macOS Monterey 12.3 reportedly bricking Macs with replacement logic boards

AppleInsider

Apple's latest macOS Monterey update is bricking some Mac devices that have had their logic boards replaced, according to user reports on social media and the Apple support forum.

Apple MacBook Air

The macOS Monterey 12.3 update, released on Monday, is reportedly causing problems for users attempting to update from macOS 12.2.1 or earlier. According to support forum posts, users are seeing errors, endless restart loops, and possible bricking of their devices.

Reports indicate that only Mac devices with a replacement logic board are affected by the issue.

Although the macOS Monterey 12.3 update appears to be bricking some Mac devices, other reports indicate that an affected Mac could also reboot without the update being successfully installed. In these cases, users report seeing an "iBoot Panic" message."

Similar threads have been popping up on Reddit as well, Thursday's initial report by MacRumors notes. The website's own forums have even more accounts.

Users can reportedly fix their bricked Macs by booting it into DFU mode and reviving it manually. However, the process requires that they have a second Mac handy.

Some users also report successfully installing macOS Monterey 12.3 on a Mac with a replacement logic board using IPSW files. However, like reviving a Mac in DFU mode, this method requires a second Apple computer to perform.

In at least some cases, users who have taken their Macs to Apple for service say that technicians simply replaced the logic board on their devices again. But, the second repair apparently doesn't do anything to mitigate the problem.

Apple has instructions on how to revive an Apple Silicon Mac device here, as well as how to revive an Ints-based Mac device here. The company has yet to acknowledge the problem with macOS 12.3, however.

This isn't the only issue that users have reported with the latest macOS update. On Tuesday, reports surfaced of macOS Monterey 12.3 causing performance or speed issues for users that rely on PCI-E external GPUs.

Read on AppleInsider

djames4242

For me the update broke my portable usb monitor. It works with a usb-c to hdmi adapter (plus the usb-c cable for power), but it no longer works with just the usb-c cable as it did prior to the update.

viclauyyc

I had my 2019 16” MBP logic board replaced and update to 12.3 without problem. But I think I really should should delay the update from now on. Mac OS update become more problematic over the years. 

lkrupp

viclauyyc said:

I had my 2019 16” MBP logic board replaced and update to 12.3 without problem. But I think I really should should delay the update from now on. Mac OS update become more problematic over the years. 

Baloney. if anything macOS updates have become more reliable over time. Those of us who have been around a long time (thirty years for me) know this to be a fact. It wasn’t all that long ago that prudent users went through a series of ‘voodoo’ operations to ensure a good update and even then there were almost always conflicts with kernel extensions, etc. macOS is much more bullet proof these days in my thirty years of experience with the Macintosh. 

[email protected]

It  happened to me. I had to erase the HDD and reinstall Mac OS. The Mac logic board  was remplaced a year ago.

jeffharris

Monterey is the buggiest version of Mac OS I’ve seen in quite a while.
There are so many irritating little bugs it drives me crazy.

Tried contacting Apple support and they made complicated suggestions on how I could fix things. 

I wish Apple would stop with the yearly and disruptive OS “upgrades” and just make things work better. 

maciekskontakt

lkrupp said:

viclauyyc said:

I had my 2019 16” MBP logic board replaced and update to 12.3 without problem. But I think I really should should delay the update from now on. Mac OS update become more problematic over the years. 

Baloney. if anything macOS updates have become more reliable over time. Those of us who have been around a long time (thirty years for me) know this to be a fact. It wasn’t all that long ago that prudent users went through a series of ‘voodoo’ operations to ensure a good update and even then there were almost always conflicts with kernel extensions, etc. macOS is much more bullet proof these days in my thirty years of experience with the Macintosh. 

Not baloney and stick out your head from Apple shop (or bottom part). I have been on Apple for 15 years and I have seen difference between reliability of updates 15 years ago in Puma and Jaguar and Monterey recently. There is no question 15 years ago it was FAR better. And I can explain why as I have friend who was coding macOS and left Apple few years ago after argument with managers on how they test and how it should be done (40 years of software development engineering who did it in many places including large banks and now doing it in Amazon autonomous car development after leaving Apple). They are sloppy in manual testing instead of automating it properly. They rush to market too soon to show off new things. They release fixes (that third digit  in version is abused patches) without proper due diligence. That is also how they killed Intel based Mac's by overheating electronic boards in them without paying attention that Spotlight indexing is making assumption it is run on M1 with newer SSD (that I Investigated with Apple support engineer of old date as well experimented myself with fans and extra cooling). Apple simply sucks nowadays with their arrogant approach.

What actions i took on this? I moved to custom built Linux Mint desktop as well as converted Macbook Air into something I call now MintBook Air (yes it is MBA based Linux) and I have to keep maintenance on two more Mac's that are still used for publishing (we run professional studio with large education client you probably read books from when you learn programming languages and other technology stuff - yes that is our studio that creates or corrects those books).