Macbook Air M2 (2022) just made a popping sound and shut down. Then smelled like burning plastics. Now it won't turn on...

[Skinci]

Hello guys,

Last night while browsing on internet, my mac air m2 made a POP sound and heavy shut down. FYI it was not being charging neither it was over heating. After shutting down a really bad smell came out of it, like burning plastics. I contacted apple support as I do have warranty. It's just 6months since I bought my mac. Tomorrow I'm sending my mac to apple authorized service provider.

I wanted to ask you guys if anybody had similar experience.

1. What is the cause of this happening, what I read on internet is that this comes from capacitors getting burned, but nobody explains why that happens?
2. Did you have your device repaired or they replaced with a new device?

Thank you in advance!

 

[JustAnExpat]

Pop sound and burning plastic smell is NOT a good combination. I would guess a capacitor blew on the mainboard. I'm going to oversimplify my following comments.

Capacitors can be thought of like little batteries with instant discharge that are needed to regulate the flow of electricity in the computers. In modern computers, capacitors should be able to charge and discharge hundreds of millions of times before they fail - longer then what you'll be alive. Sometimes, because of manufacturing failures, a capacitor may fail because there was too much charge in the capacitor, or too many volts is sent through the capacitor.

If you want to, for fun, you can easily destroy a capacitor and see the black smoke escaping (called "magic smoke" by people who work with electronics, because once the magic smoke escapes, the capacitor no longer works). Get an ultra low voltage capacitor and apply higher than normal voltage to it, and the top will explode and the smoke will escape. You can learn more at https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/capacitors/ .

I think Apple will take your computer, open it up, try and figure out exactly why that capacitor failed (was it a bad capacitor? is there something wrong with the electricity regulator? Are there other capacitors that failed? Was there a bad batch of capacitors? Could other computers have the same failure?), and give you a new computer. Replacing a failed capacitor is do-able, but labor intensive, and may not resolve the reason why the machine failed anyway.

 

[Skinci]

Pop sound and burning plastic smell is NOT a good combination. I would guess a capacitor blew on the mainboard. I'm going to oversimplify my following comments.

Capacitors can be thought of like little batteries with instant discharge that are needed to regulate the flow of electricity in the computers. In modern computers, capacitors should be able to charge and discharge hundreds of millions of times before they fail - longer then what you'll be alive. Sometimes, because of manufacturing failures, a capacitor may fail because there was too much charge in the capacitor, or too many volts is sent through the capacitor.

If you want to, for fun, you can easily destroy a capacitor and see the black smoke escaping (called "magic smoke" by people who work with electronics, because once the magic smoke escapes, the capacitor no longer works). Get an ultra low voltage capacitor and apply higher than normal voltage to it, and the top will explode and the smoke will escape. You can learn more at https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/capacitors/ .

I think Apple will take your computer, open it up, try and figure out exactly why that capacitor failed (was it a bad capacitor? is there something wrong with the electricity regulator? Are there other capacitors that failed? Was there a bad batch of capacitors? Could other computers have the same failure?), and give you a new computer. Replacing a failed capacitor is do-able, but labor intensive, and may not resolve the reason why the machine failed anyway.

Thanks a lot for your time and response!

 

[kitKAC]

I think Apple will take your computer, open it up, try and figure out exactly why that capacitor failed (was it a bad capacitor? is there something wrong with the electricity regulator? Are there other capacitors that failed? Was there a bad batch of capacitors? Could other computers have the same failure?), and give you a new computer. Replacing a failed capacitor is do-able, but labor intensive, and may not resolve the reason why the machine failed anyway.

The logic board will get swapped out, not the entire machine.

 

[Skinci]

The logic board will get swapped out, not the entire machine.

Thanks for your answer kitKAC.
How sure are you of this, did you have similar experience before?

 

[kitKAC]

Thanks for your answer kitKAC.
How sure are you of this, did you have similar experience before?

No specific experience other than getting Macs repaired at work. These are modular machines for a reason, only the faulty parts get replaced. Your screen will be fine, the top and bottom cases will be fine, Apple won't eat the cost of those by swapping out the entire machine.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Apple will occasionally swap out an iPhone, or more commonly an iPad or an Apple Watch for certain hardware issues. It's just simpler for them from an inventory perspective.

They will very, very seldom "Swap out" an entire Mac. Even if the Mac has significant water damage, they'll literally put a new logic board, new topcase/keyboard/battery, and new display on it - essentially everything but the chassis. They certainly would not do that for a component failure on the MLB.

(Just to be thorough - the only exception to the rule is during the first ~90 days after a model is introduced, they might swap out the whole machine so that they can examine the failure "In situ" to look for manufacturing problems)