M2 MacBook Air No Battery

[CodeProfessor]

Hi everyone,

I am trying to revive an M2 MacBook Air that won’t charge. The system recognizes the battery just fine in MacOS and says it is 100% good with a low cycle count. But the battery sits at 1% and refuses to charge.

I am attempting to run a DFU revive or restore through Apple Configurator but it fails a few minutes after beginning when the MacBook reboots and shows the low-battery icon.


What I have already tried

• Connected a USB-C power adapter during the DFU process.
• Disconnected external power and relied on the DFU (USB-C-to-USB-C) cable alone.
• Verified the DFU steps by following Mr. Macintosh’s walkthrough videos.
• I am using genuine Apple cables that have been used for DFU revives and restores on other machines.

Sticking point
Each method fails at the same stage: when the MacBook restarts, it immediately displays the red low-battery symbol and drops out of DFU mode. Because of this, the revive or restore never completes.

To be clear, the machine works perfectly fine as long as it is plugged-in.


Question

Does anyone have a reliable workaround for performing a DFU revive on an Apple Silicon MacBook that has an unrecognized or depleted battery?

• I am considering keeping the DFU pads inside shorted throughout the process instead of relying on the keyboard keys. This might keep it in DFU even after a reboot. I have not tried this yet though.
• Are there other forums, guides, or individuals with experience fixing this specific scenario?

This is only a curiosity project, so perfection is not essential; I would simply like to see whether the machine can be revived.


Thank you for any advice you can share and have a great day!

 

[CodeProfessor]

I tried a few things and ultimatly ended up replacing the battery and now everything works perfectly now. But I want to share what I learned incase it can help anyone else.

Here is what I tried that did not work:

• I used an Apple USB-C cable to perform various DFU revivals and restores.
• I attempted multiple DFU revivals and restores using the two most recent MacOS 15 DFU .ipfw files as per Mr. Macintosh.
• I attempted multiple DFU revivals and restores using the internet download option.
• During these many attempts, I tried with the DFU cable in the rear most USB-C port of both machines, both with and without a power cable attached to the front most USB-C port. The DFU cable alone connected to the second MacBook was enough to enter the machine into DFU mode, but not enough to get it past the low battery symbol when not in DFU mode.
• Some online discussions suggested using the MagSafe charger cable but unfortunatly I do not have one.
• Sometimes the DFU process would error out with "...failed to enter restore...", so I tried entering DFU, starting the restore, then when the status bar paused (probably waiting for the reboot), I tried:
  • Holding the power button and entering options.
  • Holding the power button and entering options and then the restore screen.
  • Holding the power button and then starting disk sharing.
  • All of these attempts resulted in an error such as "...expected restore...observed MacOS boot..."
• I attempted several DFU restores with and without the battery connected.
• I then tried to peel up the sticker that covers what I believe is the charge controller that sits between the two lower batteries.
  • Unfortunatly in doing this I ripped what I believe is the common ground between the two lower batteries and three solder pads on the charge controller.
  • I observed approximatly 7V on two pads and ~5V on the third pad.
  • I was able to successfully repair the cable and observed what I believe is proper connectivity.
  • Long story short, if you are inside your MacBook, be EXTRA careful if you pull off the sticker between the two lower batteries - or better yet, just leave it alone. It is VERY easy to break this very thin cable even when being careful and I paid the price of breaking it.
• After the sticker-peel-fiasco, I once again tried several more DFU attempts with no success.
• At this point I decided to try manually charging each of the four cells one at a time.
  • Yes, this is a very silly thing to do, no I do not suggest anyone do this.
  • With the battery disconnected from the MacBook, I very carefully used a bench power supply to slowly raise the voltages of all four batteries one at a time by approximatly 0.5V in the hopes that I could get them high enough for the MacBook to take over.
  • While doing this I took great care in making sure nothing warmed up.
  • Again, I recognize this as a very silly thing to do and by no means do I suggest anyone attempt this. It was my last chance hail marry attempt and it did not work.

Throughout this entire process, the MacBook went back and forth between detecting the battery at 1% and not charging, to not detecting it at all and saying it required service.

Very long story short, I am not sure why I could not get it working, but my best guess is that the battery was sitting discharged for > 1 year and as a result, it went below the minimum charge levels.

To cap this post off, I had some fun troubleshooting, I replaced the battery, and now everything works perfectly.

Hopefully some of this can help someone else in the future. If anyone else has ever been in a similar position, feel free to share your experiences, I would love to hear some stories.

Have a great day everyone and enjoy this fantastic community of tinkerers!