If you've started having very slow boot/sleep time problems, read this

Hi. I recently began to have a problem with extremely slow boot and sleep times on my iMac, which gave me great cause for concern.

Overall the Mac would take five minutes to boot (holding on a blue screen for around four minutes) and a couple of minutes to sleep. I recently installed the graphics update and new version of iTunes.

However, on ejecting and unplugging my USB Time Machine drive, the Mac boots up in around 20 seconds and sleeps/wakes almost instantaneously, so that's obviously where the issue lies.

I hope this is of some help to someone. If this is a problem for you, go to http://www.apple.com/feedback/ and let them know so they can work on a fix.

Just for a test (and my curiosity), could you try it with your external drive attached with Time Machine turned on and with Time Machine turned off. And post what external drive you're using.

This can help narrow it down to: 1) Time Machine issue, 2) external drive issue (actually the case electronics), or 3) possibly only in conjunction with Time Machine and particular external drives.

FYI: Did not experience this with the OWC Mercury Elite Pro case.

I didn't try a re-boot, just putting it to sleep. The problem seems to occur with Time Machine on or off, and regardless of whether the drive is mounted. Only disconnecting the drive at the USB port cures the problem, which didn't happen to me before the most recent software update. The drive is a Freecom Classic 500GB External HDD, USB2.

I've seen this before several times. In 10.1 it used to KP the machine and in 10.4 it was just annoying. It always happened to me with a specific firewire drive set all of which had the same 911 chipset. I suspect it is something similar in your case. You can try doing an A&I, but I won't guarantee it will help.

Hmmm. But it's only just started happening since the graphics update, and it's a USB drive.

Have you tried any other USB drives? Doe it happen with multiple brands or generic ones?

Hmmm... it appears my iPod shuffle has died; disconnecting this has resolved my slow boot/sleep/wake problem. I hereby apologise unreservedly to my Freecom drive.

Both are connected via a USB hub.

I too was having similar boot times (6.5 minutes!) so i investigated this as well. Went to MacFixIt and found this:

http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20080227123732222

After unplugging my Belkin USP hub (MODEL # F5U304), boot time dropped to acceptable 1.3 minutes. WD MyBook attached to FW800 has no effect.

Just FYI.

Mark

So, I am having the same problems as posted in this thread, but I'm not subscribed to MacFixIt.com, so I can't see the posted solution.

I have 3 USB Drives connected to a USB hub which is then plugged into my MBP. I am running 10.5.2 with all the latest updates. The drives are a 1 TB WD MyBook, 320 GB WD MyBook, and a 320 GB Seagate Something or Other. The 320 GB Seagate is partitioned into a 120 GB Clone drive and the remainder a storage drive.

With the USB hub and all drives connected, boot times are around at least 4-5 minutes, the majority of which are stuck at the blue screen before the login window.

With the USB hub/drives disconnected, the computer boots faster than any other computer I've seen before.

Help?

Boot first, connect after that? After all, rebooting or powering down completely is a rarity on a Mac, so doing tha once every few day shouldnt be a problem.
Other tha tham no idea what might be wrong ...

I found it was my iPod shuffle, and restoring that solved the problem. Try disconnecting USB devices and see if it makes a difference.

I have a Western Digital 160GB external. If it is connected during bootup, it increases my bootup time several minutes.

I too had this problem of 5 minute startups, I've installed so many system cleaners and other tidbits over the last few days trying to fix it.

Read this, unplugged my iPod shuffle and dock, and voila, less than 30 seconds again!

Thanks guys, this was the most helpful topic ever!

I have a Iomega external 170GB Firewire HDD. (model: RPHD-CG)
Same thing, boot up time was 7 minutes 25 seconds.
Unplugged the firewire connection .... whooooosh, 38 seconds