MacPro 2008 3,1 10.9.5 - Increasingly longer boot times and SMC console errors

[Moleyman69]

Hi everyone,

I hope that you had a good holiday season and are enjoying the New Year.

I have an issue with my MacPro 2008 3,1 and hope that someone can find the time to help me, please.

I have been using a Samsung 830 256GB SSD for my boot disk for a couple of years and the performance has been great. When i booted the Mac, it would only take less than 2 "spins of the cog" before the Mac had booted up.

Then, one day I had a hard crash of the Mac - I think it was when I was shutting the machine down (was stuck on grey screen for what seemed an eternity but probably about 10-15mins as I was putting my son to bed at the same time) so I had to hold the power button in for 7 seconds to get the Mac to power off.

Since then, I noticed that occassionally I would get error messages appear down the screen when I booted up (but not on every boot up) and that it was starting to take up to 7 or 8 "spins of the cog" to get booted up.

As my SSD was getting full (only had about 40GB free) I thought that I would buy a Samsung 850 Evo 500GB SSD and do a completely fresh install of Mavericks (from a USB stick if that helps). Which I did a couple of weeks ago. Initially, things seemed great (no more booting error messages) and back to 1-and-a-bit spins of the cog to boot up. Yay!

However, the Mac is now taking longer and longer to boot up and is now taking up to 12 spins of the cog to boot up.

I have looked in the Console and found these comments which look like errors to me but mean nothing to me:

12/01/2016 21:19:20.000 kernel[0]: SMC::smcReadKeyAction ERROR: smcReadData8 failed for key $Num (kSMCKeyNotFound)
12/01/2016 21:19:20.000 kernel[0]: SMC::smcReadKeyAction ERROR $Num kSMCKeyNotFound(0x84) fKeyHashTable=0x0
12/01/2016 21:19:20.000 kernel[0]: SMC::smcReadKeyAction ERROR: smcReadData8 failed for key LsNM (kSMCKeyNotFound)
12/01/2016 21:19:20.000 kernel[0]: SMC::smcReadKeyAction ERROR LsNM kSMCKeyNotFound(0x84) fKeyHashTable=0x0
12/01/2016 21:19:20.000 kernel[0]: SMC::smcGetLightshowVers ERROR: smcReadKey LsNM failed (kSMCKeyNotFound)
12/01/2016 21:19:20.000 kernel[0]: SMC::smcPublishLightshowVersion ERROR: smcGetLightshowVers failed (kSMCKeyNotFound)
12/01/2016 21:19:20.000 kernel[0]: SMC::smcInitHelper ERROR: smcPublishLightshowVersion failed (kSMCKeyNotFound)
12/01/2016 21:19:20.000 kernel[0]: Previous Shutdown Cause: 5
12/01/2016 21:19:20.000 kernel[0]: SMC::smcInitHelper ERROR: MMIO regMap == NULL - fall back to old SMC mode

I am wondering if this is what is causing by slow boot times now.

I have tried PRAM resets (holding for up to 3 sets of chimes), resetting the SMC, booting with no USB devices attached, complete OS reinstall from scratch, ran Passmark MemTest 6.1 for 24 hours with no errors...

One thing I did wonder is if it could be anything to do with the coin cell battery - this is the original battery still from 2008. However, the date and time are retained correctly...

If anyone can offer any help that would be great.

I can post the whole boot cycle entry from the console if this helps, but I didn't want to spam the board needlessly.

Many thanks in advance,

Moley.

 

[devon807]

Hey Moley, I had the same issue while using Mavericks, are you using a dual boot setup?

 

[Moleyman69]

Hey Moley, I had the same issue while using Mavericks, are you using a dual boot setup?

Hi,

Thank you for taking the time to reply.

Apologies for the tardiness of my reply but sometimes life just gets in the way of other things, doesn't it?

I'm not running a dual boot scenario, no.

One thing I have noticed though is that the longer boot times only happen when I do a cold boot; if I restart my Mac then it reboots in 1 to 2 spins of the cog. I can repeat this behaviour all day long it seems.

Today I tried replacing the battery but that hasn't made any difference.

Thanks again for replying.

All the best,

Moley

 

[TonyK]

Have you reset SMC?

 

[Moleyman69]

Hi there.

I have tried resetting the SMC. Several times in fact, unfortunately.

Strange how it only happens with a cold boot; as I mention when I restart it is back to its normal 1 to 2 spins of the cog...

All the best,

Moley

 

[TonyK]

Searched Google for one of the errors and came up with this: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6114668?tstart=0

Also found this but not sure about it: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6227939?tstart=0

Here are detailed instructions from the 2nd link: https://discussions.apple.com/message/26098840#26098840

Maybe these will help.

 

[handheldgames]

Searched Google for one of the errors and came up with this: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6114668?tstart=0

Also found this but not sure about it: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6227939?tstart=0

Here are detailed instructions from the 2nd link: https://discussions.apple.com/message/26098840#26098840

Maybe these will help.

Hmmm..
When is the last time you cleaned out the dust bunnies? it could also be a low voltage situation at initial boot.

 

[Moleyman69]

Hi everyone,

TonyK - thanks for the links; after doing some further googling and realising I can define custom queries in console based on the severity of messages it seems like the console errors "may" not be anything to worry about. I have checked on some iMacs at work and they also get these kind of errors on boot in their console logs too.

handheldgames - the dust was blown out towards the end of autumn/fall and is something that I try to do every six months or so (although sometimes it is a little longer). As for the low voltage situation, I did wonder something similar which is why I thought I would try changing the battery - just in case...

Thanks again to the both of you and enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Moley