Faulty MacBook Pro lower ram slot?

DriveDX says the SSD is "failing" and it passes the short test but fails the extended test. Multiple SMART parameters are shown as failing.

TechTool Pro shows "warning" as flags the SSD for SMART parameters.

Apple's Disk Utility shows everything as "ok," and SMART status is "verified."

I'm ok with all this, it's a 2010 MacBook Air, it served us well, it has USB 2 ports and WiFi 802.11n so it's pretty dated in many respects. It has 4 GB memory, which at the time was the max one could get for it! But it still runs pretty well, at least for things that High Sierra can be used for. I won't spend any money on it, however. I have never seen an SSD degrade like this so am watching it with some interest ...

Physical problems are beyond the capabilities of this community. If you feel the slot is defective, have Apple examine it.

At 12 years old the Mac is obsolete and no longer supported in any way by Apple. That means Apple will not repair it. But if by chance that did happen, the cost will exceed the worth of the old Mac.

The memory slot nearest the Bottom Case tends to develop cracked solder joints over time due to flexing. Pressure gets put on the center of the bottom case which in turn presses on the Logic Board. Usually if you leave that memory slot empty, then the laptop will work just fine with memory installed in the other slot nearest the Keyboard.

This is easy to test. If memory is installed in the slot nearest the Bottom Case, just Option Boot the laptop and let it sit at the Apple boot picker menu (you could boot into macOS, but when the system freezes you may corrupt the file system or macOS). With the Bottom Case removed and the laptop sitting on its side, press on the black plastic base of the memory slot on the Logic Board. Most likely you will see graphical glitches on the screen and/or the mouse pointer will no longer move. Sometimes you can even press on the bottom of the laptop with the bottom case still on, but it doesn't always work and you cannot be as sure where the fault lies like when you press on a specific area of the board. Just make sure not to have any metallic or conductive object or surface touch the internal boards or the laptop will be damaged.

I have a 2011 MacBook Air that is still running well, so I admire your efforts here, but as ku4hx indicates, you have an obsolete model. Apple won't touch it but some Apple Authorized Service Providers will; however they will try to talk you out of any such repairs because they are so expensive and original parts can't be found.

10.13.6 is an ancient MacOS, there are many things you can't do with it, and the connections on your 2011 MacBook Pro are (a) slow USB and (b) slow firewire. I don't think firewire drives are even made anymore. Your laptop also has just 802.11n, which is far behind the state of the art. The SSD is probably close to end of life (on my 2011 laptop the SSD fails the DriveDX and Techtool Pro SMART tests).

I am still using my 2011 laptop because it still works apparently well, but I don't trust it for anything important and as soon as something wears out, it will be retired.

TurboTax requires Big Sur minimum; Garmin devices can only utilize Garmin's software if you have 10.15 or later. Many web sites won't work anymore with 10.13.6 Safari (but many still work with Firefox and Chrome under 10.13.6), and only an obsolete version of MS-Office runs under 10.13.6 now. Might be time to start saving up for a new Mac!

steve626 wrote:

The SSD is probably close to end of life (on my 2011 laptop the SSD fails the DriveDX and Techtool Pro SMART tests).

I am still using my 2011 laptop because it still works apparently well, but I don't trust it for anything important and as soon as something wears out, it will be retired.

FYI, these drive health monitoring apps don't really accurately interpret the health of SSDs. Unlike hard drives, an SSD may have a health attribute degrade, but not be a concern on the functionality of the SSD especially as long as the normalized value of the health attribute is not nearing or approaching the Threshold and as long as the attribute is not showing a large change in a short period of time. It is only when an SSD's health attribute's normalized value reaches the Treshold (or one above it) that it may indicate the SSD should not be used anymore.

Unfortunately with many newer SSDs there are not as many health attributes to accurate judge their health especially when the Normalized Value reaches the Threshold. I have been using several SSDs whose Normalized health attribute value reached the Threshold, but they are still going strong since none of the other health attributes have shown any degradation, but I am closely monitoring the SSD's other health attributes for any changes. And like you I am not using them for any critical data.

There was a wonderful experiment back in 2013 or so where a site performed an extreme stress endurance test on multiple SSDs which showed many of them were able to write PetaBytes of data before failing completely.

https://techreport.com/review/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-dead/

LanceAdams wrote:

Thanks for all advice supplied, but after many hours trying everything I’ve solved the lower slot ram problem. After lifting the lower slot with 4 plastic ties approximately 1.2mm thick and about 1 cm apart I then sanded the right side of the ram board down a little and it then booted! At last…

It appears that less than 0.3mm width taken off the ram board has made a big difference.

You should definitely press on the center of the bottom case or on the plastic base of them memory slot (where the system barcode sticker is located) to make sure your fix truly solves the problem.

Definitely an interesting and ingenious solution if it does indeed hold up. Good luck.