How to Fix the Mac Spinning Rainbow Beachball of Death. Updated on August 27, 2018. (it may take a few minutes). If this works, you'll then need to download FAN CONTROL FOR MAC. It's a control panel that better regulates the temperature of your mac than the standard settings. I just bought a brand new MacBook Air and I want to throw it.
What I did was to heat'it up with a hot air solder station. It work well but when I employ hi memory demand applications, the computer stops and when I restart it, the 3 beeps again.
The 4 time it happens to me, I messed, because I put to much air in the soldering gun, and one of the memory chips just loose. I'm on it, trying to align the chip correctly again. When it happen, and I can start again I will do 2 activities: 1. Beaked as recommended. Restore Memory frecuently. I had the dreaded Three Beeps of despair, but sit commenting on this post using the same Mac book Air. Mine turned out to be excessive dust inside the case, which must have been tracking across circuits somewhere.
Be super careful and super clean, earth yourself prior to and during the work. Remove the back cover of your Mac Book Air. You will need the correct tool for this, cheap enough. Remove the battery. Get the vacuum cleaner out, and find the small attachment for it, and hold it close to, but not touching the components in the Mac. At the same time use a brand new, ultra clean make up brush or photographers lens brush, to dislodge and clean away the years of grot, biscuits and dust. Be careful and slow.
Refit the battery and back cover and try to start the machine again. Mine worked a treat and has been for 3 months since the work.
Mid 2013 Mac Book Air. NEWS FLASH for MacBook Air users with 3 Beeps at startup!!! On a hunch, as I have noticed my MacBook Air has overheated in the past, I opened mine up to check the THERMAL PASTE. Made no sense that DRAM of any sort would fail after 15 months. When I got down to the logic board, I inspected the 8 visible 1 gigabit chips visible.
The solder joints appeared pristine. Nothing else appeared burned, fractured, loose or disconnected. I then removed the heatsink I found the thermal paste dried and hardened! I carefully removed all of the old paste and then applied new high quality thermal paste. I then reassembled the machine. Rebooted and NO 3 beeps!
Once again, my MacBook Air appears to be working perfectly. Therefore, if you have recently had a MacBook Air exhibit the 3 beep boot failure, strongly consider checking your thermal paste.
WARNING: You should do this ONLY you are an experienced repair person, and only if your computer is already out of warranty. FYI: I've been building, repairing and modding computers since 1987. Hope this helps some people, John. Update UPDATE: THERMAL PASTE Having now had to do this repair twice, I am beginning to suspect that environmental conditions (temperature, ambient humidity) are directly affecting thermal paste on the Macbook Air (as least the Rev C).
Please let me explain, as I do not think there is anything inherently wrong with this model. Each time I have run into the 3 beep scenario, it has occurred after the MacBook Air has been exposed to extremes in temperature. Specifically, it has been left out in the center console of my 2007 Tundra when it has been very cold (10º F to 20º F). Although this area of the pickup truck should be insulated (you would think, as this console is specifically marketed pitching it as a place to store your notebook computer), it seems to not be so. That and the fact that the MacBook Air is so thin, and there is no real thermal insulator between the case and the logic board.
My thinking is that the paste contracts and/or dries out when exposed to extremely cold temperature. If the former is true, then when it warms up it could potentially fail by cracking, or even pulling away from the surface it is adhered to. Likewise this could occur as it contracts, or if it gets dried out. Anyone out there with material science engineering experience with thermal paste, input would be greatly appreciated.
Bottomline is that each time I've had the 3 beep scenario, twice now and after machine being on (sleeping, cover closed), being exposed to a significant temperature drop, when I open it up and replace the paste, it works again. CAUTION: the paste itself is not at all easy to work with, and can make a real mess. It especially loves hydrophillic substances like your fingers.
And MORE IMPORTANTLY, if you fail to put the thermal paste on properly, you are in for a potential disaster. Although I think Apple has engineered a fail safe for this by preventing the boot sequence, resulting in the 3 beeps (misleadingly indicating RAM failure), I wouldn't want to be the one finding a fire igniting my Air! Just to respond to the memory seating issue, there is none. As others have pointed out, it is soldered (using SMD -tiny 'surface mount' - chips) to the logic board).
