MacBook AIR 2017: A1466 mqd32ze/a - doesn't boot, makes a weird beep

Hello,

First, advance apologies if this has already been mentioned, however everything I found on beeping showed me how to reset ram memory on a Macbook Pro and all the help guides for Macbook Air like reseting SMC proved unhelpful.

My sister is an owner of a MacBook AIR 2017: A1466 MQD32 - mqd32ze/a and some time ago she started having problems with it, namely the laptop would boot with a black screen only or it would boot with a ‘prohibition road sign’ and then in would be enough to make a power cycle (10 second hold of power button) or reset SMC (control + shift + alt + power combination [or whatever it is on Macs]) to start up the computer again. In order to solve the issues I formatted the SSD (using the official manuals by Apple) and reinstalled the system and later updated it to Catalina. However, recently the problems have appeared again. This time the screen doesn’t go grey or black, it simply doesn’t react at all - the laptop won’t boot.

First of all, I tried different wall sockets (can’t try another charger for I have one only) - in all of them the charger flashes steady green light, as if it worked flawlessly. Then I tried the power cycle (holding power button) and various combinations of resetting the SMC (holding the buttons on the left side of the laptop, holding them on the right side too). These steps proved fruitless as well.

In the help guides I read the ‘prohibition sign’ may mean SSD trouble, I checked in the system and the SSD was marked as Validated (or Valid) so I assumed it wasn’t the problem. I checked with a 3rd party software Chameleon SSD Optimizer and the condition of the SSD there was good as well.

Today I discovered that after repeatedly pressing the power button, the Mac makes a weird sound coming from the left side of the keyboard (can’t hear it as well when the laptop cover is shut) - it sounds as if something wanted to turn on but it can’t. It is barely audible and background noise can easily cover the sound, I managed to record it, though. https://vocaroo.com/7hRcmtKxO2p - here is the audio. The sound appears when I click the power button repeatedly in a quick succession, it only sometimes appears when I click the button with regular pauses in between clicks.

As far as I know the Mac has not fallen down and has not suffered any damage. Would you mind lending a hand and helping out? I am clueless right now. I am willing to change the SSD myself if it did fail, however how am I to check this when the laptop doesn’t boot? I have no other devices with m2 ssd slot.

Thank you very much for your help and have a nice Sunday,

Chris