Early 2008 MBP hangs on Startup - possible solution

[elgrecomac]

I installed Mavericks via an update and it was a total cluster phoque so....
I did a complete fresh install:
1. I made a bootable RAM stick with 10.9
1.a backed up my entire system using Superduper and also my bootcamp partition using Winclone
2. reformatted my 500GB internal drive including a 150GB FAT32 partition
3. installed 10.9
4. Installed all of my apps
5. Used Winclone to restore windows

Everything seemed fine but I started to get system hangs on bootup. The symptoms were the little grey startup wheel would just stop so I had what I am now lovingly referring to the WHITE SCREEN OF DEATH. (This is Apple's version of Microsoft's Blue Screen of Death).

So I reset SMC, twice....- no luck.
I then reset PRAM once - also no luck....but I read in an the Apple Forums that resetting PRAM multiple times on older systems like mine (again, 2008) may help...and it did.
The net- net: if you experience a similar issue, Reset SMC and do multiple resets of PRAM (3x for me) seems to do the trick.

UPDATE AS OF 11/1/2013: This is absolutely a workaround if your older MBP is hanging on startup with 10.9. It is repeatable....not an elegant fix, but a fix none the less!

I like Mavericks, and I know I'll get flamed for this, but it is beginning to remind me of Windows, given the issues I am reading about. I think that now some of us in the Apple family realize the difficulty of creating an OS that spans generations of hardware like Windows has had to do for 30 years.

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Additional info: I also did this to speed up shutdowns...which also works:

Here you go worked for me, All I need now is to get the one for long start up which has happened since Mavericks.



Type these commands into the terminal window one by one,press enter after each entry, right after go to disk utility repair permissions in the disc utility. Turn off and boot up. All will be fixed

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.coreservices.appleevents ExitTimeOut -int 1

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.securityd ExitTimeOut -int 1

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder ExitTimeOut -int 1

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.diskarbitrationd ExitTimeOut -int 1

sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.coreservices.appleid.authentication ExitTimeOut -int 1