A1708 has problems recognizing SSD when charged beyond around %80

DR1L wrote:

Hi,

I have a MacBook Pro 2017 (A1708) which has its logic board and SSD replaced 2.5 years earlier. My computer developed a really strange habit in the past month. When the battery is charged beyond certain level (around %80) system starts having problems recognizing SSD. (Unable to wake up) When this problem worsened and made system useless even with unintended restarts, I cleaned contacts of SSD and board. Cleaning made a difference (better overall performance, battery life) but underlying problem is still there.

My question is, which component is causing this problem: board or the SSD? How can I make sure that problem will be resolved with a new SSD?

Thanks.

Try resetting the System Management Controller Reset the SMC of your Mac - Apple Support

The internal SSD in the non-Touchbar MBPro 2016 & 2017 models has an extremely high rate of failure. Most times the failure is noticed when powering on the laptop or when waking the laptop from sleep because the SSD takes longer to go ready. Many times you will find Kernel Panic logs showing a reference to "nvme" (there are about three common types of error conditions). Sometimes the Kernel Panic logs are not saved due to the crashes.

I hope you have a good backup because the SSD could fail completely at any time and most likely it will be impossible for a professional data recovery service to recover any data (or it will be extremely expensive).

While it is possible to install a third party OWC SSD to replace the original Apple OEM SSD, I personally would not recommend spending any money on this laptop for a number of reasons since there are so many issues with this model (some issues even most contributors on this forum are not fully aware). Plus if you have never had the battery replaced before (or had the Top Case/Keyboard replaced), then you will likely need to do so sometime in the near future since that battery is probably wearing out (about $250 US). The money spent for upgrades/repair would be better put towards a new laptop in my opinion since this model is now considered "Vintage" by Apple.

FYI, the Kernel Panic logs will be located in "/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports" with a file name beginning with "kernel" and ending in ".panic". If there are no relevant logs there, then check the "Retired" sub folder since sometimes macOS is very aggressive on relocating logs.

Otherwise, I find the easiest way to confirm an SSD failure is by booting from an external macOS drive. Then sleep & wake the laptop to see if the internal SSD physically disappears from macOS. Sometimes just sleeping the laptop for a minute or so is enough, other times you may need to let it sleep for a bit longer. It really depends on how bad the failure is plus the failure can be intermittent.

As for the charger issue, that sounds like a Logic Board issue. I do know that the USB-C ports do wear down very easily so that cables become loose, plus the USB-C ports seem to attract liquid and becomes corroded which can cause problems....even system crashes if the conditions are just right.

These USB-C Macs are nothing like the older models. I definitely do not recommend putting any money into the 2016 - 2020 Intel Macs due to all the known issues with them (and some little known issues that only techs supporting thousands of them are aware).

nvme: "AppleS3XController. PCI link down.

"nvme" here refers to the internal SSD. "PCI link down" is saying the connection to the SSD is not available.

Confirmed the SSD is most likely failing (there is always a slim possibility the issue SSD's support circuitry on the Logic Board, but I doubt it unless there has been some liquid damage). Every case I have personally seen while supporting my organization's Macs have been due to a bad SSD on this model (MBPro 13" 2016 & 2017 non-touchbar). All things being equal, the SSD is usually the weakest link.

While it is possible to install a third party replacement SSD from OWC, I personally would not put any money into this laptop due to multiple known & some lesser known issues with the hardware as that money would be better spent going towards a new laptop. You already suspect possible issues with the battery which I'm sure will need to be replaced sometime soon if it hasn't been replaced before (about $250 US), or perhaps the seemingly battery related issues you are seeing some other issue with the Logic Board (I cannot tell from what you've described). This laptop model is now "Vintage" meaning hardware support through Apple is becoming limited and the last supported version of macOS is 13.x Ventura which will be unsupported by the end of 2025 (yes you can continue using the laptop and your apps will still work although online based apps will slowly start to be unable to access online services as developers stop updating apps for Ventura).