An attempt at revival: 2015 Macbook Air

[dantracht]

I'll be as brief as possible, and apologies in advance if this has been asked and answered many times in the past.

My landlord's son has a 2015 Air, base model, which was displaying the dreaded folder with the question mark thing. The hard drive appeared dead, and the power button was no longer working, as it would only turn on when plugged into the charger.

He had purchased, on eBay, the following and asked me to see if I could get it working for him as he had no other working computer:

• Top Case
• Battery
• Hard Drive
• 35W (I think words worn off) Magsafe 2.

Using iFixit's amazing guide on how to replace the top case, I replaced the hard drive, battery, and top case myself, and, in recovery mode, got Monterey installed and it is up and running.

Here are the "issues" that are somewhat beyond my limited expertise, that I wanted some advice on, or guidance as to what I may have missed or screwed up:

• The fan is on ALL the time. Perhaps I'm spoiled by my M1 fleet, and in particular, my M1 MBA, but the fan runs constantly, even when not under heavy load. There can't be a heavy load because this thing is slow as molasses, again, I am spoiled by my M1 fleet in this regard, I think.
• The battery won't charge. I get a constant "battery is not charging" warning and I do not, for the life of me, know why either battery (both under 500 cycles) will charge. The green light will not light on the MagSafe charger, no matter what I do.
• Internal speakers do not show. I was careful when removing and reinstalling them, and was not able to test them before I started down this rabbit hole, but the speakers do not appear as a choice. It will, however, airplay to anything else around my home.

As much as I love my landlord and family, these are not people who take care of their MacBooks, so perhaps more was damaged before I cracked this baby open, but I would appreciate any guidance from you fine people.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Saturn007]

I'm no techie, or a DIY guy, but own a 2015 MBA. The fan rarely ever comes on.

I know people who have used an app called SSD Fan Control or some such name that lets you control the fan. It works, but it's generally hiding an underlying problem!

One thing that occurs to this layman is that some software is busy, taking up CPU. Have you looked at the Activity Monitor to see which app is eating up CPU time?

When backups are reinstalled or OSs upgraded, Spotlight often reindexes the internal drive — and that will eat up CPU time and bring on and rev up the fan. It will eventually settle down. I've had that happen even with my quiet 2015 MBA!

As to the battery not recharging… either the battery has issues, the MagSafe isn't working, or the charging port has problems! Pick one! 😎

Check out the battery health with Coconut Battery. Batteries can have few cycles but have deteriorated.

MagSafes are notorious for having cable problems and not charging. Although, we'd expect it to have trouble powering the MBA.

Do you have another Mac to check out the MagSafe charging cable and see if it's working?

Or another MagSafe cable to check to see if the MBA port is working?

You could try putting the old battery back in and seeing what happens.

As a last resort — you could always repeat what you did and see what happens — sometimes a simple step is missed or a connection is not made perfectly or a cable not seated quite flush.

As to speakers, that's beyond my pay grade, although perhaps it simply got disconnected during the repair.

Not much help, I know, and you likely already tried these things, but maybe it will spark some other idea for troubleshooting and fixing things!

I also didn't want you to think that no one in the MR forums was paying attention!

Good luck with it all! Your landlord and family are lucky to have your help!

 

[cognus]

interesting as my bet is you have firmware issues. I'm going through this now on my same model as that one: base level early-2015 MBA. The symptoms are totally diff, but the issue, I'm convinced now, is firmware related - always comes up clean on health checks etc etc the normal apple way, but it certainly ain't healthy. every single action the user takes is followed by a delay - EVERYthing - move mouse... delay. Type a letter...delay etc repeat UNTIL I completely chop power - which is not totally easy with this model. once power is completely off, for real, [all internal registers then clear of a charge] then boot up and it will run fast for a little while. once it begins power managing - display off, etc [I don't know how many power stages there are but it is probably 5 or so], the processor does not resume in its proper state, apparently. Only way I knew that much was via running Windows 10 on it, going to the system events log, and meticulously going through every yellow or red event and reading up.

Fan may be defaulted "fulltime" because the bios commands for the intel management device never loads. many intel machines will do that. Ditto for the temp sensor/s. If the sensor is not being managed in firmware, then a faulty reading is had, or again, default state is "on" to save from thermal damage [which isn't the appropriate way to do it but it does happen... it should simply shutdown]

 

[wordsworth]

I too am using a MacBook Air 2015, text editing, plugged into the mains and running an external monitor (in a very warm room currently). I almost never hear the fan (and so when the fan does occasionally activate I am invariably a little shocked to hear it). Yours shouldn't be running like that.

You installed a new SSD and a replacement battery. Where did the battery come from and how much did it cost? Getting a reliable battery for older Macs is something of a lottery not in the Mac user's favour. Simply choosing one via eBay that claims to be the right battery is absolutely no guarantee that it will work, or work for any decent length of time. One really needs to know what one is buying. My guess is that the replacement (cheapie?) battery could well be insufficient for what is required of it.

However, I've just seen the previous post and so perhaps indeed any or all your Air's symptoms do result from something as fundamental as a firmware issue. What was the OS that you replaced with Monterey? Was it a big leap between OS's?

I updated a 2009 MacBook from Snow Leopard to El Capitan way after El Capitan itself had been superseded never mind Snow Leopard, and immediately had various problems installing it before I eventually got it up and running. The solution was somewhat unusual (changing the laptop's date to an earlier, more El Capitan-friendly period, and switching off the machine's wi-fi connection at a crucial point in the installation process) which I only discovered as part of some serious web searching. Otherwise I would never have figured it out.

