I asked Chat GPT:

• SSD power rail missing or unstable
• Corrosion/liquid damage around SSD connector
• Broken SSD PCIe data lines
• Clock/reset signal issue
• PCH communication fault
• SMC-related power gating issue

The “33 KB device” symptom usually means Recovery only sees its own RAM disk or recovery environment, not the actual internal SSD

1. Measure SSD power rails
   You should verify:
2. PP3V3_SSD
3. SSD enable signals
4. PCIe reset

⟐ Edited by author May 25, 2026 at 2:48 MST

33kb Volume only is displayed. Unable to partition or erase.

Attempting to install Catalina on a unit that previously had Catalina installed.

Ignore the other drive that is highlighted as that is my external multi installer drive.

It is the same thing with another SSD except the other drive isn't listed at all, just the base system. Failed drives?

Windows was never installed on either of these drives, this has been confirmed by previous owners.

This is relevant to my other post 3x 64 GB SSD - Q Folder @ Boot

UPDATE: Tried with a Windows installer.

SSD (1) Gave me this:

SSD (2) Gave me this:

After hitting OK it rebooted to the Q folder.

Chap GPT suggests the following.

• SSD power rail missing or unstable
• Corrosion/liquid damage around SSD connector
• Broken SSD PCIe data lines
• Clock/reset signal issue
• PCH communication fault
• SMC-related power gating issue

The “33 KB device” symptom usually means Recovery only sees its own RAM disk or recovery environment, not the actual internal SSD

2. Measure SSD power rails
   You should verify:
3. PP3V3_SSD
4. SSD enable signals
5. PCIe reset

⟐ Edited by author May 25, 2026 at 2:46 MST

I have tried external windows 10 and ubuntu drives but I can not get an os to boot also the screen is just completely black upon opening the lid and powering on along with the keyboard backlight does not turn on and the apple logo on the back does not light up but when I plug some thing in to the usb ports I can see light on the device I plugged in showing drive activity and if I press caps lock on the internal keyboard the caps lock light will come on

-Zach Ross

⟐ Commented April 29, 2025 at 9:41 MST

Help please!

⟐ Commented January 17, 2025 at 2:24 MST

I want to upgrade my MacBook Air 11’ 2011 with the new MacBook Air 11’ 2012 logic board because I found a friend who want to sell me this very very cheap.

Is it possible to buy logic board + io board + wifi card + SSD from MBA 11’ 2012 and put it into MacBook Air 11’ 2011?

Looks like it will be an easy switch because display battery and keyboard are fully compatible. For SSD I will just change the cheap adapter from my old MBA 2011 M.2 SSD.

⟐ Answered May 29, 2024 at 16:05 MST

I have tired these steps:

1 - Disconnected Battery and reset SMC

2 - Reset NV/PRAM - SHFT or CMD+OPT+P+R - Nothing Happens screen stays white

Laptop does not restart or lights on the charger do not change colors.

3 - Recovery Mode CMD+R - Nothing Happens screen stays white

4 - Verbose Mode CMD+V - Nothing Happens GREY screen.

5 - Shift Key boot to Safe Mode - Nothing Happens screen stays white

6 - "D' Apple diagnostics - Nothing happens screen stays white

7 - Swapping out the SSD with a known working SSD with the same OS (Catalina) - Nothing Happens still white. (The original SSD is working fine on another machine)

8 - Reconnecting & cleaning the screen & keyboard connector

9 - Cleaning everything inside the said unit / reconnecting all cables etc /

10 - Trying another screen - Nothing Happens still white

11 - Changing batteries - Nothing Happens still white

12- Booting with no keyboard connected - Nothing screen stays white

When the unit is powered off and I connect the charger it powers up by itself.

Connected to an external display at boot has no effect (No signal) odd/

I guess it is once again a logic board issue somewhere along the line.....

The only thing left to do that I can think of is to put the logic board into another same year model using that models components.... maybe it could it be a problem with the keyboard though it seems to be fine? There was never any water damage, internally looked clean, Asking you guys if you can shine some light on what maybe is an easy solution or am I once again to fear the worst.

• Command (⌘)-R Install the latest macOS that was installed on your Mac.
• Option-⌘-R Upgrade to the latest macOS compatible with your Mac.
• Shift-Option-⌘-R Install the macOS that came with your Mac, or the closest version still available. (I get a grey screen with a line down the middle)/

*

Image of the internals of the 2012 below - Cheers in advance!

