Mac Pinwheeling, battery error??

[ahhhyeah]

Hi,

I could really use some advice. My Mac started pinwheeling and hanging a lot... like, would take 10 minutes to open finder. Then 10 minutes to choose a folder

I had 10gb free, and was able to move another 30gb to an external drive
So, now about 40gb free. I was hoping that was it, but didn't have an effect

So, I ran Disk Utility First Aid, it said no problems

Then I reset and held 'D'
and ran the short diagnostic (i.e the one that says 3 minutes... although it took 30 minutes)

It came up with the following error

4BAT/6/40000005: 0x8983e990

Could the battery be making it pinwheel?
I have recently replaced the battery
(I'll post the system info for the battery and power below)

Otherwise, what would be the best method to try to diagnose the problem?

It's a Mac, mid 2012, 13inch (not retina)
I've put a SSD in there
16GB Ram

(After restarting after the 'D' diagnostic thing, it seems to be running a bit better, but would be great to discover what caused it and fix it)


Thanks







Battery Information:



Model Information:

Serial Number:

Manufacturer: SMP

Device Name: A1322

Pack Lot Code: 0

PCB Lot Code: 0

Firmware Version: 006e

Hardware Revision: 00aa

Cell Revision: 2

Charge Information:

Charge Remaining (mAh): 2348

Fully Charged: No

Charging: Yes

Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 4011

Health Information:

Cycle Count: 15

Condition: Normal

Battery Installed: Yes

Amperage (mA): 1463

Voltage (mV): 11899



System Power Settings:



AC Power:

System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10

Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10

Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10

Wake on AC Change: No

Wake on Clamshell Open: Yes

Wake on LAN: Yes

AutoPowerOff Delay: 14400

AutoPowerOff Enabled: 1

Current Power Source: Yes

Display Sleep Uses Dim: Yes

Hibernate Mode: 3

PrioritizeNetworkReachabilityOverSleep: 0

Standby Delay: 4200

Standby Enabled: 1

Battery Power:

System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10

Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10

Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 2

Wake on AC Change: No

Wake on Clamshell Open: Yes

AutoPowerOff Delay: 14400

AutoPowerOff Enabled: 1

Display Sleep Uses Dim: Yes

Hibernate Mode: 3

Reduce Brightness: Yes

Standby Delay: 4200

Standby Enabled: 1



Hardware Configuration:



UPS Installed: No



AC Charger Information:



Connected: Yes

ID: 0x0100

Wattage (W): 60

Revision: 0x0000

Family: 0x0085

Serial Number: 0x00947f53

Charging: Yes

 

[prisstratton]

I have read at some point in my browsing (wish I had bookmarked that page.....sorry !!!), that if the battery is not properly recognized by the system that it will throttle back the CPU.

I will go back through my files and see if I can find that reference, if I can, I will report back here.

 

[ahhhyeah]

I have read at some point in my browsing (wish I had bookmarked that page.....sorry !!!), that if the battery is not properly recognized by the system that it will throttle back the CPU.

I will go back through my files and see if I can find that reference, if I can, I will report back here.

That would be really appreciated. I'm getting a little desperate now (it's pinwheeling again) and I need the computer for work

 

[hobowankenobi]

Try opening Activity Monitor and watch to see if there is any process that is using an unusual amount of CPU or RAM load during delays.

FYI: SSDs should not be any slower as they fill, like hard drives are. They should read and write at the same speed even when nearly full, as when nearly empty. Nothing wrong with freeing up space, but it should not solve the issue. If it does....could actually point to a bad SSD.

Might also want to restart in safe boot mode and see if it behaves any differently.

Based on the long delay when opening the Finder, I would suspect that unless there is a software/OS issue, you may have a bad SSD. Although not that common, it happens.

If you have an external drive handy, you could install a new clean, test OS, and see how it behaves. That would remove both the SSD and the OS, and verify the rest of the hardware is behaving well...or not. You can also really test the SSD and benchmark speeds well, when not booted to it.

You can also do a Restore to replace the OS......but if the SSD is the issue, installing/reinstalling could actually cause a failure, just from the read/write load. No point in doing it unless you think the OS is the problem.

