Microfreezes in my MacBook Air 13 2017

Good day. I ran into the problem of freezing my macbook air. Сatalina stood there, returned to the Mojave, about two weeks ago, and recently began to notice system freezes, moreover, there is no load, simple surfing in different browsers leads to a hang for a few seconds. The computer heats up only under load, the cooler can turn on, but the temperature is at the normal level, six months ago I changed thermal paste. The computer itself was purchased about two years ago. I hope for your help.

P.S. English is not my native language, I apologize for the grammar.


MacBook Air 13", macOS 10.14

Posted on May 2, 2020 9:00 AM

Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on May 4, 2020 9:47 AM

Like I said there are a lot of "helper" apps and browser extensions being used most of which I am not familiar so any one of them could be causing the problem.


Try creating a new user account to see if the issues affect that account as well. Do not use or install any browser extensions or helper items to this new user account during testing. Make sure there are no login items for this new user account (see Users & Groups System Preferences). I would also recommend rebooting the computer and log directly into the new user account for testing.


Try booting into Safe Mode to see if you experience the same freezes (try both user accounts). You may see the screen flicker or flash due to the very basic video driver used in Safe Mode.


These two options should in theory bypass those unknown helper apps. I'm not sure if this will also bypass the browser extensions or not since I'm not sure whether they are per user.


If these options don't help and you've uninstalled those helper apps and browser extensions, then I recommend making sure your data is backed up and perform a clean install of macOS by first erasing the whole physical drive before reinstalling macOS. Test the laptop with a clean install of macOS before you start installing apps & browser extensions or migrating from the backup.


If you still have issues after the clean install, then you have a hardware issue of some sort that will need to be repaired.


If a clean install works, then be very careful about migrating your user account and data since you could migrate the problem back. I would only migrate the user account and the data without any settings or apps.

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7 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

May 4, 2020 9:47 AM in response to Community User

Like I said there are a lot of "helper" apps and browser extensions being used most of which I am not familiar so any one of them could be causing the problem.


Try creating a new user account to see if the issues affect that account as well. Do not use or install any browser extensions or helper items to this new user account during testing. Make sure there are no login items for this new user account (see Users & Groups System Preferences). I would also recommend rebooting the computer and log directly into the new user account for testing.


Try booting into Safe Mode to see if you experience the same freezes (try both user accounts). You may see the screen flicker or flash due to the very basic video driver used in Safe Mode.


These two options should in theory bypass those unknown helper apps. I'm not sure if this will also bypass the browser extensions or not since I'm not sure whether they are per user.


If these options don't help and you've uninstalled those helper apps and browser extensions, then I recommend making sure your data is backed up and perform a clean install of macOS by first erasing the whole physical drive before reinstalling macOS. Test the laptop with a clean install of macOS before you start installing apps & browser extensions or migrating from the backup.


If you still have issues after the clean install, then you have a hardware issue of some sort that will need to be repaired.


If a clean install works, then be very careful about migrating your user account and data since you could migrate the problem back. I would only migrate the user account and the data without any settings or apps.

May 3, 2020 8:32 AM in response to Community User

Uninstall the Intel Power Gadget by following the developer's instructions. I used it on a test machine once and I had trouble getting it installed so the software is not real friendly with GateKeeper. Best to remove it as I don't see a reason to use it since anything that installs a driver risks causing system instability.


You have a lot of helper apps there which I've never heard of before so perhaps one of them is causing a problem. You definitely don't need an "App Cleaner". Cleaning programs usually cause more problems than they solve. If the issues are while using Safari, then uninstall the AdGuard extensions from Safari.



May 2, 2020 11:03 PM in response to HWTech

Hey. Thank you for responding. I took all three steps, also reset the NVRAM and SMC settings yesterday, it seemed that the problem was resolved, but today I again met with a similar hang. All three types of diagnostics did not reveal any problems with hardware. Here is an EtreCheck report.

Maybe I need to change the OS?


May 3, 2020 9:13 AM in response to HWTech

I deleted intel power gadget, and I also reinstalled the operating system. So far, I do not see any hangups, I hope they will not continue. Thank you for your help, if in the near future again there will be problems, then close the question.

May 5, 2020 10:31 PM in response to HWTech

Good day! Well, I reinstalled os and returned to Catalina. There are no more problems, in any case, it does not appear, everything works smoothly. Thanks for your help, friend!

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Microfreezes in my MacBook Air 13 2017

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