Could a SMC or PRAM Reset Affect a Superdrive's CD and DVD Read/Write?

Hi. Would a SMC or PRAM reset make the Superdrive read CD and DVDs better (it mounts CD-RWs and DVD+RWs which is usually labels as untitled DVD but it can't seem to mount original disks that are in good condition like: Snow Leopard DVDs that came with this iMac, Grand Theft Auto IV, Spellforce 2: Shadow Wars)? Or SMS and PRAM resets are not related to Superdrive?
Thank you in advance.
God bless.

The SMCreset does affect the superdrive but your condidion may be from dust/dirt in the DVD on the lens system. Mine is real sensitive to dirt and smudges on the actual DVD but occasional lens cleaning helps. You can get DVD lens cleaners (with the tiny brushes on the disk) from most vendors that carry the media.

Similar Messages

Flashing question mark on start up -Pram reset worked now it's back and pram doesn't work

So the other half has crashed my mid 2012 macbook pro twice in two days (watching youtube). First time I managed to get passed the flashing question mark folder icon using pram reset now this doesn't work and it just goes to that icon. Hard drive is missing in. utility so can't whipe that either
any suggestions on what has failed, it's only 1.5 years old so I'm really disappointed

A flashing question mark or globe appears when you start your Mac
Question (?) Mark, Blinking Folder, or Gray Screen at Startup
These are related but not identical issues. Their causes are outlined in Intel-based Mac- Startup sequence and error codes, symbols. Solutions may be found in:
A flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac
Mac OS X- Gray screen appears during startup
In most cases the problems may be caused by one or more of these:
a. Problem with the computer's PRAM - See Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM.
b. Boot drive's directory has been corrupted - Repair with Disk Utility.
c. Critical system files are damaged or deleted - Reinstall OS X.
d. The disk drive is physically non-functional - Replace the hard drive.
Note that the information I have provided is what Apple recommends, If other users suggest different solutions than found here, then be sure what they recommend does not impact on your warranty, if any, or ability to get continuing Apple service.
Please don't start removing drives or changing cables unless you know what you are doing and have exhausted other non-invasive alternatives outlined here. If you perform any work yourself that is unapproved by Apple, then you will void any warranty you may have and lose all further Apple Support.
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
The main difference if you are using Lion or Mountain Lion is that you must first boot from the Recovery HD. Simply boot from the Recovery HD to perform the above.
Reinstall Snow Leopard Without Erasing The drive
1. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
2. Reinstall Snow Leopard
If the drive is OK then quit DU and return to the installer. Proceed with reinstalling OS X. Note that the Snow Leopard installer will not erase your drive or disturb your files. After installing a fresh copy of OS X the installer will move your Home folder, third-party applications, support items, and network preferences into the newly installed system.
Download and install Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1.
Reinstalling Lion/Mountain Lion Without Erasing The Drive
Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the main menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion: Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion and click on the Continue button.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

Macbook Pro Retina over 200F 5-10 fps in games (after SMC/PRAM Reset)

I have struggled with this for too long now.
I have read every single thread I can find about the issue and tried both complete reinstalled of Bootcamp, SMC reset, PRAM Reset, EFI updates, etc.
When I first got the Macbook, I could run our game development setup in around 60-80 fps.
I use the labtop for game development in Bootcamp (Windows 7 64)
Currently im not able to get more than 10 FPS. And it runs very bad - it runs in 30 fps the first second, the next its a 5, and then it goes up again.
Even though nothing happens on screen.
When i launch a game the GPU and CPU is over 200F in heat.
And thats with all the fans on constantly.
Im very worried here - Im travelling next week where I need this machine to be able to work.
What should I do? Is it broken? Should I get a new one, or will the same thing happen?
Thanks a lot in advance guys!

