Q: EFI Boot ROM update problem
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Feb 5, 2016 11:18 AMby Kappy,You could create a small 20 GB partition on your HDD, get a copy of the full Mavericks installer to install onto the small partition. You may be able to re-download Mavericks from your App Store's Purchases page assuming you obtained it from the App Store in the past. If not, then you are out of luck unless you can find help at your local Apple Store.
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Feb 5, 2016 11:36 AMby my ginger,Usually the SMC and EFI updates happen by way of an update of the operating system or a software update from apple. On newer OS this is from the app store . When trying to update the EFI you would get a message that your computer does not need this update. Which would mean you EFI is up to date. Is there a reason you are trying to update the EFI?
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Feb 5, 2016 11:40 AMby Kappy,HelpfulNot from the installer. It cannot be used like a normal system. It will install OS X, but that is it. If you have a Mavericks installer you can install onto a USB flash drive of 16 GBs or larger and boot the computer from it. Should be room enough to store the EFI updater as well.
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Feb 5, 2016 11:53 AMby _MacArthur_,@my ginger, I have a fresh install of El Cap on a new TRIM enabled Crucial MX200 500 GB SSD and think the boot time is way to long when I compare with other MBP late 2011 on SSD. I imagined that it could have something to do with the firmware. When I browsed what's installed it seems as if my machine is on an old version of EFI Boot ROM (MBP81.0047.B2C). At least I found references to that version from 2014 and the newest version for MBP late 2011 on support.apple.com is from 2015, the one that requires Mavericks (MBP81.0047.2AB).
About EFI and SMC firmware updates for Intel-based Mac computers - Apple Support
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Feb 5, 2016 12:02 PMby Duane,I think that the B2C you have is newer than the one mentioned in that update. As 'my ginger' stated, these updates are generally pushed with OS updates and therefore running the standalone installer is not needed. Forcing a firmware version update over the system's objections can lead to problems.
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Feb 5, 2016 12:04 PMby _MacArthur_,The SMC is the latest and it was obviously updated by the El Cap install (from App Store). I don't get a message saying that I don't need to update the Boot ROM update I try to install. I just get an error message saying that the update requires 10.8.5 to 10.9.5.
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Feb 5, 2016 12:11 PMby my ginger,The thing is that you computer came installed with ether 10.6 or 10.7.2, depending on the build. And if you were on top of all the updates, the EFI and SMC update will come in that way. They are usually a security update or part of it. https://support.apple.com/kb/PH22219?locale=en_US
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Feb 5, 2016 3:45 PMby my ginger,Did you change hard drives because you other one was slow? Boot time is determined by the amount of startup items and launch daemon. It goes thru a test of hardware including memory . then startup disk and launch items. The larger the list of startup items and launch daemons the slower it starts. You do not say how much memory you have installed. But that is one way to speed things up, as I believe yours will take up to 16GB of memory.
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Feb 6, 2016 2:11 AMby _MacArthur_,@my ginger, I changed to a 500 GB Crucial MX200 SSD to speed up my a bit old MBP over all. Boot time doesn't really matter. If it takes 10 or 20 seconds to boot one time per day doesn't matter, but compared with other similar systems it's a bit sluggish and that seemed to me as if I might have some firmware issue. I have upgraded my MBP to 16 GB Kingston memory and it's a clean install of El Cap. Not an upgrade install. I have very little sturtup items and launch daemons at boot. My MBP is a late 2011 and it has the 6 Gb/s SATA link. The write/read speed in Blackmagic is ~400/500 MB/s, which is good I think. I have a 80 GB Bootcamp partition on the disk with Win7 U installed and strangely enough it boots very quick in Win 7 compared with "real" wintel machines. But maybe you gave me the key to what slows down the boot. Is there a memory test at boot that goes through all my 16 GB? If it's so then that memory test would take 4 times longer than with the original 4 GB RAM. Can the memory test be switched off with some change in the EFI? It would be interesting just to verify the memory test theory.
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Feb 6, 2016 8:36 AMby my ginger,At one time I was able to find an article on what takes place at startup. Which did include a short memory test and a verify of the startup volume. But I found thishttp://www.macworld.com/article/2047747/take-control-of-startup-and-login-items. html Turning off disable automatic login helps to speed up the startup process. I don't think there is a way to stop the memory test. I run a Macbook 2010 2.4GH in Snow Leopard and my startup times about 1 minute. My wife, who has a PC ,windows 10 takes longer . And her's is a 2.3GH I5 with more memory that mine.
