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Apple Diagnostic Error PPT004

R

Rambus

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 31, 2013
12
7
Out of the blue, I ran an Apple Diagnostic on my 2013 MBA and got this error:-

PPT004
The battery requires service. The battery is not functioning normally, though you may not notice a change in its behavior or the amount of charge it holds. You can continue to use your battery before it’s checked without harming your computer.

The MBA seems to run normally & battery life is quite good. The cycle count is only 134. If I Option Click the battery icon, it says Condition: Normal.

What's next? My MBA is out of warranty.
 
I think you can take it in to an Apple store for a quick diagnostic without any fees. Since it's out of warranty you'll probably have to pay if the battery does need replacing.

Best to get it looked at though.
 
/\/\/\/\ As above, take it in, they'll run a battery and system test, and then go from there. You might find that even though you have a low charge cycle count, the battery might be developing a fault. Shouldn't be an expensive repair as it'll just be the battery needs replacing.
 
Rambus said:
Out of the blue, I ran an Apple Diagnostic on my 2013 MBA and got this error:-

PPT004
The battery requires service. The battery is not functioning normally, though you may not notice a change in its behavior or the amount of charge it holds. You can continue to use your battery before it’s checked without harming your computer.

The MBA seems to run normally & battery life is quite good. The cycle count is only 134. If I Option Click the battery icon, it says Condition: Normal.

What's next? My MBA is out of warranty.
Click to expand...
Same happen to me.I took my MacBook Air 11' (2013) and the power supply into the apple store to run some diagnostic tests but they found nothing.The technician told me that the problem might be the area I live in(problem with the electricity).
 
Rambus said:
Out of the blue, I ran an Apple Diagnostic on my 2013 MBA and got this error:-

PPT004
The battery requires service. The battery is not functioning normally, though you may not notice a change in its behavior or the amount of charge it holds. You can continue to use your battery before it’s checked without harming your computer.

The MBA seems to run normally & battery life is quite good. The cycle count is only 134. If I Option Click the battery icon, it says Condition: Normal.

What's next? My MBA is out of warranty.
Click to expand...

I have the same 2013 MBA. I am @ 95% of original charge with 241 charges. Everything is great. I agree with others. Take your MBA to Apple and have them check it out.

I have an app called Fruit Juice to monitor my battery, seems to work very well.
 
Last edited:
This is strange - I also have a MBA 11" (2013). I just ran Apple Diagnostics and got exactly the same battery error.
 
Same problem here with my MB2013 Retina (built 12/2013).

What make me a little curious, one would not even detect this problem, if not running the hardware check.

The error message says, one will not experience any misfunction and can continue using the device (at least until a check by a dealer)

Apple support does not give any information about the actual problem behind. They just say, the battery needs service.

And I could not find any explanation on the web.

Finally it seems to address mostly 2013 devices. At least for those, who ran the hardware check.

Does Apple hide anything here? Maybe a production problem from 2013?
 
Strange I had that error in my 2014 MBA 13". Only had about 91 cycles and 94% battery health according to those battery apps. Sent my Mac in and they replaced the battery with a battery with 0 cycles.
 
Just share my experience on this case:

I had my Macbook Air (13", 2013) drained it's battery from 100 to 10 in 3-4 hours, and diagnostics shows PPT004 too.
Then I booked the Genius bar (I have joined AppleCare) and took it to there.

The Genius had checked the battery with it's triage tools, yet the battery showed normal at there(Still around 9x% charge with 2xx cycles).
And then he asked me to reproduce the diagnostics, and then I have reproduced it.
The Genius had reset the SMC and he also reproduced it too.
And they agreed to replace the battery of my Macbook Air (At no charge, thanks to the AppleCare).
 
imac9556 said:
Strange I had that error in my 2014 MBA 13". Only had about 91 cycles and 94% battery health according to those battery apps. Sent my Mac in and they replaced the battery with a battery with 0 cycles.
Click to expand...

Whatever the problem is that's being detected/flagged, it seems to have very little to do with number of cycles or charge capacity.
 
I have the same issue with the same lack of results. I went into the Apple store and the tech speculated that the Self diagnostics are updated for the newer machines but older machines may not be backwards compatible. I discussed the problems around that scenario and made them document and escalate the issue with engineering (or whoever they escalate to). Time will tell if they fix it but in the meantime if the "About this MAC" doesn't report any issues or if you can't notice anything wrong, I wouldn't be too concerned about it.

motrek said:
Whatever the problem is that's being detected/flagged, it seems to have very little to do with number of cycles or charge capacity.
Click to expand...
 