Which leads to an important point: Now is the time to backup any unique user data. Assume the drive could fail; be prepared. SSDs often get very sloooooooooooow, or shut off completely when they fail. So assume the SSD could be bricked, and data is lost.

 

[Bruno09]

Some thoughts :

Use Coconut Battery to check the "Design capacity" and other infos.

The issue might be a bad SATA cable.
Since your Macbook has USB3 ports, I would put the SSD in an external USB3 enclosure and see how it works :

- same issue = failing SSD
- normal speed = failing SATA cable

 

[ahhhyeah]

Some thoughts :

Use Coconut Battery to check the "Design capacity" and other infos.

The issue might be a bad SATA cable.
Since your Macbook has USB3 ports, I would put the SSD in an external USB3 enclosure and see how it works :

- same issue = failing SSD
- normal speed = failing SATA cable

Great, I'll try those
[doublepost=1511962035][/doublepost]

Try opening Activity Monitor and watch to see if there is any process that is using an unusual amount of CPU or RAM load during delays.

FYI: SSDs should not be any slower as they fill, like hard drives are. They should read and write at the same speed even when nearly full, as when nearly empty. Nothing wrong with freeing up space, but it should not solve the issue. If it does....could actually point to a bad SSD.

Might also want to restart in safe boot mode and see if it behaves any differently.

Based on the long delay when opening the Finder, I would suspect that unless there is a software/OS issue, you may have a bad SSD. Although not the common, it happens.

If you have an external drive handy, you could install a new clean, test OS, and see how it behaves. That would remove both the SSD and the OS, and verify the rest of the hardware is behaving well...or not. You can also really test the SSD and benchmark speeds well, when not booted to it.

You can also do a Restore to replace the OS......but if the SSD is the issue, installing/reinstalling could actually cause a failure, just from the read/write load. No point in doing it unless you think the OS is the problem.

Which leads to an important point: Now is the time to backup any unique user data. Assume the drive could fail; be prepared. SSDs often get very sloooooooooooow, or shut off completely when they fail. So assume the SSD could be bricked, and data is lost.

Thanks. I'll go over this and start testing. Do you know if there are any programs I could run to test the SSD??

I used Novabench and Blackmagic (but I'm not really sure what I'm looking at or what to compare it to)
[doublepost=1511963007][/doublepost]I tried changing the battery over (I still had the old one), but it didn't seem to make a difference.

Each time I start it while pressing 'D' and run the test, then restart, it seems to run ok (the fan is blasting), but at least I can type and do stuff (and it seems like normal speed)

Some questions (sort of thinking out loud)...

1) Would resetting the SMC do anything? (I've never done this before and am unfamiliar with what it actually does)... is there much danger in running it (i.e. could I lose files, etc)?

2) Avast found a file JS:Cryptonight [Trj]
However, the threads I found seem to point to it being a false positive
https://superuser.com/questions/127...-it-has-caught-the-windows-only-cryptonight-v

3) I'm running Sierra... would it be worth trying to update to High Sierra or should I try to resolve and then update??

4) Are there any programs I could run to check the health of the SSD (or anything else it could be)?

Thanks

 

[Fishrrman]

There's a very high chance that the drive ribbon cable inside is failing on you.
This would "mimic" the symptoms of a drive failure, but it's not -- it's the cable.

Either take it to a brick-n-mortar Apple Store and ask them to check the internal drive ribbon cable (and replace if necessary), or... do the replacement yourself (go to ifixit.com for the part number and to see what's involved... it's easy).

Apple was doing FREE ribbon cable replacements for a while.
Not sure if that replacement program is still in effect.

 

[hobowankenobi]

There's a very high chance that the drive ribbon cable inside is failing on you.
This would "mimic" the symptoms of a drive failure, but it's not -- it's the cable.

Either take it to a brick-n-mortar Apple Store and ask them to check the internal drive ribbon cable (and replace if necessary), or... do the replacement yourself (go to ifixit.com for the part number and to see what's involved... it's easy).

Apple was doing FREE ribbon cable replacements for a while.
Not sure if that replacement program is still in effect.