Well, I am surprised. I went through all the answers on this site in order of difficulty, and after cleaning off and replacing the thermal paste with no joy, I ordered a new logic board. Only after I had the old one out did I find I had ordered the wrong version of the logic board. So as a sort of WTF, I went ahead and baked my old one then reassembled things.
I needed to do that just so I did not lose parts while hassling a replacement of the replacement board, so what the heck. And it booted up!
So what I take from this is that there may be a number of factors that can cause the 3 beeps, and Apple had a number of small revisions over the life of this model, so don't expect a simple 'one answer' fix. I have NO IDEA why baking the logic board would heal the memory, but try it if nothing else works!
Thanks, Nikhil! I have found solution, the problem is so small and funny, unbelievable small.
I had problem few days, totally black screen and only three beeps in intervals, no boot. And i don't wanna to give a lot of money for nothing so i decided to do everything which i know and to fix it or trow it in a garbage.
I have tried thermal paste, have checked the memory chips on logic board, soldered the new one, but again the same. The problem was that thermal sensor which is on the small board and glued to the logicboard (i don't know why they do like that) have take apart from it and touching the metal part of cooler and making a short circuit. I had glued back again, put the paste and cooler and, woala, air is on the air again hehe the location i have marked on picture with red.
Hope you will find this useful. Greetings from Serbia Zdravko. ZDRAVKO's lead me to my solution!
I have a macbook air that most of the time wouldn't boot, the light turned on, but then everything did shut off with a click. I had reassembled the mac when it started doing this. Somehow I figured out that when I did not assemble the heatsink it would boot ok, but ofcourse would get too hot after a while. After even more testing, it turned out that the tiny screw in the middle of the heatsink that holds a V shaped clamp, was the cause. When I had that screw tightened, that macbook air wouldn't boot.
After using the macbook without the clamp fastened I found out that it reached 90+ degrees and did shut off the same way as when it wouldn't boot. With a click and then powered off. Remembering this answer of ZDRAVKO I could conclude that somehow this heatsink screw was interfering with the temperature sensor and causing the macbook to turn of immediately. I couldn't find any case of shortcircuiting, but I did notice that one of the cables of the temperature sensor was routed above a hard square motherboard chip-thingy. When the heatsink was totally fastened, that would get squeeshed there and probably short-circuit or do something else bad. When I put that cable aside it, where it probably belonged, the boot error was solved!! So, what a coincidence that I read ZDRAVKO's answer!
Long live the internetz.:). This thread has become a dump for MacAir 3 beep solutions so here's my addition: I worked through the following non-invasive techniques (most listed above) a couple times each and after doing 5) it started booting.
Maybe they worked as a combination or maybe it was 5 that did the trick. If none of these had worked I'd have tried the Thermal Paste solution above. However, if non-invasive works, who am I to complain!
Hopefully this compilation helps someone! - UPDATE: This happened to me a second time two months later: I have found a firm fix for my issue now: 1) power off, plug in power cord 2) Hold (left side) command + (left) option + P + R 3) while holding them, tap power and CONTINUE HOLDING the four buttons in 2 4) Computer will make a startup sound, KEEP HOLDING, computer will turn off, KEEP HOLDING, computer will startup again, you can let go only AFTER the second startup or even third startup. These are other things I tried the first time around: 1) 'Hold Command+P+R simultaneously and press power button' (Pedro above) 2) Technique 1 followed by 'hold D and power for 20-30 seconds' (relveston above) 3) 'Holding down D for about 20-30 seconds - and power simultaneously - Then press power ' (textractor above) 4) Perform SMC reset and re-verify Shut down the computer. Plug in the MagSafe power adapter to a power source, connecting it to the Mac if its not already connected. On the built-in keyboard, press the (left side) Shift-Control-Option keys and the power button at the same time. Release all the keys and the power button at the same time. Press the power button to turn on the computer.