I would strongly suggest you take it into Apple Store to get it looked at.
In the mean time I can only suggest changing power management to see if this fixes it for now:
You can change the way your computer hybernates from hybernatemode 3 to 0.
3 = RAM is powered on while sleeping, but RAM contents are also written to disk before sleeping. In the event of total power loss, the system enters hibernation mode automatically. The downside to this mode is that it is very slow. The upside is that it is very unlikely that you will lose any unsaved work should your mbp lose power.
0 = RAM powered on while sleeping, safe sleep disabled, and super-fast wake. The downside to this mode is that it does not save any of your work, should your mbp lose power, and you would have to remember to manually save before putting to sleep. The upside is that your computer would sleep & wake up in around 2 seconds.
Go to Terminal & type:
pmset -g | grep hibernatemode
That should give you a result of 3.
To change it to 0 type:
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
It might ask you to enter your password.
Then delete the old sleepimage file:
cd /var/vm
sudo rm sleepimage
Just remember, saving will have to be done manually by you,

Help with BBOD! Can't seem to get to the bottom of it. Have tried SMC reset, PRAM reset, reinstall of Mavericks, Carbon copy clone, checked my CPU, Memory is 500GB and I'm only using 250GB thereabouts.

Here's what I've tried;
SMC reset
Pram reset
Looked at activity monitor - mostly seems OK aside from a kernel task taking up memory (approx 460MB) but CPU is around 96% idle.
Fan seems to be running constantly - heats up noticeably when I close the MBP
Despite a re-install of Mavericks, MBP is running frustratingly slow. Just typing is enough to bring on the beach ball.
Have backed up everything, reinstalled from a clone, checked through Apple Hardware test and carried out a Verify Disk Permission - nothing was reported, erased the drive and set up again - problem still stands.
Memory is running at 3.43 GB without anything really running bar Safari.
A little loath to install SMC fan control without knowing what's wrong.
Checked software updates.
Can anyone tell me what the matter is? Does this have a fix?
Have been reading up various posts but to no avail so have resorted to posting myself.
Does this sound familiar to anyone?
Many, many thanks
Roque