I suggest trawling the web diligently (posing the right questions to narrow down your search) to see whether the info is out there with regard to your machine's symptoms, and hopefully narrow down your conclusions as to cause/causes. Unless others on this forum can enlighten you more usefully. Good luck.

 

[dantracht]

Thank you all so so much for your input. I feel the love!

I did jump many OS’s to Monterey.

The battery and SSD was purchased on eBay by my landlords son without my input. Indeed, he originally got a battery for an 11” air, so I doubt he did more than just get what was cheapest.

Will spend more time with this over the weekend, perhaps I’ll put the original battery back in.

I’ll have more over the weekend.

 

[dantracht]

Do you suggest I restore to the OS that came with it originally and update the OS one at a time?

 

[Jack Neill]

Do you suggest I restore to the OS that came with it originally and update the OS one at a time?

No, I would just clean install what ever OS suites you.

 

[dantracht]

No, I would just clean install what ever OS suites you.

In recovery mode I take it? cmd-r?

 

[Jack Neill]

In recovery mode I take it? cmd-r?

Or with a USB installer

 

[wordsworth]

It's entirely possible that the battery is not a reliable product. However, if the MagSafe charger was bought via eBay too, then there may be a question mark over it also. Likewise the SSD, even.

It sounds, from your original post, that replacing the SSD was logical and reasonable.

And that when the machine only worked connected to the mains after its replacement, then the battery was unreliable or dead and required a replacement. I see now that the replacement battery is a used Apple battery.

However, there are a number of variables involved in your situation:

Is the replacement battery itself any good?
Is the SSD any good (that is to say, a reliable make/product).
And is the OS appropriate for the machine? How much memory does the laptop have? Is Monterey the optimal OS for your MacBook Air 2015? How much memory will that OS need to be able to run properly? Perhaps an earlier OS would be more optimal for it (and commensurate with the memory configuration of the machine)?

Any or all of these may be contributing to your overall problem, but may not be the whole story.

Was the SSD formatted appropriately to work with Monterey? (I'm still running Mojave so have no experience – and little knowledge – of the new drive formatting system that recent OS's rely upon.)

And as you say, the speakers may have already been non-functional by the time you got the machine in your hands. Your landlord's son would be able to confirm either way, presumably.

Anyone else have a more informed opinion than me on the OP's best way to troubleshoot this, considering all the above?

 

[Macdctr]

Running MacOS 12 Monterey is not an issue for Early 2015 MacBook Airs as I am running this OS on mine without any issue. The fan rarely goes on. I'm running System Firmware Version: 430.120.6.0.0 and System Version: macOS 12.3.1 (21E258) which is the latest release.

I noticed in the post above whether or not this is an appropriate software for the Early 2015 Air. I can say from my experience it should not be a problem as I have not been experiencing any performance lags or kernel panics or any other issue since upgrading from Big Sur Mac OS 11. I would suggest updating the the most current firmware, perform a PRAM reset then allow the computer to fully boot up to see if that clears your issue.

As for the battery, it is possible that the battery may be bad, it happens. Also, OP posted he replaced the storage drive, I am wondering what type of storage drive did he swap in? (as the previous poster above mentioned)

OP did a lot of work to "rebuild" the MacBook Air so I would also say recheck your work to make sure all necessary connections (ribbon cabling) have been properly reconnected. Double check your work. As for the 35W power brick, if it is an aftermarket one I would suspect this... When I source my Mac laptops from eBay and they don't come with a power brick, I always get a genuine Apple power brick for that laptop. To date I have not had any issues with any of my eBay Macs going this route.

The previous poster made many good points, just wanted to add to his post.

 

[chrfr]

Running MacOS 12 Monterey is not an issue for Early 2015 MacBook Airs as I am running this OS on mine without any issue. The fan rarely goes on. I'm running System Firmware Version: 430.120.6.0.0 and System Version: macOS 12.3.1 (21E258) which is the latest release.

12.4 is the current release, not 12.3.1, for what that's worth, although 12.4 doesn't contain a firmware update for these computers over what's in 12.3.1.

 

[Macdctr]

12.4 is the current release, not 12.3.1, for what that's worth, although 12.4 doesn't contain a firmware update for these computers over what's in 12.3.1.

I just updated to macOS 12.4 (21F79). When I posted earlier I was getting no notification that there was an update available for my laptop until after I had posted my earlier comment.

 

[dantracht]

Final Update:
I officially give up. I did what I could.
I put the battery that came with it originally back in, did an SMC reset, NVRAM reset, and reinstalled monetary again from recovery.
No change:

• The fan runs all the time, even though I admit it must be indexing at the moment. I have it sitting on the kitchen table doing whatever it needs to do.
• The battery will not charge, even though the batter has 57% of charge to it. Green light does not light on either MagSafe 2 I have, and I have no other MagSafe devices to test it on, all my devices are USB-C and MagSafe 3. The Magsafe does keep the Macbook powered, despite not being able to charge the battery.
• Now I'm seeing this odd flashing thing on the screen. No idea what that is about, but as I move about and click things, the display flashes for a moment.
• Internal speakers do not work, it will airplay music elsewhere and headphones work as well.

With that, I am giving up and will give it back to him. As stated previously, I have no idea how this old warhorse was treated before I started to work on it, but I doubt very highly it was treated with care. Clearly there are more issues at play here, perhaps the logic board is failing, more shorts somewhere?
Who knows. I certainly don't.
The moral of the story? Take care of your Macbooks. The 2015 13" pro I sold at the end of last year was pampered and worked flawlessly, even though it had a touch of staingate.
I did my best.