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2 Problematic MBA is painfully slow after clean install & NEW battery
I have a MB Air 2017 1.8Ghz with a stock Samsung PCiE 3.0 3x4 256 GB SSD & 8GB RAM that arrived with an apparent clean install of OS Catalina (No Chime) and a swollen battery. It has been confirmed by the previous owner that she had it updated to Monterey, and she 'reset' it via internet recovery to the original OS the unit was released with our beloved Catalina & it never ever had any water damage or any previous repairs, it was her baby and very well looked after rarely leaving her home. I then replaced the battery with a new one, put some fresh thermal paste and did an internal dust out even though it was very clean inside..Booted up and all was fine, all keys on the KB are functioning correctly.
I Plugged in the charger, booted into recovery mode, disk utility, selected all devices & erased the SSD from the top level as I always have done & then installed OS 12 7.6 Monterey from my external installer drive while the battery charged to full with no problems in usual time, but the installation was going much slower than usual and this has taken well over 2 hours to complete and was then stuck at under a minute remaining for 20 minutes when usually the whole process is finished in around 30 minutes so I just shut it down and booted 'normally'and it just comes up about 24 minutes remaining.....
I then did a regular and a hard SMC reset and a PRAM reset and then ran Apple Diagnostics to see if there were any reported errors, but none are reported ADP000. It now chimes. Other than changing the SSD & try to install anew (which I am attempting again though it is again 2x stuck at 12 minutes remaining for the last 20 minutes) so I gave up on waiting and put another SSD with Monterey already installed and it booted although a bit slower than usual and is now in OS mode. I will now again try to clean install with the original SSD again and still is a bit laggy on the very 1st steps, then to over 180 minutes to still say some minutes remaining..... The Installer for sure is not corrupted as it installed Monterey on another identical 2017 MB Air without any problems between trying to install on this particular unit. I have done clean installs hundreds of times and never encountered this before. I try to explain this way, if you updated your phone from Android or iOS 10 to 11... then reset the phone, it will not return to the previous OS and resets at 11.... Macs don't do this, they always go back in internet recovery to the OS that was originally released with, in this case Catalina. Catalina writes some data to the SMC or Boot ROM. When later this was updated to Big Sur or Monterey the boot ROM is also updated. Then when reset it reverted back to Catalina and the older Catalina Boot ROM data has overwritten the newer and it corrupts....as I am stuck at what else can be the cause of this as it is not normal behavior. Possibly the usual idiot 'reset' before they shipped it to me that has hurt the SSD / SMC or the Catalina bug whatever or when wiping it incorrectly? It has been stuck at under a minute remaining for more than 2 hours, I shut it down, restart and it says 24 minutes remaining.... Would installing Catalina again and then trying to update via system update be an option? Oh Happy Christmas :)
UPDATE: I put a different SSD into it with Monterey installed, it booted up, screen went off for a bit, then came on to the log in screen, I noticed the brightness was quite dim and the unit is quite laggy.... The SSD installed fine in another unit so the SSD is OK, no errors in first aid. The unit in question boots OK with the other SSD but is a bit laggy, (Correct boot ROM 489.0.0.0.0) but I think there is clearly some hardware problem but not detected in any scans, selected the start up disc to see if it made any faster at boot, screen went off, came the your computer had a problem error and restarted again very slow....Over 1 minute to boot and then the log in screen hangs a bit, slightly dim screen.... connected or not connected to the charger makes no difference, it is painfully slow ... . yay.... @oldturkey03 Any ideas?
@danj Here is the CB info, Full charge capacity exceeds design capacity & Battery health 100.4% ? NEW Battery.
Geekbench reports this lowest ever score for a MB Air 2017
Etre Check Report hints at kernel panics (19)
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18 Комментариев
My answer was the right one but let’s see what others say! I’ll only answer your Q’s after two days from now on.
из Dan
@danj My answer was the right one... But it gave no solution at all? Never mind, Yes, I will try to install using a different SSD tomorrow and see if that made any difference, if not then I will scrap the unit.
из livfe
@livfe - As I keep telling you Answers are not Solutions alone! They are also Causes as well as Diagnostic Steps
The Answer I gave your was the issue Cause.
I’m sure you can inspect the connector for damage, don’t assume the previous owner was the first, or they had swapped out the drive to a larger one, putting the original drive back in when they sold the system.
из Dan
@danj ONE lady owner from new with a 256 SSD complete with the box which says on it 256 GB and matching serial number. They never upgraded or anything. Anyway, The SSD in the other unit installed OK but during set up the unit shuts down 3x... faulty SSD no doubt. Unit is still laggy with another SSD.... Done with this, will scrap the unit as I can use all the parts to fix up other units. Will end up wasting days and hours on it and spending money at the technician never to find the problem as with the 2012 pro and Air I have here on the shelf still. Donor board for it.
из livfe
It has been confirmed by the previous owner that she had it updated to Monterey, and she 'reset' it via internet recovery to the original OS the unit was released with our beloved Catalina. Good news is that the unit is now appearing to be working 'better' but could be 'more better' but I haven't had time to really test it more.
из livfe
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