1. This procedure is a diagnostic test. It changes nothing, for better or worse, and therefore will not, in itself, solve the problem. But with the aid of the test results, the solution may take a few minutes, instead of hours or days.
2. If you don't already have a current backup, back up all data before doing anything else. The backup is necessary on general principle, not because of anything in the test procedure. Backup is always a must, and when you're having any kind of trouble with the computer, you may be at higher than usual risk of losing data, whether you follow these instructions or not.
There are ways to back up a computer that isn't fully functional. Ask if you need guidance.
3. Below are instructions to run a UNIX shell script, a type of program. All it does is to collect information about the state of the computer. That information goes nowhere unless you choose to share it. However, you should be cautious about running any kind of program (not just a shell script) at the request of a stranger. If you have doubts, search this site for other discussions in which this procedure has been followed without any report of ill effects. If you can't satisfy yourself that the instructions are safe, don't follow them. Ask for other options.
Here's a summary of what you need to do, if you choose to proceed:
☞ Copy a line of text in this window to the Clipboard.
☞ Paste into the window of another application.
☞ Wait for the test to run. It usually takes a few minutes.
☞ Paste the results, which will have been copied automatically, back into a reply on this page.
The sequence is: copy, paste, wait, paste again. You don't need to copy a second time. Details follow.
4. You may have started the computer in "safe" mode. Preferably, these steps should be taken in “normal” mode, under the conditions in which the problem is reproduced. If the system is now in safe mode and works well enough in normal mode to run the test, restart as usual. If you can only test in safe mode, do that.
5. If you have more than one user, and the one affected by the problem is not an administrator, then please run the test twice: once while logged in as the affected user, and once as an administrator. The results may be different. The user that is created automatically on a new computer when you start it for the first time is an administrator. If you can't log in as an administrator, test as the affected user. Most personal Macs have only one user, and in that case this section doesn’t apply. Don't log in as root.
6. The script is a single long line, all of which must be selected. You can accomplish this easily by triple-clicking anywhere in the line. The whole line will highlight, though you may not see all of it in the browser window, and you can then copy it. If you try to select the line by dragging across the part you can see, you won't get all of it.
Triple-click anywhere in the line of text below on this page to select it:
PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/libexec;clear;cd;p=(Software Hardware Memory Diagnostics Power FireWire Thunderbolt USB Fonts 51 4 1000 25 5120 KiB/s 1024 85 \\b%% 20480 1 MB/s 25000 ports 'com.autodesk.AutoCad com.evenflow.dropbox com.google.GoogleDrive' DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES\ DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH -86 ` route -n get default|awk '/e:/{print $2}' ` 25 N\\/A down up 102400 25600 recvfrom sendto CFBundleIdentifier 25 25 25 );N5=${#p[@]};p[N5]=` networksetup -listnetworkserviceorder|awk ' NR>1 { sub(/^$[0-9]+$ /,"");n=$0;getline;} $NF=="'${p[45]}')" { sub(/.