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Yebubbleman

macrumors 603
Original poster
May 20, 2010
6,056
2,648
Los Angeles, CA
I just bought a used top of the line Mid 2013 MacBook Air on eBay. The machine is in immaculate condition. One weird oddity though:

When I go to "About this Mac" it never identifies the specific model. I'd assume to see "MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2013)", but all I see is "MacBook Air". Typically, when I see something like the latter, it's a sign of no Internet connection as that is usually performed silently by sending the serial number to Apple. Nothing wrong with my Internet connection here though (as I was able to do Internet Recovery, as well as a reinstallation of Big Sur, which, for some reason, can't be performed via Internet Recovery now on any Intel Macs). The only other thing that I've seen cause this issue is when the logic board is replaced and the technician performing the repair doesn't serialize the new logic board with the system's serial number. That's not applicable here either though as the correct serial number shows up (and registers on Apple's support site as the correct Mac model).

I recognize that this is functionally trivial, but now I'm perplexed as to what could be causing this particular MacBook Air to not get the correct model name on "About this Mac" when all of the usual reasons for something like that happening don't appear to be applicable here.

Any ideas?
 
are you sure it is a matter of serial number?
I upgraded the cpu on my imac, and the new one is reported correctly....which shouldn'be because serial number wasn't obviously changed.
moreover, without internet connection I still can see all information.....
 
are you sure it is a matter of serial number?
I upgraded the cpu on my imac, and the new one is reported correctly....which shouldn'be because serial number wasn't obviously changed.
moreover, without internet connection I still can see all information.....
If you power on the computer with no network connection, it won't fetch the info. If you already had it on and it already fetched the info, the info doesn't go away. I'm pretty sure it's a matter of serial number. It gets the model identifier (e.g. MacBookAir6,2) from the logic board type, but it doesn't know specifically which model year it is.
 
When I go to "About this Mac" it never identifies the specific model. I'd assume to see "MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2013)", but all I see is "MacBook Air".
Haha...

Probably just an error on Apple's part.

Otherwise you would have to believe that it is a soft acknowledgement from Apple that the 2013 MBA is iconic and THE one.

IIRC, 2013 MBA use the Haswell chip and improves greatly the battery life from previous versions.
 
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