Chosen Solution

Hi, On power up, my MacBook Air beeps three times continuously. beep beep beep (short break) beep beep beep (short break)…. Any ideas. thanks. Frustrated!! Update I feel really ripped off! I bought the macbook Air 13" shortly after the warranty expired. The thing is practically perfect. Now I come to find out that the ram is bad and there’s not a thing I can do about it. I tried to to Hold Command +P+R and still nothing. JC

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 (11/28/2010) 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).

I took out the logic board and placed it in the oven on 350 degree F for 8 min. Let it cool for 30 min put the computer back together and it started up with on problems.

It’s a RAM problem, 13" models have 2GB soldered memory and the RAM is not upgradeable or replaceable. 15" and 17" have a 4GB maximum with two slots and you can replace the RAM on those.

Based on my working MAC computers, three beeps is related to BAD MEMORY. I suggest you to replace your RAM with good one and try booting again. Hope this will help!

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. the location of thermal sensor hope you will find this useful. Greetings from Serbia Zdravko

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)

Resoldered all the ram chips with flux cleaned with denatured alcohol and blew out any remaining liquid with electronic blower and voila 3 beeps gone video right away and did pram reset 4 times to clear it out and bam all 4gb ram detected

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: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpagfXra… Also try this as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vCpW2jC…

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.