Note: The LED on the MagSafe power adapter may change states or temporarily turn off when you reset the SMC. (PlotinusVeritas from Apple help forums) 5) Shut down your Mac. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command (⌘), Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4. Turn on the computer. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time. Release the keys. (PlotinusVeritas from Apple help forums).
OK, I have an older MacBook air model a1237 that chimes then about 10 seconds later 3 beeps over and over. I pulled the logic board and looked it over with a magnifier several times and it's real clean no parts look bad so I put on new thermal paste and still have 3 beeps BUT I figured out by timing the boot process, turn it on and after it chimes and when the screen lights up push power to turn it back off then hit power a second time and it boots fine. I did this about 20 times and it boots that second time every time. So when I want to use it, hit power, wait for the chime and hit power to turn it off then hit power to boot. Don't know why it works but for this MacBook, it just does.
Tried booting with the disk drive out and same thing so it's not a software issue, something with the board but at least I got it to boot. Just FYI, when you power it on and it chimes and as soon as the screen lights up it is approx. 8 seconds and you should see the apple logo. I've had 2 MBA's with the startup problem (3 beeps).
After reading all the answers above there are different solutions. Common problem is the memory but it is not always a hardware problem like disturbed connections, etc.
In my experience (both MBA's) it had to do with a software problem: Failure with the sleepmode. It's the swapfile which fails in a kind of way. If that fails the MBA won't boot and reacts with 3 beeps. I've tried to startup in all thinkable ways, mentioned above. Sometimes they booted up. If it was a hardware problem they should never boot so it must be something else. I discovered that when you can make the MBA complete out of power in all components (especially the SMC) it will boot normally.
Taking out the logic board or recharge the thermal paste or baking in the oven, all methods make the logic board complete out of power. That cleans the swapfile and takes away the startup problem. After reassembling the MBA's did boot normally without the 3 beeps.
It's my experience and not THE solution but just an opportunity. Good luck and please respond if you have any comment, positive or negative. We can all learn. I had the same issue just now and I was looking for a solution in this forum, unfortunately I didn't find it.
I've tried everything you have and I even put my logic board in the oven to perform a reflow and even that was no help. BUT As I kept digging I found something! What everyone experiencing this problem should try exactly this! I myself bought brand new RAM and replaced it so I believed that RAM wasn't the issue.
But it ended up being a RAM issue. Not the RAM but the RAM SLOT itself!
So please try this even if you think that RAM isn't the issue because I doubted it would work but now my Macbook is up and running!!! Link to Youtube Video: Also try this as well. Tl;dr: another solution to add to the mix. Mine booted with the battery disconnected, i.e. Running off mains power only. About 12-18 months ago, my mid-2012 MBA started giving 3 beeps of death during OS updates (very suspicious that a software update would trigger an apparent RAM HW problem. Planned obsolescence?).
First time scared the!&&. out of me. Knowing the RAM is soldered on and suspecting a short due to dust, I opened it up, disconnected the battery, vacuumed it thoroughly, put it back together and it still didn’t work. Left it overnight on charge and it booted fine in the morning. Thought maybe some dust came loose overnight which un-shorted the RAM. Second time I zapped the PRAM and it came right back to life. Kicked myself for not thinking of that the first time.
A few successful OS updates later, I thought maybe it had grown out of the 3 beeps issue but last night it happened again for the third time. PRAM reset didn’t work. Vacuuming didn’t produce instant results. Disconnecting and reconnecting the battery after a while didn’t work also. Too impatient to wait overnight so was playing around and found I could boot it up just fine with the back off, battery disconnected but the power cable attached. So now I’m thinking it might be a battery problem. I had the battery replaced about three years ago so maybe it’s time for a new one.
Machine is currently finishing off the OS install it hadn’t completed last night when it started beeping at 5am while I’m being extra careful not to knock the MagSafe power cable off:) After that I’ll shut it down and reconnect the battery. My suspicion is that there is no issue outside the OS update cycle, so I’m betting it comes right back to life. Update: battery may have been a red herring after all. When the OS update completed on mains power only, I shut down, reconnected the battery and was back to the 3 beeps. At this point I thought it confirmed the battery issue, but I tried the same trick of running off mains power only and this time it also gave the 3 beeps of death.sigh.
