I somehow missed the fans revving part of this question. But my guess is batteries are toast. I’m not sure where all of them came from, but it would make sense why someone might ditch them en masse if they didn’t know this and figured something bigger was wrong.
When a MacBook doesn’t hear from one of the many sensors scattered throughout the device, the SMC assumes the worst and compensated accordingly. It throttles the CPU and revs the fans up to max even if temps are ice cold. It’s an overly concerned mother who hasn’t heard from her kid at exactly the prescribed time. “What if the missing sensor data means everything is on fire?” A bad battery is one of the mail culprits of this behavior (the other is trackpad). So I would wager this is the deal.
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If the device is being throttled, that also explains the inability to load Internet recovery as well as finish a DFU Restore (or revive). For the record, revive is essentially a reinstall of the firmware, but keeps all existing data on the machine. Restore just wipes the whole %#*@ thing, even uninitializes the drive. It’s probably timing out because it’s running at colossally slow speeds, but it’s hard to notice that if that’s all you can get.
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If the device is being throttled, that also explains the inability to load Internet recovery as well as finish a DFU Restore (or revive). For the record, revive is essentially a reinstall of the firmware, but keeps all existing data on the machine. Restore just wipes the whole thing, even uninitializes the drive. It’s probably timing out because it’s running at colossally slow speeds, but it’s hard to notice that if that’s all you can get.
Luckily, the batteries in these are [guide|135301|not too hard to replace|new_window=true]. You do have to take the logic board out to get at the keyboard connector hiding underneath. But in comparison to a MacBook Pro of the same era, it’s a cakewalk.
I somehow missed the fans revving part of this question. But my guess is batteries are toast. I’m not sure where all of them came from, but would it make sense why someone might ditch them en masse if they didn’t know this and figured something bigger was wrong.
+
I somehow missed the fans revving part of this question. But my guess is batteries are toast. I’m not sure where all of them came from, but it would make sense why someone might ditch them en masse if they didn’t know this and figured something bigger was wrong.
When a MacBook doesn’t hear from one of the many sensors scattered throughout the device, the SMC assumes the worst and compensated accordingly. It throttles the CPU and revs the fans up to max even if temps are ice cold. It’s an overly concerned mother who hasn’t heard from her kid at exactly the prescribed time. “What if the missing sensor data means everything is on fire?” A bad battery is one of the mail culprits of this behavior (the other is trackpad). So I would wager this is the deal.
If the device is being throttled, that also explains the inability to load Internet recovery as well as finish a DFU Restore (or revive). For the record, revive is essentially a reinstall of the firmware, but keeps all existing data on the machine. Restore just wipes the whole %#*@ thing, even uninitializes the drive. It’s probably timing out because it’s running at colossally slow speeds, but it’s hard to notice that if that’s all you can get.
Luckily, the batteries in these are [guide|135301|not too hard to replace|new_window=true]. You do have to take the logic board out to get at the keyboard connector hiding underneath. But in comparison to a MacBook Pro of the same era, it’s a cakewalk.
I somehow missed the fans revving part of this question. But my guess is batteries are toast. I’m not sure where all of them came from, but would it make sense why someone might ditch them en masse if they didn’t know this and figured something bigger was wrong.
When a MacBook doesn’t hear from one of the many sensors scattered throughout the device, the SMC assumes the worst and compensated accordingly. It throttles the CPU and revs the fans up to max even if temps are ice cold. It’s an overly concerned mother who hasn’t heard from her kid at exactly the prescribed time. “What if the missing sensor data means everything is on fire?” A bad battery is one of the mail culprits of this behavior (the other is trackpad). So I would wager this is the deal.
If the device is being throttled, that also explains the inability to load Internet recovery as well as finish a DFU Restore (or revive). For the record, revive is essentially a reinstall of the firmware, but keeps all existing data on the machine. Restore just wipes the whole %#*@ thing, even uninitializes the drive. It’s probably timing out because it’s running at colossally slow speeds, but it’s hard to notice that if that’s all you can get.
Luckily, the batteries in these are [guide|135301|not too hard to replace|new_window=true]. You do have to take the logic board out to get at the keyboard connector hiding underneath. But in comparison to a MacBook Pro of the same era, it’s a cakewalk.