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8 This is a hard one to diagnose... Tried everything.
This is really strange, This 2017 MacBook Air 13" has a mind of its own.
I boot it up to what I believe was an SSD with Monterey on it and I get either a no entry sign OR I get this.....
This suggests to me that the keyboard or Track Pad or both isn't detected, Yet the power button is working to turn it on and off, but it won't do a PRAM reset..... So I swapped over a new cable and it is the same. All I can do is connect a USB mouse and I get language option OR start up disc.... I checked the start up disc and I get this!
(10.10.5 Yosemite is NOT even supported on a 2017 model as they were originally shipped with Sierra 10.12).
I swapped out the SSD to a KNOWN SSD with Big Sur (Supported) and it is the same, telling me the OS on the SSD is Yosemite!. I thne put another SSD with Monterey pre installed and left at set-up and guess what, it STILL is the same telling me it is Yosemite! I can only think to just put the board into another case with a new keyboard and see if then I can wipe it clean and then to install fresh starting from High Sierra to Catalina, to Monterey (Safest way to get the correct boot ROM firmware installed.... I have NEVER used Yosemite OS and I am absolutely 1000% certain this had either Big Sur or Monterey installed on it's SSD which had not been removed or replaced or anything. Very odd, never seen something like this before. The board is clean, no water damage or anything obvious. Can anyone tell me what and why etc is going on here?
I swapped over the KB case and got into recovery and tried to install Monterey but all I get is a no entry sign..... PRAM was reset. Then tried with Catalina, the progress bar completed and so far so good.....I got into disc utility, selected show all devices and the internal SSD (KNOWN to be good) is not shown. Apple disk image & OS base system only appears, together with the external installer drive. YAY. I put back the 'Yosemite' SSD and it is recognized.... Attempting to install Catalina.... It is seemingly much slower than normal. It gets to disc utility and the internal SSD is NOT detected, again just the base system. I am running diagnostics and the report says SMC error codes
PPF004 (Fan) PPF003 (Fan)
VFD004 & VFD 005 (There may be an issue with the display or graphics processor.)
NDC001 (There may be an issue with the camera.)
PPN001 (There may be an issue with the power-management system.)
VDH002 (There may be an issue with a storage device.).
Everything is connected up fine. I then run the Paul Daniels SMC Tools and successfully updated the SMC. Booted up again and it went back to this screen showing a mouse to connect!. Only option was to select start up disk (Listed were 4 compatible systems from my multi OS bootable drive, I selected Catalina, restarted and I get the screen your computer has a problem. Yes I know LOL
Firmware password protection is turned OFF. Help!
UPDATE: We have put a new SMC chip & programmed it with SMC tools. We have swapped the BIOS chip from a 2017 donor board (But we are looking for a BIOS file to program it fresh if need be).... We swap out SSD's with compatible OS (Monterey) but are always greeted with a flashing folder and a high spinning fan. @oldturkey03
Is this a good question?
Just to rule out/add some alternative thinking.....
You're 100% it's a 2017 board?
Could be someone put wrong spi ROM on it?
Those track pad flexes have caused me many weird issues in the past.
Get the board in a known good chassis and recheck.
Hopefully SMC replacement is all it is.
by JustForFun
The diagnosis gave me the serial number which I checked in everymac 1.8 GHZ points to a 2017 model. The board number is 820-00165 and there is a small sticker on it 1.8 & 8 GB. I put the board into a chassis that I installed a new keyboard into last week. New cable also. I ran diagnostics again and get 2 codes PPF004 (Fan) & VHD 002 (Storage) + Additional PPF003..... weird. Put another fan in it although the fan is spinning normally, then I get PPT001 (Battery not installed!), NDC001 (Camera) & VDH002 (Storage device). Different diagnosis reports every time I ran it.
UPDATE: We have put a new SMC chip & programmed it with SMC tools. We have swapped the BIOS chip from a 2017 donor board (But we are looking for a BIOS file to program it fresh if need be).... Still the same issue remains. @oldturkey03
by livfe