MacBook Air mystery

Grant

Grant

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so a friend of mine asked me to take a look at her machine, was playing up a bit.

to my amazement, it is not recognizing either battery, or power supply - using both system profile & coconut battery.
MagSafe light remains orange, can disconnect from power adapter and it runs merrily on battery. Reconnect MagSafe & light remains orange, never green - but quite evidently it is charging the battery.

Ive tried both pram & smc reset - nothing changes.
So I'm figuring something is up with the smc, but the mystifying thing is the not seeing either the power adapter or battery -which to my knowledge is a core smc function.

anyone have any bright ideas on this ?

Screen Shot 2022-01-01 at 12.12.24.jpg
 
Have you got another power supply you can test with?
 
RedViking said:
Difficult to say as Mac doesn't really give or have any issues.

Someone tried to open it or replaced with after market battery?
Click to expand...
I had a look inside, right inside - logic board removed etc.
It's text book, dust near the fan where it should be, no sign of liquid having got in - the little damp indicator stickers are all still white, no visible damaged components on the board, cables are all good and secure
 
Grant said:
I have - same reaction (non reaction really).
Even if it were a power supply issue, the system should see the battery when power supply is disconnected.
Click to expand...
Five years old? Probably just needs a new battery. Assuming there isn’t any swelling (any trackpad issues?) it can probably wait.
 
bwana said:
Five years old? Probably just needs a new battery. Assuming there isn’t any swelling (any trackpad issues?) it can probably wait.
Click to expand...
Faulty battery can cause all kinds of weird behavior.

One of our T490's (lenovo laptop) was misbehaving - swapped battery from a spare and working 100% again.
 
bwana said:
Five years old? Probably just needs a new battery. Assuming there isn’t any swelling (any trackpad issues?) it can probably wait.
Click to expand...
Battery is holding its charge for a good time - a coupe of hrs doing light work.
No swelling at all.
Trackpad perfect
 
Grant said:
Battery is holding its charge for a good time - a coupe of hrs doing light work.
No swelling at all.
Trackpad perfect
Click to expand...
You've reset the power management so they may just have to live with it. I'd be surprised if the battery lasts much longer.
 
I'll try get my hands on a battery tomorrow.
Oh, also ran a terminal command to check smc version - terminal couldn't get info.
 
I've had a similar thing when I tried to use an aftermarket battery, had an original fitted and problem solved.
The current battery is probably cooked in some way.
 
airborne said:
I've had a similar thing when I tried to use an aftermarket battery, had an original fitted and problem solved.
The current battery is probably cooked in some way.
Click to expand...
I'm suspecting the power management board has the problem.
Unplugged from power the battery runs the machine for a few hours of light work.
It's good for about an hour playing videos constantly.
Using the power supply, the machine runs perfectly.
But the machine does not see either the power supply or battery.
So looking for a common denominator, I'm leaning towards a fault on the power management board, but will try another battery first.

**edit
Took the board out again, and there is a small stain between the card reader and USB port - probably caused by liquid of some sort.
 
Grant said:
so a friend of mine asked me to take a look at her machine, was playing up a bit.

to my amazement, it is not recognizing either battery, or power supply - using both system profile & coconut battery.
MagSafe light remains orange, can disconnect from power adapter and it runs merrily on battery. Reconnect MagSafe & light remains orange, never green - but quite evidently it is charging the battery.

Ive tried both pram & smc reset - nothing changes.
So I'm figuring something is up with the smc, but the mystifying thing is the not seeing either the power adapter or battery -which to my knowledge is a core smc function.

anyone have any bright ideas on this ?

View attachment 1385268
Click to expand...
Did you follow the right SMC and pram reset? Dumb question but there were some minor changes in how you do reset them through the years.
 
Grant said:
I'm suspecting the power management board has the problem.
Unplugged from power the battery runs the machine for a few hours of light work.
It's good for about an hour playing videos constantly.
Using the power supply, the machine runs perfectly.
But the machine does not see either the power supply or battery.
So looking for a common denominator, I'm leaning towards a fault on the power management board, but will try another battery first.

**edit
Took the board out again, and there is a small stain between the card reader and USB port - probably caused by liquid of some sort.
Click to expand...

I tried everything, including 2 aftermarket batteries, it was bizarre and extremely frustrating but the original battery solved everything. What a massive waste of time that exercise was :(
 
So out of the blue after being ignored for the better part of the week, the laptop starts up on its own & now sees the power supply again

Screen Shot 2022-01-01 at 02.59.18.png
 
Last edited:
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