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MacBook Air not updating EFI Firmware

Hi,


I have a 11" MacBook Air 6,1 ...


The EFI Firmware version that is showing up in System Report is 110.0.0.0.0


Apparently the latest firmware for this model should be 429.0.0.0.0 as detailed in this article :-


https://eclecticlight.co/2019/10/08/which-efi-firmware-should-your-mac-be-using-version-4/


My MBA has been updated several times over the years including most versions of Catalina and all versions of Big Sur and is now running version 11.2.


I know that EFI and SMC firmware updates are supposed to be installed during the macOS update procedure but it looks like on my MBA this has not happened for a long time.


My question is this :-


  1. Are all EFI updates included in all MacOS releases/Updates ?
  2. Or are certain EFI updates only included in specific macOS updates ?


If the latter then its possible that i might have skipped a version of macOS that might have included the necessary EFI update for my MBA.


The reason I need to update the firmware is that since my MBA started running Big Sur it will randomly reboot/KP whilst sleeping, this problem seems to be due to it running old EFI/SMC firmware and all help articles i can find on teh problem suggest running software update which should update the firmware.


I'm frustrated that Apple no longer supply EFI and SMC firmware updates as separate installable packages so any help or advice on how i can resolve this problem would be most welcome.


Cheers

Jay


MacBook Air 11″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Feb 3, 2021 7:43 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 3, 2021 11:20 AM

Never mind i have figured it out ....


A macOS update will not upgrade the EFI and/or SMC firmware if you have a non-Apple SSD installed due to it checking with Apple product validation servers ...


This issue must effect so many users who have updated their SSD's with a 3rd party one.


It is another instance of Apple locking users out of the right to repair or update an Apple product which they own.

I could understand this with recent Apple products that are still under warranty but a not on a 7 year old MBA ....


Luckily i had an old 128GB Apple NVMe SSD that i had lying around so i swapped out the drive in my MBA for that, ran a software update and this time it updated the EFI and SMC firmware to the latest versions. I then swapped the drive back to the 500GB 3rd party SSD and so far its looking good ... no more reboots/KP's when sleeping.


Hopefully this might help someone who has suffered the same problem.


Cheers

Jay




Similar questions

1 reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 3, 2021 11:20 AM in response to JayMonkey

Never mind i have figured it out ....


A macOS update will not upgrade the EFI and/or SMC firmware if you have a non-Apple SSD installed due to it checking with Apple product validation servers ...


This issue must effect so many users who have updated their SSD's with a 3rd party one.


It is another instance of Apple locking users out of the right to repair or update an Apple product which they own.

I could understand this with recent Apple products that are still under warranty but a not on a 7 year old MBA ....


Luckily i had an old 128GB Apple NVMe SSD that i had lying around so i swapped out the drive in my MBA for that, ran a software update and this time it updated the EFI and SMC firmware to the latest versions. I then swapped the drive back to the 500GB 3rd party SSD and so far its looking good ... no more reboots/KP's when sleeping.


Hopefully this might help someone who has suffered the same problem.


Cheers

Jay




MacBook Air not updating EFI Firmware

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