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The larger of Apple's MacBook Air laptops featuring dual microphones and 802.11ac Wi-Fi connectivity.

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Mac Air dies only when battery is installed - already reinstalled OS

Macbook Air Mid 2013

The computer randomly freezes (sometimes 3 min, sometimes 1h) but only when the battery is installed. No problems when battery is removed. I had assumed my battery was not good and purchased a new one. To my surprise the issues persists.

I already reinstalled the OS and ran Apple Hardware Diagnostics. I also tried different types of resets.

I noticed that when the battery is installed the computer heats up right when I start it (70 Celsius) and the cools down. I assumed it could be a heat sink problem and thermal paste had to be reapplied but I am discarding this option now.

What could it be guys? Only feezes and shuts down when on battery and I am using a new battery now.

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Did you have a liquid spill onto the keyboard/trackpad at some point?

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Never! the computer is very well kept.

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What kind of apps do you run? Does the system often get on the warmer side? Also how full is you SSD drive?

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At the moment about 30gb of 256gb is being used. Since I reinstalled the OS I only have Dropbox and MS Office installed. I only run now Safari.

It gets warm on the left side above the keyboard and on the bottom in the middle close to the screen joint. It gets warm but not extremely hot like if I would be using it for hours non stop.

I'm wondering if when without battery the CPU runs slower (the system feels slower) and therefore it's not overheating. When on battery I turn it on and temperature peaks easily and rapidly to 75+ Celsius.

I think I will try reapplying the thermal paste. I can't think of anything else. Do you have a special paste to recommend? Should I also change to a new heat sink?

Thanks a lot Dan!

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At this point given the systems age cleaning and applying a fresh coat of thermal paste is not a bad idea. As far as the heat sink this might be your problem. I’ve been using a FLIR camera to visualize the heart transfer as the liquid inside can leak out so it’s not effective any more. If you have a friend with one or even visit your library they may have one to loan out. You could give that a try otherwise before I just used a good lab scale to weigh them (a spare) as the one that was heaver was the good one. As for thermal paste I use ArticSilver and I use the cleaner as well Arctic Silver ArctiCleanArctiClean] and heres a good guide how to apply it How to Apply Thermal Paste

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Arctic Silver ArctiClean

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Hi Dan,

I reapplied the thermal paste and it helped but not 100%. If I perform tasks that need more RAM it still freezes and I need to force it to shut down. By tasks with more RAM I mean skyping for example. Or when trying to install a OS update.

Any ideas of what could still be wrong?

I noticed that under the heat sink there were two “cores”. The one on the right had residual thermal paste so I removed it and reapplied. However, the “core” on the left under the heatsink did not have any residual thermal paste on it. Is it normal? I did not apply thermal paste on the core on the left side.

Thanks again!

Cheers,

Franco

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Correct you only want TP on the one chip the CPU the other chip is the cache RAM and GPU logic which you don’t want the CPUs heat to heat up.

Did you replace he heatsink? And what is TG Pro telling you?

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francoluigi_mendes will be eternally grateful.
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