MBA 11" slow startup, even after clean install?

[ssindi]

When I first received my MBA, startup time was around 15 seconds, it was amazing!

Recently though, I NOTICED after updating iTunes to 10.2 (could have happened before!), startup time is now around 25 seconds.

I had tried fixing disk permissions, repairing disk, etc with no avail. So I put in the slick USB drive - there was no more clean install option that I could find, so I erased the Macintosh HD and then performed an install.

What's strange is although I think my MBA is now back to factory settings, it's STILL starting up in 25 seconds!

I'm confused, has anyone else experienced this? Maybe SSD drive performance degrades after a few months? Isn't this unlikely?

Anyone knows how I can truly restore the MBA to its factory settings (other than returning it to Apple, which is not possible at this time lol), or fix this problem? I also tried resetting PRAM and SMC, (both before and after "clean" install) all without success.

Thanks in advance,

Sultan

 

[Susurs]

There is the answer for you (do it on your own risk as I did not quite uderstand what those terminal commands did ):

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2766979&start=15&tstart=0

Direct link to the fix:

http://rifers.org/blogs/gbevin/2009/9/20/slow_startupshutdown_snowleopard


I was so disappointed today after I updated to iTunes 10.2 and it slowed my macbook's boot. Thankfully I found this solution soon and it fixed it for me

Hope it works! Let me know If it helped you too...

 

[ssindi]

Thank you so much! It worked

What's strange is I had done a complete clean install, even wiped all the free space. It was still booting up slowly! How that makes sense I don't know. But it's working now.

Thank you my friend

 

[will0407]

Just tried this, my air is ready to log in after about 10 seconds! Thanks

 

[Boston007]

Wow, great find.

Did iTunes update change the permissions?

 

[iNotion]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Hmm... good to know.
Happened on my iMac after snow leopard upgrades, will try the remedy later today...

 

[Susurs]

Well apparently there are changes to "ownership of startup volume's root directory..." as it states on the webpage with the command line fix. (But I am not sure as I do not understand all those commands well ).
At least I am quite sure that it's 10.2 that messes up something...
There is also a terminal command to check the ownership of the root directory on the same website.

Referring to the clean install boot time... When I started up my Air for the first couple times, it started up slower than it normally does now (12 sec). That happened after combo update as well for a couple times and than it started to boot quickly...(Maybe it is not the case there...that's just how it was with my MacBook).

 

[Susurs]

So...10.2.1 is out there...Anyone tried it? Does it fix this bug or still causes the problem?

 

[chenry]

When you say start-up, are you measuring from:

When you press the power button to the login screen?
Or from the Apple logo to the login screen?

Because on mine I'm getting:

Power on to Apple logo = 35 secs avg
Apple logo to login = 15 secs avg
Shutdown = 3 - 4 secs avg

Cheers

OK. Just tried the wife's MBA 13, and that gets to the Apple logo in 4 secs and to the desktop in 15 secs total.

 

[Susurs]

From power on button till the desktop.

 

[Mac32]

iTunes 10.2.1 is still buggy, i.e. giving longer boot times. Just tried it myself, but the fix posted here does work.

 

[mcuKng]

I just upgraded to iTunes 10.2 and measured boot times.

2 times I got about 25-30 seconds. I don't reboot very often, this was the first time I noticed the long(er) boot time.

When I try it now I get just under 15 seconds from start until desktop appears.

 

[WiseDuck]

I had the same problem but the terminal commands took care of that. This thing boots insanely fast. But in the end it doesnt matter. The standby time is insane so I never really turn it off. ´

 

[Susurs]

I do not understand this...Apple is rolling out one update after another but don't care to even fix this simple thing. I installed iTunes 10.3 today hoping it will not break my startup time but no...it got slow again
...Terminal commands took care of this problem instantly...

 

[TheRealDamager]

Do you all shut down and boot every day of frequently? I only do a full reboot MAYBE once a month, so I wouldn't even notice whether it took 9 or 10 secs longer than usual.

 

[Susurs]

...Well yes. I do switch it off every day. And even if I wouldn't this slowdown would make me worry.

 

[Susurs]

OMG ... New iTunes (10.3.1.) version again ...

 

[Susurs]

Looks like the issue is fixed in 10.3.1 at least for me

 

[Susurs]

WOW. I'm still impressed by those terminal commands. I installed 10.6.8. today and it seemed that spinning logo stayed there for a small bit longer at boot than before so I decided to try those terminal lines just for fun. Now my Air starts without showing spinning thing at all just showing apple logo for a short time. Haven't seen a system before that can do it