Rambus said:
Out of the blue, I ran an Apple Diagnostic on my 2013 MBA and got this error:-

PPT004
The battery requires service. The battery is not functioning normally, though you may not notice a change in its behavior or the amount of charge it holds. You can continue to use your battery before it’s checked without harming your computer.

The MBA seems to run normally & battery life is quite good. The cycle count is only 134. If I Option Click the battery icon, it says Condition: Normal.

What's next? My MBA is out of warranty.
Click to expand...
Rambus said:
Out of the blue, I ran an Apple Diagnostic on my 2013 MBA and got this error:-

PPT004
The battery requires service. The battery is not functioning normally, though you may not notice a change in its behavior or the amount of charge it holds. You can continue to use your battery before it’s checked without harming your computer.

The MBA seems to run normally & battery life is quite good. The cycle count is only 134. If I Option Click the battery icon, it says Condition: Normal.

What's next? My MBA is out of warranty.
Click to expand...

I have this same error code, but I have a serious problem. When I run diagnostics this is this is the only error that pops up. However I am forced to safe boot my computer in order for it to work at all, this sucks. When I open my computer, I type the password, then start using it, within 30 seconds the system completely freezes, I can't move mouse or type or click. I have no idea what to do. Apple can't figure it out. Any suggestions? Please help!!
 
I ran Apple Diagnostics too and it showed the same error. About this Mac says my battery has 102 cycles and it's normal, Coconut Battery says it can hold 92% of its design capacity. Once I read on a French forum it's a bug on Apple Diagnostics.

Trying to schedule with a Genius but it's almost impossible to do that here at Apple Store in São Paulo, Brazil.
 
Nothing to worry about. It's a known false positive. When the battery submenu in finder says "Service Battery" or "Replace Battery", then you need to worry.

gabefg said:
I have this same error code, but I have a serious problem. When I run diagnostics this is this is the only error that pops up. However I am forced to safe boot my computer in order for it to work at all, this sucks. When I open my computer, I type the password, then start using it, within 30 seconds the system completely freezes, I can't move mouse or type or click. I have no idea what to do. Apple can't figure it out. Any suggestions? Please help!!
Click to expand...

You might need to do a clean install of OS X. If it still plays up on a clean install then it's hardware.
 
Rodrigo Yoshida said:
Did you hear or read it from any official source? I am actually a little bit worried about that error.
Click to expand...

You do not need to worry about it.

PPT004 is just a service indicator for low battery performance, and on some machines it always comes up on AHT. The one built into the OS (i.e. with the indicator in Finder) is much more reliable.
 
Does resetting BOTH SMC and PRAM clear the error? If it's false positive, I imagine it should go away for good after reset, as even the "service battery" status reported by OS X often tends to go away after this procedure (until the next time battery starts acting up or the system re-asseses it's performance).
 
SmOgER said:
Does resetting BOTH SMC and PRAM clear the error? If it's false positive, I imagine it should go away for good after reset, as even the "service battery" status reported by OS X often tends to go away after this procedure (until the next time battery starts acting up or the system re-asseses it's performance).
Click to expand...

It does not clear the error. Reset both SMC and PRAM about three times and nothing changed. Also discharged the whole battery and still got the same error.
 
Well this probably won't fix your issue, but for the record, battery tends to have lower probability for errors once it's fully charged, not discharged.
 
I get the same problem. And the reason I ran the diagnostic in the first place was because every time I closed and later reopened my MBA, I heard the startup chime and the apple logo would come up as if I were turn the MBA on... but I never turned it off in the first place... just closed it.

Any ideas?

My MBA is probably a late 2013 model since I bought it in Jan 2014.
 
gabefg said:
I have this same error code, but I have a serious problem. When I run diagnostics this is this is the only error that pops up. However I am forced to safe boot my computer in order for it to work at all, this sucks. When I open my computer, I type the password, then start using it, within 30 seconds the system completely freezes, I can't move mouse or type or click. I have no idea what to do. Apple can't figure it out. Any suggestions? Please help!!
Click to expand...


I have the same problem - has anyone been able to resolve this? Would a battery replacement be enough?
 
I get the same error running apple diagnostic by pressing D, but if i press ALT+D (running the tool from the internet) no problems are detected. At the Apple Store they said it's a false positive.
 
I have the same problem, and I just replaced my battery today. I ran Diagnostics Tool and I received PPT004 error too.

My MBP not keep turned on, only if I keep pressing some button (like Shift). If I release them, it will turn off.
I tried to reset SMC and PRAM, reinstall Mac OS (but it´s not possible, because if I release Shift, it turn off) nothing was changed.

Any help, please.
 
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