Chosen Solution
Hey there, I bought a used MacBook Air 11’ 2013 (Intel Core i5 1,3 Ghz, 4 GB RAM, 128 GB SSD) off of eBay at the beginning of this year. The seller had indicated that the Air runs slowly, which I thought I might be able to fix so I bit the bullet, since the asking price was 150€. During the past months I noticed to particular issues: The fans of the air are constantly spinning. While the noise is audible it’s not comparable to the jet engine like sound seen and heard on other MacBook Airs in YouTube Videos.The Air runs extremely slowly in battery mode at times, with applications taking several times longer than usual to load or update information. This behavior does not appear, when the Air is plugged into power. I ran several programs (EtreCheck, SMC Fan Control, Apple Hardware Test) and got the following results. The Apple Hardware Test completes with the error PPF003 indicating that the fan is not working properly.EtreCheck completes with the “Minor Issues”: High battery cycle count & Heavy I/O usage.SMC Fan Control indicates, that the fan is not spinning (000 rpm). I did a clean install of macOS Mojave 10.14.5, but the issue persists. Upon opening the case in order to clean the fan and renew the thermal paste I noticed, that the fan connector on the motherboard looks damaged. I don’t believe this to be a software issue, since CPU usage doesn’t seem to be particularly high. I’m happy for any input or further tests I could run. Thanks in advance! Peter
Well you’re fan connector was damaged by the previous owner or the person who last serviced the system. Your logic board will need repair someone with the proper skills should be able to replace it. Here’s an image on what the connector should look like
Vs your connector
The clamp latch is missing and it appears someone tried glueing it down which is not the correct fix.
Just had a MBPR 13” 2015 come in for repair with the same issue. After trying a replacement fan with no success I looked under the clamp latch and noticed a small amount of corrosion. After cleaning that off I reinserted the ribbon cable from the fan and noticed the clamp latch was not completely inserted on the connector properly. After closing the latch on the ribbon cable I put a small amount of pressure on the latch to push it into the connector all the way and when I turned the computer back on I was now getting an rpm reading and the Apple Hardware Test was no longer giving an error code. Hope this helps!
Thanks for posting. I’m having the same error message/issue.
I am having this same issue, except my fan clamp and connector are fine. I recently swapped out a i5, 4gb ram logic board for an i7,8gb logic board. Everything is working perfectly the computer never seems hot, but the fan is constantly running. I am wondering if thermal paste will help, but I don’t really know why if it’s not actually hot? Any insight would be helpful! Update (08/29/2020) Thank you. Sorry, I had other screen shots to post before I changed the fan and tried the second logic board and added the 256gb ssd. as of this morning, this is what is happening and this is basically regardless of whether or not I have anything running or not. The RPM stays the same (7000) and the temp goes between 98-150f, but doesn’t usually stay up there. Lives around 117-127f.
So, I put in the original logic board that came with the computer, the i5, 4gb ram one and the fan is back to normal. The temp still runs high, actually higher than the other, but the exhaust is much lower, and this is actually hotter to the touch. I just think it’s interesting the fan doesn’t run constantly with the i5, but I think ultimately you might be right about the screen. I decided against replacing it and just returned the various upgraded computer parts and bought a newer MacBook Air with the amount of memory I need and processing speed, so… but I learned a lot from this and thank you for your help!
I experienced the same problem on a 2019 iMac Retina 27”: Fans always on at full speed, SMC and NVRAM resets didn’t fix it. Booting with D key pressed into diagnostics tool came up with the message indicating I might have a fan problem (ah really?) and error code PPF003. Reading your description I realized the connector might be the issue. So I just took my flat hand and tapped several times on the back of the iMac. Problem solved - no more fan noise! Thanks so much, you saved me from having to send it back to an Apple Store !