⟐ Commented May 24, 2024 at 4:54 MST

⟐ Commented April 25, 2024 at 21:57 MST

A couple of hours later when he went to turn the Macbook and that's where he first noticed the problem with the backlight. He says that when he first turned it on, the screen was very dim, but he was able to make out a dialog box on MacOS. Then he said it flickered and went completely dim.

When he gave it to me, the screen was completely dark. However, by shinning a light through the Apple logo, I was able to see the MacOS desktop and confirm it was the backlight that was not-functioning and not the LCD. I connected his laptop to an external monitor and was able to confirm that everything else was working fine.

At that point, my initial instinct was to just replace the display. I found a couple of eBay listings of Macbook Air displays that came with the full display housing. However, in the course of my research, I've read a lot of support threads identifying the Fuse on the mainboard of the Mac as the reason why backlights on the MBA might fail.

Here's a picture of the (what I think is the) fuse on the mainboard:

My Question: How do I know which is the right solution? How do I know if the Fuse is blown or not? Will buying the display off eBay solve the problem regardless? Or will I end up wasting money if it turns out to be a problem with the Fuse?

⟐ Answered March 15, 2024 at 16:47 MST

I powered it on using an off-brand charger for the first time since about 2017. My dad hasn't used it in years and passed it to my little brother, who certainly did not take good care of it—like everything he owns—and when my family moved to Orlando recently, they dug it out and gave it to me. My goal was to take my dad's old data off of it, wipe it, and put Xubuntu on it.

I have tried every command, trick, and tip I knew or could find online. I have never seen this before, and there is ZERO information anywhere on what this is, what causes it, and how to fix it. I only found ONE comment that sounded close enough on this forum from 2014 that went unanswered. I am at a complete loss.

Before anyone says anything, I have already tried draining the battery. When plugged back in, it skips the reboot altogether and goes right back to this. The power button does not work. Aside from making that faint clicking sound I mentioned earlier, none of the keys work. All I have is the touchpad. It has stayed consistently warm since doing this. The cursor movement is smooth and responsive. At one point, after randomly mashing buttons in frustration, it changed from the pointer to a text cursor (the "I" looking one), but after a second, it went back. It's trying to do something, and it's stuck, I am at a complete loss here.

Specs:

MacOS 10.13 (all I remember seeing)

2 Core i7

8GB DDR3 RAM

128GB SSD (Almost full; only 5.8GB remaining)

⟐ Answered February 27, 2024 at 4:26 MST

⟐ Answered June 24, 2023 at 19:40 MST

⟐ Answered June 13, 2023 at 20:02 MST

My question is when I hook the battery up or plug it in the fan will start, the chime chimes and the screen lights up but only for a few seconds then shuts off. It won’t power up otherwise, I tried hooking up the battery without the keypad or trackpad plugged in and the fan didn’t even turn on.

So I just wonder what component I need to replace in order to get my Mac working again.

⟐ Commented April 21, 2023 at 3:30 MST

How can I figure out what the problem is? Any known voltages out there or something like that? Can the U1800 (pch) chip have anything to do with this? Could the Airport card be half-bad?

Thank you in advance!

⟐ Commented April 13, 2023 at 11:41 MST

⟐ Answered January 26, 2023 at 8:38 MST

My 2012 MacBook Air (I have the 2.0 GHz dual i7 + 8 GB of RAM model) has, for the last few months, started crashing at random, requiring a force restart.

Out of nowhere, the screen gets glitchy ~ you can see what was there, but its colors & shapes distort. If any audio was playing, it also becomes just a glitchy (loud!) mess. The only solution is to hold down the power switch for 10 seconds and force a restart. Or sometimes it restarts on its own after a few seconds.

The troubleshooting I’ve done:

1) installed a clean OS (Mojave) on a separate partition. Still happens.

2) happens on both battery & two different AC power adapters.

3) happens with & without external peripherals connected (powered USB3 hub, audio interface connected via firewire-thunderbold adapter).

4) I’ve reset PRAM & SMC. No help.

5) happens under heavy & light workloads, even sometimes sitting idle (i’ll return to my desk to find it has restarted itself).

6) sprayed compressed air inside all vents in case something was blocked by dust causing overheating. No help.

7) Ran Repair Disk in Disk Utility after starting up from recovery partition. No results.