$/,"",$NF);print n;exit;} ' `;f=('\n%s: %s\n' '\n%s\n\n%s\n' '\nRAM details\n%s\n' %s\ %s '%s\n\t(%s)\n' );S0() { echo ' { q=$NF+0;$NF="";u=$(NF-1);$(NF-1)="";gsub(/^ +| +$/,"");if(q>='${p[$1]}')printf("%s (UID %s) is using %s '${p[$2]}'",$0,u,q);} ';};s=(' /^ *$|CSConfigDot/d;s/^ */ /;s/[-0-9A-Fa-f]{22,}/UUID/g;s/(ochat)\.[^.]+(\..+)/\1\2/;/Shared/!s/\/Users\/[^/]+/~/g ' ' s/^ +//;5p;6p;8p;12p;' ' {sub(/^ +/,"")};NR==6;NR==13&&$2<'${p[10]} ' 1s/://;3,6d;/[my].+:/d;s/^ {4}//;H;${ g;s/\n$//;/s: [^EO]|x([^08]|02[^F]|8[^0])/p;} ' ' 5h;6{ H;g;/P/!p;} ' ' ($1~/^Cy/&&$3>'${p[11]}')||($1~/^Cond/&&$2!~/^N/) ' ' /:$/{ s/ *:$//;x;s/\n//;/Apple|Genesy|Intel|SMSC/d;s/\n.*//;/\)/p;};/^ *(V.+ [0N]|Man).+ /{ s/ 0x.... //;s/[()]//g;s/(.+: )(.+)/ (\2)/;H;} ' ' s/^.*C/C/;H;${ g;/No th|pms/!p;} ' '/= [^GO]/p' '{$1=""};1' ' /Of/!{ s/^.+is |\.//g;p;} ' ' $0&&!/:/;END { if(NR<100)print "com.apple.";} ' ' $3~/[0-9]:[0-9]{2}$/ { $4="";gsub(" "," ");gsub(/:[0-9:a-f]{14}/,"");} { print|"tail -n'${p[12]}'";} ' ' NR==2&&$4<='${p[13]}' { print $4;} ' ' END { $2/=256;if($2>='${p[15]}')print int($2) } ' ' NR!=13{next};{sub(/[+-]$/,"",$NF)};'"`S0 21 22`" 'NR==2'"`S0 37 17`" ' NR!=5||$8!~/[RW]/{next};{ $(NF-1)=$1;$NF=int($NF/10000000);for(i=1;i<=3;i++){$i="";$(NF-1-i)="";};};'"`S0 19 20`" 's:^:/:p' '/\.kext\/(Contents\/)?Info\.plist$/p' ' s/^.{52}//;s/ .+//p ' ' /Launch[AD].+\.plist$/;END{if(NR<100)print "/System/";} ' '/\.xpc\/(Contents\/)?Info\.plist$/p' ' NR>1&&!/0x|\.[0-9]+$|com\.apple\.launchctl\.(Aqua|Background|System)$/ { print $3;} ' '/\.(framew|lproj)/d;/plist:|:.+(M.+exec|scrip)/s/:[^:]+//p' '/root/p' ' !/\/Contents\/.+\/Contents|Applic|Autom|Frameworks/&&/Lib.+\/Info.plist$/;END{if(NR<100)print "/System/"};' '/^\/usr\/lib\/.+dylib$/p' '/\/etc\/(auto_m|hosts[^.]|peri)/s/^\.\/[^/]+//p' ' /\/(Contents\/.+\/Contents|Frameworks)\//d;p;' 's/\/(Contents\/)?Info.plist$//;p' ' { gsub("^| ","||kMDItem'${p[35]}'=");sub("^.."," ") };1 ' p '{print $3"\t"$1}' 's/\'$'\t''.+//p' 's/1/On/p' '/Prox.+: [^0]/p' '$2>'${p[9]}'{$2=$2-1;print}' ' BEGIN { i="'${p[26]}'";M1='${p[16]}';M2='${p[18]}';M3='${p[31]}';M4='${p[32]}';} !/^A/ { next;} /%/ { getline;if($5<M1) a="user "$2"%, system "$4"%";} /disk0/&&$4>M2 { b=$3" ops/s, "$4" blocks/s";} $2==i { if(c) { d=$3+$4+$5+$6;next;};if($4>M3||$6>M4) c=int($4/1024)" in, "int($6/1024)" out";} END { if(a) print "CPU: "a;if(b) print "I/O: "b;if(c) print "Net: "c" (KiB/s)";if(d) print "Net errors: "d" packets/s";} ' ' /r\[0\] /&&$NF!~/^1(0|72\.(1[6-9]|2[0-9]|3[0-1])|92\.168)\./ { print $NF;exit;} ' ' !/^T/ { printf "(static)";exit;} ' '/apsd|OpenD/!s/:.+//p' ' (/k:/&&$3!~/(255\.){3}0/ )||(/v6:/&&$2!~/A/ ) ' ' /lR/ { if($2<='${p[25]}')print $2;} ' ' BEGIN { FS=":";} $3~/(sh|ng|ic)$/ { n=split($3,a,".");sub(/_2.+/,"",a[n-1]);b=b"\n"$2" "a[n-1]" "a[n]" "$1;c=c$1;} END { d="sort|tail -n'${p[38]}'";print b|d;close(d);if(c)print("\n\t* Code injection");} ' ' NR!=4{next} {$NF/=10240} '"`S0 27 14`" ' END { if($3~/[0-9]/)print$3;} ' ' BEGIN { L='${p[36]}';} !/^[[:space:]]*(#.*)?$/ { l++;if(l<=L) f=f"\n "$0;} END { F=FILENAME;if(!F) exit;if(!f) f="\n [N/A]";"file -b "F|getline T;if(T!~/^(A.+ E.+ text$|POSIX sh.+ text ex)/) F=F" ("T")";printf("\nContents of %s\n%s\n",F,f);if(l>L) printf("\n ...and %s more line(s)\n",l-L);} ' ' BEGIN{FS="= "} /Path/{print $2} ' ' /^ +B/{ s/.+= |(-[0-9]+)?\.s.