My Apple AirPods Max headphones died, so I put them in the freezer and they worked again

I purchased a high-end pair of Apple AirPods Max headphones around 4 years ago and a couple of days ago they died... after many hours of stressing out and fault-finding, I put them in the freezer for 15 minutes... and then they worked again flawlessly.

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A few days ago I was testing a brand new MSI Raider A18 HX A9W gaming laptop that I'm in the process of reviewing, which rocks some ridiculously high-end hardware -- AMD's new Ryzen 9 9955HX3D processor, 64GB of RAM, NVIDIA's new flagship GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU and an 18-inch 4K 120Hz Mini-LED display (it's awesome so far) -- and paired by Apple AirPods Max headphones to the laptop.

I jumped into a game of Overwatch 2 for some testing, went out grocery shopping with my girlfriend, came home and went back to work, pairing the AirPods Max back to my workstation PC but they weren't working. After disabling Bluetooth, re-enabling Bluetooth, the headphones weren't syncing. I persisted, trying to sync them back to my laptop, but nothing... nada... zip.

So I started trying to fault-find them by soft resetting them, nope... didn't work. I used multiple different USB to Lightning cables (USB-A to Lightning, and then a USB-C to Lightning cable) but they STILL didn't work. I tried pairing them with my daughter's iPhone instead of my PC... nothing. At this point, I wasn't happy... these expensive AirPods Max headphones seemed to be faulty, and virtually dead.

I looked around for hours online trying to find out how to fix them and tried everything that I could resetting them at least 50 times to no avail. I was watching a YouTube video on how to take them apart and clean the connectors on the headphones and after fiddling around with a SIM card removal tool, which you find under the soft ear pads on each side of the Apple AirPods Max, you can pull them apart.

Once they were apart, I cleaned both the connector to the headphones (there are two gold pins on each side, and the hole they slide into and connect to, I thought it would work... as there can be condensation build-up or gunk (both of which were fine, nothing to report there) they STILL didn't work.

But... in that YouTube video I saw multiple people comment saying that they put their Apple AirPods Max into the freezer for 15-20 minutes and revived their dead, bricked headphones. To be honest, I visited so many websites, forums, and Reddit where multiple people said the same freezer trick worked... but I ignored them... until I had reached the end of what I could do before just succumbing to the fact they were dead.

At this point, all that soft resetting by pressing both of the buttons on the right side of the AirPods Max would for 10+ seconds (which is meant to work and come up with flashing amber lights before going white and beginning the syncing process) didn't work. No white light. Long-pressing the ANC button is meant to start the Bluetooth pairing process, but no white light = sad me.

I started looking at buying a new pair of Apple AirPods Max but couldn't justify dropping close to $1000 AUD on a new pair... so while I jumped into a game of Overwatch 2 on the new MSI Raider A18 HX A9W gaming laptop, I chucked the AirPods Max headphones into the freezer for 15 minutes and gamed away (we lost).

After the match was over, I went and pulled the AirPods Max headphones out of the freezer and to my absolute disbelief, pressing the two buttons to start the soft reset process and sync them to my PC... the amber lights turned to a flashing white light, and they worked. I thought they were dead still, as the headphones were incredibly cold to the touch and had some condensation on them from being in the freezer... but...

I actually screamed out in joy, needing to quickly make sure they actually worked and the Bluetooth pairing process was successful... amber lights turned to a flashing white light! Off to the PC, initiating the soft reset process again and they didn't pair Off to the PC, initiating the soft reset process again and they didn't pair. A wave of disappoint hit me, so I tried one last time... huzzah! They worked!

They synced to my desktop PC and audio immediately worked... that damn freezer trick worked. I'm using them right now at 4AM and they're A-OK... after all that fault-finding, headaches, and stress... throwing the AirPods Max into the freezer actually worked. Unbelievable.

I thought I'd write this article to shine some more mainstream attention onto the fact that an unconventional method (who would put their expensive electronics product into a freezer) actually works. Apple Support forums couldn't help me... Reddit couldn't help me... ChatGPT couldn't help me... but my freezer helped me bring my AirPods Max from the brink of death.

If you've got a pair of Apple AirPods Max headphones that have done the same thing and you think they're bricked, and you've scoured the internet for a solution... here's your (possible) solution. It's unconventional, but throwing your AirPods Max into the freezer at this point, might just work... as it did for me.

Thank you random commenters on YouTube videos and Reddit, I would NEVER in a million years think that putting your expensive electronic product in the freezer would bring them back from the brink of death (and an expensive new headset).

However, I have a question: if my Apple AirPods Max headphones did die, what should I have replaced them with? A pair of high-end ASUS, Logitech, Razer headphones? Give me some suggestions in the comments below, because I'm erring on the side of caution that the AirPods Max will die eventually, and the freezer trick might not work next time.