What I haven’t done: replace the battery, which reports “Replace Soon”. I don’t want to throw big money at the machine if its logic board is about to die.

Any thoughts? The machine (aside from random crashes) still suits my needs perfectly, and I’d really like to not have to replace it.

Thanks in advance!

~ Peter in Athens

Adding screenshots of CoconutBattery, per request!

⟐ Commented October 02, 2022 at 7:37 MST

The Trackpad on my mid-2012 11" MacBook Air stopped working. The battery doesn't seem to be losing power. Other than opening up the computer and looking for swelling in the battery is there any easy way to diagnose the cause (i.e., is it a bad trackpad or a bad battery?). I'm hoping to order the right part (trackpad or new battery) before I open the computer up.

⟐ Commented May 09, 2022 at 5:05 MST

Catalina 10.15.6, 64gb apfs oem ssd.

I don’t have enough money to buy something better, it’s running fine but I decided to upgrade the ssd with this adapter:

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B07NSFY...

and this 1tb internal ssd:

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B073SB2...

m2 2280

Comments on amazon seem to indicate that this combo works fine for MacOS, and it’s a lot cheaper than OWC/transcend, I know it might not be as compatible but I can’t afford those and it’s not worth it to me to put much money into a laptop this old that big sur will drop soon.

Anyway, I would like to use some of the space for Windows, I thought it would be easy but after ordering I found out there might be problems,

I’ve been told the 4gb ram will make VM not a pleasant experience so that’s out, I would like to run boot camp, but I’ve read and recieved conflicting opinions about whether boot camp will play nice with third party ssds.

One person said it should be ok, another person with much more experience in the matter told me that there will be issues, “macOS works on third-party SSDs, but the Apple SSD drivers used to install Windows will not.”

I just wanted a second opinion of is it worth trying bootcamp with this specific setup and if there are any work arounds I could try if not? Googling people’s problem threads is not very useful because every macbook/MacOs/ssd is different and posts from a few years ago may not be applicable to my computer. thanks.

⟐ Commented March 02, 2022 at 15:02 MST

I have tried everything under the sun to get it to charge again. I have reseated the battery, SMC reset, warmed the charger, and ran Apple diagnostics with no faults.

I strongly suspect it is the charger and I'm anxiously waiting for a friend to get back from vacation to lend me his.

A bit of history, before the this happened, my original Apple official charger had a stress break at the T-connector. As a result, I don't believe the grounding wires were making contact. I suspect this could have damaged something.

Here's my current Power readout. If anyone has this happen to them, I want to know what I have to replace before I go out and buy a new battery, charger, etc. If it is the logic board I am tempted just to sell it AS-IS.

Battery Information:

Model Information:

Serial Number: [removed]

Manufacturer: SMP

Device Name: bq20z451

Pack Lot Code: 0

PCB Lot Code: 0

Firmware Version: 406

Hardware Revision: 000a

Cell Revision: 175

Charge Information:

Charge Remaining (mAh): 0

Fully Charged: No

Charging: No

Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 4079

Health Information:

Cycle Count: 542

Condition: Normal

Battery Installed: Yes

Amperage (mA): 0

Voltage (mV): 5894

System Power Settings:

AC Power:

System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10

Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10

Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10

Wake on AC Change: No

Wake on Clamshell Open: Yes

Wake on LAN: Yes

AutoPowerOff Delay: 14400

AutoPowerOff Enabled: 1

Current Power Source: Yes

DarkWakeBackgroundTasks: 1

Display Sleep Uses Dim: Yes

PrioritizeNetworkReachabilityOverSleep: 0

Standby Delay: 4200

Standby Enabled: 1

Battery Power:

System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10

Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10

Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 2

Wake on AC Change: No

Wake on Clamshell Open: Yes

AutoPowerOff Delay: 14400

AutoPowerOff Enabled: 1

DarkWakeBackgroundTasks: 0

Display Sleep Uses Dim: Yes

Reduce Brightness: Yes

Standby Delay: 4200

Standby Enabled: 1

Hardware Configuration:

UPS Installed: No

'''AC Charger Information:

Connected: Yes

ID: 0x0000

Revision: 0x0000

Family: 0x0000

Serial Number: 0x00000000

Charging: No'''

⟐ Commented January 28, 2022 at 22:01 MST

⟐ Commented January 01, 2022 at 11:39 MST