Fixes for Slow Startup and Shutdown for Snow Leopard and 'Buttonless' Trackpad Physical Clicking Problem.

Hey there! Here are some of the solutions which you may find helpful to problems which I had previously on my machine.

1. Ever since I had my logic board replaced, startup and shutdown have been predominantly slower.

My search for an answer on forums has proved unsuccessful. However, I finally figured what it was eventually. It turns out that the root account is no longer assigned to the startup volume's root directory, which ultimately causes the kernal prelinking to fail. So very simply, open your terminal.app and type :

sudo chown root:admin /

(type your password and hit the return key)

sudo kextcache -system-prelinked-kernel

sudo kextcache -system-caches

Shutdown is back to the usual 3 seconds for me :)

Oh, if you are afraid to meddle around with the terminal codes, you could try and see if you need the fix in the first place. Open your terminal.app and type :

sudo ls -al /

(type your password and hit the return key)

You'll then get something like this :

total 37197

drwxrwxr-x 42 root admin 1496 Jan 24 16:35 .

The above line with the dot should state that it is an admin, otherwise you will need to type in the commands above :)

1.1 Another possible cause for slow startup and shutdown would be having a copy of parallels desktop 5 installed on your machine. I have no idea why, but it has been reported by users to cause massive delays. The obvious possible fix would be uninstalling and waiting for an update by Parallels(that is if it bothers you enough, heh heh). Oh and make sure you use the uninstall package that was included on your Parallels DVD.

-------

2. Some of you using the new 'buttonless' multitouch trackpad(applies only to unibodies with removable batteries) may notice that physical clicking tends to fail sometimes, or it requires you to press down much harder than normal. No worries. All you need to do is to remove your battery and you will see the underside of your trackpad. Close to the bottom, you will notice a funny looking screw. Use a flat-head screwdriver to tighten it very carefully, only 90˚ at a time.

Photo courtesy of http://teravoxel.files.wordpress.com/

Happy fixing! ;)