So now I'm back to my original theory that it's dust and the plugging and unplugging simply moved the machine around a bit and partially dislodged the dust. After a bit more agitation it came back to life. Haven't restarted yet. Might not restart for a while:). You'll need to reformat your drive!
When you have a more limited amount of RAM the OS leverages the SSD drive as virtual RAM. Whats happened is the VRAM space is corrupted which is why you'er getting the RAM error. So backup your apps and data using TimeMachine on an external drive.
Then using the OS installer drive boot up your system under it so you can reformat & install a fresh copy of the OS onto your system. The next issue is restoring as you have to much stuff for such a small drive you'll need trim back your stuff or get a larger SSD. For a 128 GB drive you want a good 1/3 left free. That way your limited RAM can leverage it effectively as well as application caching & paging. Not sure I understand the connection?
I'm using the computer right now with no issues (unless or until I reboot, perhaps). Wouldn't I be affected right now by virtual memory corruption?
My understanding of virtual memory is that it's a software-driven function of the main OS kernel at runtime. Whatever the issue is, it's only an issue in the first one second of rebooting the computer. The main OS hasn't loaded at that point.
The bootloader doesn't use virtual memory and I'd be surprised if the (hardware) RAM integrity check during POST (which may even occur before the software boot sequence runs) is checking the software-managed virtual memory swapfile (on disk) and reporting out on corruption there. Are you saying that the RAM integrity check during POST is finding corruption in /private/var/vm/swapfile0, or did I misunderstand your point? The past couple times my Mac book air battery went down to 0% I charged it back up to 100.
Both times, after it hit 100, would then turn off with a dark screen with the 3 beeps. I have only used my laptop several times since I got it 2 years ago. I found this thread last night, what a help!!
What worked for me was shift-control-option and power at the same time. Also what worked was command-option P and R and power all at the same time. I don’t know enough what caused this but I think I have a battery issue. Thank you for the fixes I don’t know what I would have done!!
Let me add after reading the above, the 3 beeps occurred right before I installed an update. I think that’s what happened last 3 beep episode. I have a feeling it won’t be long before the 3 beeps becomes more consistent.
I don’t know for sure, but I’ll just enjoy the fix for now. Felt like I should add that I tried all of the soft options above but none worked for my sudden 3 beep death So I took the brave option and removed the logic board as per the ifixit guide Baked it for 8 minutes at 180C Put new thermal paste on and reassembled IT WORKS! I was super skeptical but 9/10/18 is day 1 Hopefully it lasts a while. Interestingly when I removed the heatsink the old paste was dry and like chalk, and can’t have done much Prior to the failure, I recall about 6 months of the computer getting really hot in the lap and the fan going overdrive So perhaps that was sopmething to do with it as well.
Mine, a macbook air 13 inch mid 2011, started as the video going crazy breaking up into horizontal lines. Then on restart the 3 beeps.
First I tried resetting the PRAM and SMC: no joy. Next new thermal paste on the cpu and that looked promising, it started up briefly but then crashed same as before. Like others have noted in the comments with the heat sink removal instructions, the microphone plug removal is very tricky and can easily be disastrous. Take note of the fellow who points out that removing that plug is not absolutely necessary. Then I tried over with the paste and on restart same three beeps. Next I noticed that the fan was making a slight clicking noise so I took it apart and found that it was rubbing on the wide open end, probably the results of a drop at some time slightly denting the fan casing. Straightened that out, re-assembled, same 3 beeps, but the fan is much quieter.
Finally I removed the logic board, wrapped it in aluminum foil and baked in the oven at 375F for 10 minutes then let it cool on a baking rack, re-assembled, started up and to my amazement it started like nothing had ever happened. Long may this fix last!
Thanks everyone here for their various comments and stories.