Checking for damage

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Checking for damage

Just around 30 minutes ago, a disaster happened. My MacBook Air 11 inch slid and fell from around a height of 30 feet. Now it did not fell onto anything hard as such(thankfully), it did fall onto another laptop. It fell onto around 2/5 another laptop and 3/5 cushion. There doesn't really seem to be any noticeable damage, scratches or anything, however, a lot of dust did come out from the keyboard and onto my screen due to the impact(not sure if it was due to the impact or something else, but when I opened my screen there was a lot of dust in the shape of the keyboard.

Everything feels as sturdy as ever, and I don't see any noticeable slowness in performance. The screen also looks perfectly intact.

In fact, I am writing this on my MBA right now, and everything seems to be working properly. I have even rebooted and tried all that, like using all the keys and stuff.

However, I just want to be safe and ensure I did not break anything. What tests could I do to ensure that nothing did break? Because if anything did, it clearly isn't apparent from using the notebook. I am pretty **** impressed by the build quality though. For something that looks so delicate, I didn't think it could take such an impact.

Posted on Jul 3, 2014 4:10 AM

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Answer 1

John Galt

Level 10

156,200 points

Jul 3, 2014 7:26 AM in response to mbaftw

Run the Internet version of AHT by holding option d at startup.

so if the Diagnostic Test is included with the OS and not a part of the firmware itself,

It is. I'd suspect a corrupted AHT before hardware failure.

AHT is most useful when it reports a failure. It's really not useful for anything other than that.

my installation of Mavericks is botched

If you know that to be the case, don't use it. Reinstall OS X. That won't alter your User account information.

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Answer 2

Csound1

Level 9

60,063 points

Jul 3, 2014 4:15 AM in response to mbaftw

I advise that you make a Genius appt and let Apple take a look, it will be difficult for you to assess any hidden damage just by looking inside. It's dense in there. 30 feet is a long fall, you are already very lucky.

Get it checked out, maybe buy a lottery ticket while you're luck is good. 🙂

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Answer 3

John Galt

Level 10

156,200 points

Jul 3, 2014 4:23 AM in response to mbaftw

It's very unlikely anything broke. Other than the exhaust fan an MBA has no moving parts. F=ma and if m is small so is F.

There are a couple fairly large private educational institutions I've been involved with that distribute MBAs to their students (children). They have proven to be surprisingly rugged. Its display would have been the component most likely to break, and that would be obvious.

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Answer 4

Csound1

Level 9

60,063 points

Jul 3, 2014 4:28 AM in response to John Galt

I'm thinking more of connectors, drive cables, ram etc. It's possible that they may require reseating correctly, but as everything seems to work maybe not. I'd certainly look at the Ram, a flat drop is exactly the right vector to displace them. I'd want to check that the clips are in place.

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Answer 5

mbaftw Author

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Jul 3, 2014 4:35 AM in response to mbaftw

Well, the WiFi, BT, USB ports, all the ports seem to be working. And if RAM would have been displayed, there are usually signs to show for it, for example being unable to start or visual anomalies on the screen. Nothing like that is happening. I'm assuming the MBA has only 1 RAM chip? Is there any hardware test(bootable or not) that I can use to assess everything myself before going to the Apple store? I know Apple uses some bootable test for checking the hardware.

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Answer 6

John Galt

Level 10

156,200 points

Jul 3, 2014 4:41 AM in response to Csound1

Its memory is soldered in place and there is no drive to check. I'd be unwilling to even open it for fear of causing damage where none exists.

I've seen plenty of dropped MBAs. If the screen isn't cracked and the lid still closes they're perfect.

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Answer 7

mbaftw Author

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Jul 3, 2014 6:59 AM in response to John Galt

Ok, I tried running the Apple Diagnostic test, and it gets stuck at "about 1 minute remaining". Like, I can't even move the cursor. However, I ran memory tests on OS X, it returned everything as OK. I ran the Blackmagic disk speed test, no difference in speed whatsoever. I ran novabench, and no change in the score there. I stress tested it, and have been running it for the past couple hours, and its working fine and hasn't crashed or hung or went into kernel panic once. I have never run the Diagnostic Test before, so I do not know if it always used to do this, however, my installation of Mavericks is botched(reinstalled using USB created with DiskMaker X, install got stuck at 2 minutes remaining, so after an hour I pulled the USB and it worked(this was a month ago)), so if the Diagnostic Test is included with the OS and not a part of the firmware itself, then that could be causing it. I am still under warranty, and even though I do realize that Apple most likely won't replace anything that got damaged due to anything apart from a manufacturing defect, should I take it in for testing? Will they charge me if there is some damage, or even just for diagnosing it?

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Answer 8

mbaftw Author

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Jul 3, 2014 8:57 AM in response to John Galt

Well, I ran it, and I got this output.

This is the response code I got : "ADP000".

EDIT : I ran the test a couple more times, and in like the 4-5 times I ran it, it went through twice, and other times it got stuck, and every time the progress bar was at a different point. However, both the times that it did go through, it returned "ADP000".

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Answer 9

mbaftw Author

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Jul 3, 2014 10:25 AM in response to John Galt

That's a sigh of relief. I am surprised at how strong the MacBook Air is. Falling from 30 feet and coming out without a single scratch. A Dell laptop I had fell from like a quarter of the distance and literally its whole body shattered into pieces(and the optical drive, hard disk, cpu fan and speaker got damaged). Go Apple!

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