This is worth looking at. Yes, it was a thing on some models. The part is cheap and pretty easy to swap out (check to be sure exactly which model/part number you need!).

BTW, if you have a drive dock you can try your SSD outside the Mac (bypassing the SATA cable) and see how it behaves. If not, swapping the SATA cable is worth ruling out.

I would not go to High Sierra, as SSDs get the new file system....and that is a whole other variable.

 

[ahhhyeah]

This is worth looking at. Yes, it was a thing on some models. The part is cheap and pretty easy to swap out (check to be sure exactly which model/part number you need!).

BTW, if you have a drive dock you can try your SSD outside the Mac (bypassing the SATA cable) and see how it behaves. If not, swapping the SATA cable is worth ruling out.

I would not go to High Sierra, as SSDs get the new file system....and that is a whole other variable.

Thanks. Ok, I took it to an approved service place (the apple stores didn't have positions available until next week).

They said it was corrupted files and to reinstall the operating system

So, I've bought an external casing and removed the SSD
I'm going to try to backup the data first

I'm sure there would be a thread somewhere, but I haven't been able to find it yet

Does anyone know of one, or know how to:

1) Backup the data (ie I have removed the SSD and put it in the external casing. Can I start the mac and just plug it into the USB port? (the macnow doesn't have a HD in it).
I was going to try this and then transfer key documents to another HD (using the mac that doesn't have a HD in it)

2) How do I go about reinstalling the system fresh? (I'll keep searching for this)

Your help so far is much appreciated!!

Thanks

 

[Bruno09]

Before trying anything else, put the SSD in the external enclosure, attach it to the Mac, boot from it (Alt key on chime), and see how it works (cf.#5).

 

[ZapNZs]

Before trying anything else, put the SSD in the external enclosure, attach it to the Mac, boot from it (Alt key on chime), and see how it works (cf.#5).

I agree with others who are saying this could be the ribbon cable because this model is prone to it and it can cause some of the behavior you have described - try this first before an OS reinstall using a USB 3 enclosure (a USB 2 enclosure will be so slow you may mistake there being issues still when in fact there are none.)

IIRC, SMP is a vendor that does produce OEM Apple batteries (and they also produce batteries for others parties that market 3rd party iterations). Is this one an OEM Apple or a 3rd party? I am not sure how Apple Diagnostics works with this, but with Mac Resource Inspector (MRI), sometimes it will flag non-OEM batteries even if they are functioning correctly (same goes for some 3rd party RAM - where it will note that the RAM is not OEM even though the RAM is functioning fine.)

 

[hobowankenobi]

Thanks. Ok, I took it to an approved service place (the apple stores didn't have positions available until next week).

They said it was corrupted files and to reinstall the operating system

So, I've bought an external casing and removed the SSD
I'm going to try to backup the data first

I'm sure there would be a thread somewhere, but I haven't been able to find it yet

Does anyone know of one, or know how to:

1) Backup the data (ie I have removed the SSD and put it in the external casing. Can I start the mac and just plug it into the USB port? (the macnow doesn't have a HD in it).
I was going to try this and then transfer key documents to another HD (using the mac that doesn't have a HD in it)

2) How do I go about reinstalling the system fresh? (I'll keep searching for this)

Your help so far is much appreciated!!

Thanks

Yes, you can boot to the external drive assuming the OS is good (after the restore), even with no internal drive.

Lots of ways to backup. You can clone the entire drive (making a complete, bootable copy) with something like SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner. You can also just back up the important data(your stuff that is unique and cannot be reinstalled...like OS and software can). Time Machine does this, as well as other backup and file synchronizing tools.

A good time to consider buying a robust backup software tool, as well as coming up with a storage device to back up to. A USB external drive is probably the easiest, cheapest way to go. Plan for a minimum of double the space of what you plan to back up. More space is better; allows for more versions of backups as well as the growth of the data set/files that you back up.

 

[ahhhyeah]

UPDATE: Firstly, thanks for all your help. I had the guys in the store wipe it and reinstall OSX. And is working great now. So, I guess it was corrupted files.

I really appreciate all your help and insights

Thanks

 

[hobowankenobi]

Good to hear. Software issues are not as common as they used to be...but can happen.