# MacBook Pro SMC update



## Yur (Jun 13, 2009)

Hi,

I got an MacBook Pro(late 2008) over here, and it will not boot in less then 5 minutes to Mac OS 10.6. I made a dual boot with Windows, and weirdly enough, that boots quite fast. I tried to reset the PRAM and the SMC, but still no faster startup. Even after a clean install, still no good. Tried another HD, no good. downloaded Firmware and SMC update, it says " This computer does not need this update". I think the firmware/SMC is suspicious, because when i bought it(secondhand) it asked for an internet connection during boot(saw that in verbose mode), but since i did not give it that because i didn't trust the software that was on it, after a clean install it didn't ask for a connection, but i'm afraid that therefore it now has a faulty firmware.

Now i want to know how i can possibly re-install the firmware and SMC, or what else could be the problem.

After is press the power button, it stays for quite a long time at the white screen with the logo while swirling its loading circle, and after that it remains at a blue screen for about 3~4 minutes, after which i can finally use my computer.

Sometimes it shows my desktop quite fast, but then my keyboard and mouse won't work(keyboard doesn't work at all, and cursor will move but does not react on any clicks). After the time it otherwise would have stayed at the blue screen, it finally starts to react to my clicks and key commands.

Quick specs are:
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 Ghz
4GB OCZ ram @ 667 Mhz
250 GB Hitachi HD
Boot ROM version: MBP41.00C1.B03
SMC version: 1.27f2

I hope you have any suggestions.

Thnx in adv,

Yur


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

There is no way to redo the firmware updates. And if they were bad, the Mac wouldn't even boot. Once you see the spinning thing under the Apple logo at the startup, it has handed control to the software, so there is something wrong with the OS install. The disk that you used for the OS X 10.6 install, was it a retail disk, and not a gray restore disk? Did you do the standard install, or a custom install? Have you ran software update to make sure that OS X is up to date? Have you turned off bluetooth and Airport and then shutdown, and rebooted your Mac? Have you opened the console and looked at the system logs to see where there are any big gaps in the time stamps durning start up?


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## Yur (Jun 13, 2009)

Hey,

Ok then, my firmware is ok, and i took a look at console, and there where quite a lot errors... :S. The 10.6 DVD i used was an upgrade CD with which i performed a clean install(overwritten whole disk with zero's). I thought the install was a standard, but i am now re-doing the install. I also wanted to install 10.4 on it, because that was it's original OS, but i don't have the original install CD, and the only 10.4 i have is for PPC computers . Mostly i have bluetooth and Airport off, so most of the times i booted where without them. After the re-install i'll post some more info about the console output.

I found the firmware suspicious because it asked for internet connection to complete the install, but after my re-install it didn't(duh). Can you tell me if when i re-install 
Mac OS 10.6, it installs the newest firmware? Or if it touches it anyway? And if not, then where is the firmware located? On the logic-board?

Thanx for your suggestions however.

Greetz,

Yur


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

The OS install disks will not have firmware on them, that I know of. Those should only come from Software Update. The firmware is located on the effected item. Firmware for video cards is on the video card, firmware for the motherboard is on the motherboard, firmware for the DVD drive is in the DVD drive. It is the information need for the part to know what it is, and how it works, and how to talk to everything it plugs into. Basically core drivers.


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## Yur (Jun 13, 2009)

Ok, thanks for clearing that up.

After a fresh install of OS 10.6, still no good in startup time, but now i got this console log:

11/29/09 10:44:54 AM	com.apple.launchd[1]	*** launchd[1] has started up. ***
11/29/09 10:44:54 AM	com.apple.launchd[1]	*** Verbose boot, will log to /dev/console. ***
11/29/09 10:46:09 AM	com.apple.WindowServer[52]	Sun Nov 29 10:46:09 Yurs-MacBook-Pro.local WindowServer[52] <Error>: kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.
11/29/09 10:46:14 AM	com.apple.notifyd[11]	EV_DELETE failed for file watcher 23
11/29/09 10:46:14 AM	com.apple.notifyd[11]	EV_DELETE failed for file watcher 22
11/29/09 10:46:14 AM	com.apple.notifyd[11]	EV_DELETE failed for file watcher 19
11/29/09 10:46:14 AM	com.apple.notifyd[11]	EV_DELETE failed for file watcher 18
11/29/09 10:46:14 AM	com.apple.notifyd[11]	EV_DELETE failed for file watcher 17
11/29/09 10:46:14 AM	com.apple.notifyd[11]	EV_DELETE failed for file watcher 15
11/29/09 10:46:14 AM	com.apple.notifyd[11]	EV_DELETE failed for file watcher 16
11/29/09 10:46:14 AM	com.apple.notifyd[11]	EV_DELETE failed for file watcher 21
11/29/09 10:50:29 AM	com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[110]	(com.apple.ReportCrash) Falling back to default Mach exception handler. Could not find: com.apple.ReportCrash.Self
11/29/09 10:50:35 AM	com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[110]	(com.apple.Kerberos.renew.plist[136]) Exited with exit code: 1
11/29/09 10:51:54 AM	com.apple.notifyd[11]	EV_DELETE failed for file watcher 43
11/29/09 10:51:54 AM	com.apple.notifyd[11]	EV_DELETE failed for file watcher 39
11/29/09 10:51:54 AM	com.apple.notifyd[11]	EV_DELETE failed for file watcher 38
11/29/09 10:51:54 AM	com.apple.notifyd[11]	EV_DELETE failed for file watcher 37
11/29/09 10:51:54 AM	com.apple.notifyd[11]	EV_DELETE failed for file watcher 35
11/29/09 10:51:54 AM	com.apple.notifyd[11]	EV_DELETE failed for file watcher 42
11/29/09 10:51:54 AM	com.apple.notifyd[11]	EV_DELETE failed for file watcher 36
11/29/09 10:51:55 AM	com.apple.notifyd[11]	EV_DELETE failed for file watcher 41

It's not hard to see where it hangs for over 4 minutes, but i got no clue what it could be where it hangs at, or how to solve it.

Tomorrow i'm gonna send a mail to some other experts, see what they think about my log.

I don't know if i mentioned it before, but i have a dual boot with windows(bootcamp) and that is up and running in about a minute...

Also, when looking in verbose mode, it hangs for half a minute at the firewire controller, and my firewire ports(both 400 and 800) are not working, but they never did. So fixing that would make another 30 sec. difference.

I really appreciate the help you give. 

Greetz,

Yur


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## Yur (Jun 13, 2009)

WEEEUUW! Got it working now! Faulty FireWire bus/controller is the problem, but i dropped it out of the kernel and now it boots perfectly fast.

So, if anyone has this problem, try moving IOFireWireFamily.kext out of it's original folder.

Terminal command for this is: sudo mv /system/library/extensions/IOFireWireFamily.kext ~

~ can be any folder, but now it moves it to your user folder(/users/[your-username]/)

Anyway, @Sinclair_tm, really thanks! 

Greetz,

Yur


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

That is odd that it stops like that. It means that there is a conflict between the hardware and the drivers. It is waiting for it to talk back, but if the firewire is bad, then that would explain it, being it's dead and can't talk back to the OS. Sounds like you should be looking for a new motherboard.


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