MacBook Air 2017 Zorin OS stops booting completely

General Help
1

Hi everyone,

I’ve been running Zorin OS 17 on my MacBook Air (2017) for a couple of years without any issues. However, this month it suddenly stopped working.

Now, when I press the power button, nothing happens at all. No screen, no sound, no signs of life.

I took it to the Apple Store, and they ran diagnostics. They said there are no hardware issues (battery, logic board, etc.) and reinstalled macOS. After that, the system worked fine.

I then installed Zorin OS 18, and it worked perfectly for about a week. But now the same issue has happened again, pressing the power button does nothing at all.

Is this a known issue with Zorin OS or Linux on older MacBooks? Or could this still be some kind of hardware or firmware issue?

Any suggestions on what I can try next would be really helpful.

Thank you.

2

Hello,
To restart your MacBook you can try this

Force an SMC (System Management Controller) Reset

This resets the power management firmware on your MacBook:

  • Hold Shift + Control + Option (all on the left side) + Power button for 10 seconds
  • Release all keys
  • Wait 5 seconds, then press Power again to boot

This often unsticks MacBooks from problematic power states
After we will see for a more permanent tweak...

2 Likes
3

Did You received any Kernel Updates before this happened?

2 Likes
4

Yes this helped. Thank you so much.I am able to login back. So we have to do this every time? No permanent fix.

5

I remember only installing zorin 18 and running for some days. I will check if it is related to any updates next time.

6

We can try a fix,
as Zorin boots again, try adding kernel parameters to improve power management:

  • Open terminal and enter:
sudo nano /etc/default/grub
  • Find the line:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
  • Change it to:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash tsc=unstable"
  • Save (Ctrl+X, then Y, then Enter)
  • Run:
sudo update-grub
  • Reboot and test
1 Like
7

Thank you. I have done this now. I will check how it goes.

1 Like
8

I hope it will fix your problem, we will see...

1 Like
9

Thank you so much again. I have tried this and it hasn't given me any problem in the last one week.

1 Like
10

Great, have fun :wink: