MacBook Air (13-inch, mid 2013) Shuts Down When Lid Is Closed

[ZeWazir]

This one has everyone in my department stymied. We have a MacBook Air (13inch, 2013) that will shut down if the lid is closed for longer than a few minutes. Problem persists with and without the power adapter. I have, of course, performed all the usual quick fixes of resetting SMC and PRAM. The problem persisted across all users, EXCEPT when I boot into safeboot, the problem goes away.

Running all aspects of AST, from MRI to both the EFI and OS versions of ASD found nothing wrong.

I have also wiped the drive and installed a clean OS from our netboot server. (El Capitan 10.11.5). The problem went away for a while, but then returned a couple days later. Thinking the user may have re-installed some 3rd party glitch, because the netboot install would have wiped it out, I put a blank drive in it (to save their user files), and again installed the netboot image, clean. The problem went away for about half that day, while I shut the lid for varying lengths of time from 5 minutes to 20 minutes, opening the lid to wake it, logging in (as a user would) and then shutting the lid again. Toward the end of the day, it started shutting down again when the lid was closed longer than about 4 minutes. And again, the problem went totally away when I started in safeboot. Left it on, in safeboot, but closed the lid over night. Returned this morning and it woke from sleep normally. Rebooted normally, closed the lid for 5 minutes, and it shut down.

The fact that the symptoms persist across all users, and came back after a new system install would indicate some type of hardware fault such as the sleep switch or possibly the SMC. But why, then, does safeboot alleviate the problem? Usually when an issue goes away with safeboot, it indicates the problem is software related.

 

[honestone]

I have a mid 2013, 13 " MacBook Air, but it is not connected to any other hardware. I do not have this issue, so I can understand why you are stumped!

When you say "The problem persisted across all users", does that mean there are multiple 13" MacBook Airs, or only one MacBook Air with a "bunch" of accounts?

Also, I am not familiar with 'all aspects of AST, from MRI to both the EFI and OS versions of ASD".

And, this link explains about setting sleep and awake times with El Capitan:

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH21695?locale=en_US

 

[ZeWazir]

Across all users means all user accounts on this one computer. All staff computers have three accounts, all of which have administrative privileges. If the problem is software, it will lie in the main library, or the system library, and not in any of the user libraries.

AST = Apple Service Toolkit, a set of diagnostic tools installed on our netboot server. MRI = Mac Resource Inspector, one of the diagnostic tools available in AST. ASD = Apple Service Diagnostic, a diagnostic application, currently run through AST but is also available as separate downloads which can be installed on a separate startup drive. All these are tools available to technicians with Apple Certified Macintosh Technician certification.

Already check the sleep settings. This is a problem when the sleep switch in the display clamshell is activated and shuts the computer down instead of putting it to sleep.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hi,

-What is the hibernate/sleep mode set to - i.e. has it been changed via Terminal?
-What is the battery status - cycles, etc?
-Has there been any liquid or physical damage?
-Is it only one MBA that has the issue?
-It's not entering hibernate/standby mode, but powering off, correct?
-Is Adobe Flash installed - this was a known cause of this issue several years ago?

C