckily there are several Apple Store around me. Guess how much the price is? 800+ AUD which is 40k Rupees. And also luckily, I received a free replacement SSD at last.
So, again, backup your data, immediately.

The data is backed up all the time on a NAS ..
BTW how did you manage to convince the Apple folks to do a free replacement?
I am not very sure how long this fix would last..

For what it is worth, the reason this probably worked is this:
When I opened up the back plate, I realized the SSD was hot to the touch (insufficient cooling/bad batch of SSD/who knows?)
constant heat has a way of botching up solder contacts - Now normally you would need a SMD reflow machine to try fix such an issue but a hot air gun also does the same in a less controlled manner

Doesn't seem like something I would do. Probably not the smartest thing with the SSD, even if you are THINK your Monitoring the internal temperature. You have no idea what other damage you could be doing. But then again, it's your Computer.

It was a dead SSD for all practical purposes, so there really wasn't any more damage this could do

 

[Shirasaki]

BTW how did you manage to convince the Apple folks to do a free replacement?

I don't remember I do anything. I just say if they charge me 800 bucks for this replacement I would better buy a new machine anyway. Then everything is done without further interaction. Replace time? I send the machine that day morning and receive machine afternoon.
The only thing they say regarding this replacement is my SSD is within some sort of quality replacement program.

 

[Dweez]

An option...

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/macbook-air/2013-2014-2015

 

[iMetrix]

My wife's 2014 macbook Air had been acting up lately and it woke up to the dreaded flashing question mark folder this evening
The only thing that worked was Internet recovery and disk utility couldn't even detect the SSD

I live in India and like elsewhere, Apple service costs a bomb!
Called a local Indy who quoted 16K INR (~225 USD) for a replacement SSD

Since I didn't have anything to lose, I thought of the bake-a-few-hours-in-the-sun fix my dad used to for iffy electronics back in the day
So I opened up the case, pulled out the SSD and subjected it to a few minutes of TLC from a hot air gun..
Then let the SSD cool down and put it back in.

Guess what, the laptop is up & running again!

Thought of posting it here for posterity's sake and in the hope it helps another kindred soul

PS: I did use a IR thermometer to monitor the temperature of the SSD and stopped the hot air treatment when the board hit around 155C

I am going to try this with a Hair Dryer. I dont own a hot air gun, but im guessing it would be the same, It gets extremely hot after a few minutes on full heat on turbo.

 

[mikeanthony2429]

I am going to try this with a Hair Dryer. I dont own a hot air gun, but im guessing it would be the same, It gets extremely hot after a few minutes on full heat on turbo.

Did you try this, if so did it work?

 

[ApolloBoy]

I am going to try this with a Hair Dryer. I dont own a hot air gun, but im guessing it would be the same, It gets extremely hot after a few minutes on full heat on turbo.

A hair dryer will not get anywhere near hot enough to melt or even soften solder, you need an actual hot air gun.

 

[doscore]

I just did the same to my MacBook Pro ssd 2017 and it works fine, I found that there wasn't much thermal paste on the chips and as a result it must have started to break away the connections so I just replaced it and bam it worked after some heat

 

[jav6454]

Holy necro-threads...