apple MacBook Air 2017 (i5, 13.3") extremely slow and sluggish

[FreqEvans]

Hello everyone, I'm Ivan.

A friend of mine give to me her MacBook Air in order to repair it because all of a sudden it become extremely slow and sluggish.

Mac OS struggles to arrive to the login page.

Installing (very slowly) Windows 11 on it, I saw that the CPU is capped to 0,49 GHz and doesn't go up, even under stress.

Apple Diagnostics says that everything is fine.

What should I do?

Battery is fine, the SSD has been changed a week ago thinking that it could be the issue.

 

Thanks to everyone who will help me!

[Blasty Blosty]

Do you still have the old SSD?

[Alireza]

1 hour ago, FreqEvans said:

Hello everyone, I'm Ivan.

A friend of mine give to me her MacBook Air in order to repair it because all of a sudden it become extremely slow and sluggish.

Mac OS struggles to arrive to the login page.

Installing (very slowly) Windows 11 on it, I saw that the CPU is capped to 0,49 GHz and doesn't go up, even under stress.

Apple Diagnostics says that everything is fine.

What should I do?

Battery is fine, the SSD has been changed a week ago thinking that it could be the issue.

 

Thanks to everyone who will help me!

it may be overheating considering its age and such low frequency

[FreqEvans]

1 hour ago, Blasty Blosty said:

Do you still have the old SSD?

Yes, my friend still has it

But even with the old SSD it was extremely slow and sluggish 

[FreqEvans]

29 minutes ago, Alireza said:

it may be overheating considering its age and such low frequency

I can replace the thermal paste, I know how to do it. I didn't do it yet because of lack of time 

[Blasty Blosty]

34 minutes ago, FreqEvans said:

But even with the old SSD it was extremely slow and sluggish 

They're not blazing fast and never were, are you sure you're not expecting too much from an old laptop?

[FreqEvans]

1 hour ago, Blasty Blosty said:

They're not blazing fast and never were, are you sure you're not expecting too much from an old laptop?

Yes I know, but I also know that even if this MB Air has nearly 8 years it shouldn't behave like that. The animation aren't smooth, clicking on something requires a minute to highlight, the cursor is almost always the rotating wheel... It's not OK.

As soon as possible I'll change the thermal paste, even if I don't think it will fix the issue.

[Blasty Blosty]

35 minutes ago, FreqEvans said:

Yes I know, but I also know that even if this MB Air has nearly 8 years it shouldn't behave like that. The animation aren't smooth, clicking on something requires a minute to highlight, the cursor is almost always the rotating wheel... It's not OK.

As soon as possible I'll change the thermal paste, even if I don't think it will fix the issue.

Worth a shot, might be old and dry by now

[ToboRobot]

First thing would be to clean it for dust and ensure the fan is still working. 

Old laptops can fill up with dust and dirt and this impacts performance.

I would test performance with a fresh install of the version of Mac OS that the computer shipped with. 

[FreqEvans]

1 hour ago, ToboRobot said:

First thing would be to clean it for dust and ensure the fan is still working. 

Old laptops can fill up with dust and dirt and this impacts performance.

I would test performance with a fresh install of the version of Mac OS that the computer shipped with. 

Already did all this except for change thermal paste. Looking forward to do it soon!

 

Tried installing macOS Mojave, no luck. macOS Monterey, no luck. macOS Big Sur get me to the login page but it's all super slow, unable to use the computer as it should be.

[ToboRobot]

1 hour ago, FreqEvans said:

Already did all this except for change thermal paste. Looking forward to do it soon!

 

Tried installing macOS Mojave, no luck. macOS Monterey, no luck. macOS Big Sur get me to the login page but it's all super slow, unable to use the computer as it should be.

Try booting from disk and running Apple Hardware Test?

[FreqEvans]

3 hours ago, ToboRobot said:

Try booting from disk and running Apple Hardware Test?

Apple Hardware Test says that everything is good. Booting from USB is also slow and laggy. Maybe iGPU faults?

[rikitikitavi]

Assuming the hardware is ok, dId you try reseting PRAM? Bad thermal paste will not affect the boot time.

I suggest sticking to the latest supported macOS, unless windows is needed.

[FreqEvans]

13 hours ago, rikitikitavi said:

Assuming the hardware is ok, dId you try reseting PRAM? Bad thermal paste will not affect the boot time.

I suggest sticking to the latest supported macOS, unless windows is needed.

Hi! I tried everything... Resetted SMC, resetted PRAM... nothing worked. I tried installing macOS 10.14, 11, 12... Nothing. Windows 11 works but it is unusable. Thanks to Win11 I saw that CPU is capped at 0.49 GHz even with bootcamp driver installed and under load. I think the logic board is dead in some ways!

Really tried everything, disconnect cable from logic board assuming that one of them may be short-circuited, disconnected the battery... Don't know, really tried everything. 

 

In Europe a Logic Board from eBay costs about from 180€ to 300€... At this point it's pointless, just go for a 2020 Air with M1 if you really want an Apple laptop