MBA2,1 Mid 2009 boots only 1 out of 20 times.

[Gortumbo]

I seek troubleshooting help with this MacBook Air2,1 (Mid 2009) that my brother gave me.

On average, it will only boot up one out of 20 attempts.

Here's what a failed boot attempt is like:

Push the power button. The "sleep mode" light in front glows (not fluctuating in intensity) for 10 seconds, then goes off for 3 seconds, then glows again continuously until I turn it off with the power button again.

I hear the cooling fan run when the sleep mode light glows. The cooling fan has a loose bearing, I think, as it sounds as if one of the fan louvers is striking something during rotation.

No other things happen. No lights under the keyboard. Nothing appears on the screen.

This runs El Capitan.

 

[Audit13]

I have a mid-2013 MBA and early 2013 MBA and don't see a front LED. I didn't know they had this feature, only the Macbook Pro.

 

[Mike MA]

Which Macbook Air ever carried a front led? Or did you mean the facetime light. Besides, did you try to start the Mac in Safe Mode to verify issues?

 

[Gortumbo]

Which Macbook Air ever carried a front led? Or did you mean the facetime light. Besides, did you try to start the Mac in Safe Mode to verify issues?

This macbook air does indeed have a LED on the front. Look on page 12 of this pdf manual: https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/0/MA658/en_US/MacBook_Air_Late2008_UserGuide.pdf

Yes. I tried to boot this one into safe mode. I tried all sorts of alternate boot methods, like diagnostic boot and so on. The results are exactly the same: failure as I describe above.

 

[Mike MA]

This macbook air does indeed have a LED on the front. Look on page 12 of this pdf manual: https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/0/MA658/en_US/MacBook_Air_Late2008_UserGuide.pdf

Yes. I tried to boot this one into safe mode. I tried all sorts of alternate boot methods, like diagnostic boot and so on. The results are exactly the same: failure as I describe above.

Well, honestly than try to backup your data the one out of 20 times it boots up successfully and get yourself a new one. Same counts for me once I face some problems.

 

[Hrududu]

You've probably got a case of RAM solder joints failing. I've got one of these too, and i've had to bake the board a few times to re-flow the joints. It was a fairly common issue for this generation of MacBook Air.

 

[Gortumbo]

Thanks for your help, y'all. Now I'm gonna look into board baking.

 

[Gortumbo]

I finally did the board baking a few days ago. It fixed the problem. But some others who tried it report that the fix lasts only a few months or so.

 

[Hrududu]

It may not last forever, but sometimes you can bake the same board a couple times before it finally quits. I think my 1.83GHz board was baked 3x and it got me about 2 years. Since then I got a 2.13GHz board that I baked one time and its been going strong for over a year now, so you never can tell. Hopefully you get some time out of it!