+//g;p;} ' ' END{print NR} ' ' /id: N|te: Y/{i++} END{print i} ' ' /:/{$0="'"${p[28]}"'"};1;' '/ en/!s/\.//p' );c1=(system_profiler pmset\ -g nvram fdesetup find syslog df vm_stat sar ps sudo\ crontab sudo\ iotop top pkgutil PlistBuddy whoami cksum kextstat launchctl sudo\ launchctl crontab 'sudo defaults read' stat lsbom mdfind ' for i in ${p[24]};do ${c1[18]} ${c2[27]} $i;done;' defaults\ read scutil sudo\ dtrace sudo\ profiles sed\ -En awk /S*/*/P*/*/*/C*/*/airport networksetup mdutil );c2=(com.apple.loginwindow\ LoginHook '-c Print /L*/P*/loginw*' '-c Print L*/P*/*loginit*' '-c Print L*/Saf*/*/E*.plist' '~ $TMPDIR.. $ -flags +sappnd,schg,uappnd,uchg -o ! 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B1&&C2 28;D12 15 37 25 8;A1 0 $((N1+2)) 3;C0;D13 0 $((N1+3)) 4 3;D22 0 $((N1+4)) 5 4;for i in 0 1 2;do D13 0 $((N1+5+i)) 6 $((N3+i));done;D13 1 10 7 9;D13 1 11 8 10;D22 2 12 9 11;D12 3 13 10 12;D23 4 19 44 13;D23 5 14 12 14;D22 6 36 13 15;D22 7 37 14 16;D23 8 15 38 17;D22 9 16 16 18;B1&&{ D22 11 17 17 20;for i in 0 1;do D22 28 $((N2+i)) 45 $((N4+i));done;};D22 12 39 15 21;A1 13 40 18;B2 4;B3 4 0 19;A3 14 6 32 0;B4 0 5 11;A1 17 41 20;B7 5;C3 22;B4 4 6 21;A3 14 7 32 6;B4 0 7 11;B3 4 0 22;A3 14 6 32 0;B4 0 8 11;B5 7 8;B1&&{ A2 19 26 23;B7 7;C3 23;};A2 18 26 23;B7 7;C3 24;A2 4 20 21;B7 6;B2 9;A4 14 7 52 9;B2 10;B6 9 10 4;C3 25;D13 4 21 24 26;B4 4 12 26;B3 4 13 27;A1 4 22 29;B7 12;B2 14;A4 14 6 52 14;B2 15;B6 14 15 4;B3 0 0 30;C3 29;A1 4 23 27;B7 13;C3 30;D23 24 24 32 31;D13 25 37 32 33;A1 23 18 28;B2 16;A2 16 25 33;B7 16;B3 0 0 34;B2 21;A6 47 21&&C0;B1&&{ D13 21 0 32 19;D13 10 42 32 40;D22 29 35 46 39;};D23 14 1 48 42;D12 34 43 53 44;D22 0 $((N1+8)) 51 32;D13 4 8 41 6;D12 26 28 35 34;D13 27 29 36 35;A2 27 32 39&&{ B2 19;A2 33 33 40;B2 20;B6 19 20 3;};C2 36;D23 33 34 42 37;D22 32 31 43 38;D23 20 42 32 41;D23 14 2 48 43;D13 4 5 32 1;D22 4 4 50 0;D13 14 3 49 5;D23 22 9 37 7;A7;C2 2;} 2>/dev/null|pbcopy;exit 2>&-
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.
7. Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Click anywhere in the Terminal window and paste by pressing command-V. The text you pasted should vanish immediately. If it doesn't, press the return key.
8. If you see an error message in the Terminal window such as "syntax error," enter
exec bash
and press return. Then paste the script again.
9. If you're logged in as an administrator, you'll be prompted for your login password. Nothing will be displayed when you type it. You will not see the usual dots in place of typed characters. Make sure caps lock is off. Type carefully and then press return. You may get a one-time warning to be careful. If you make three failed attempts to enter the password, the test will run anyway, but it will produce less information. In most cases, the difference is not important. If you don't know the password, or if you prefer not to enter it, press the key combination control-C or just press return three times at the password prompt. Again, the script will still run.
If you're not logged in as an administrator, you won't be prompted for a password. The test will still run. It just won't do anything that requires administrator privileges.
10. The test may take a few minutes to run, depending on how many files you have and the speed of the computer. A computer that's abnormally slow may take longer to run the test. While it's running, there will be nothing in the Terminal window and no indication of progress. Wait for the line
[Process completed]
to appear. If you don't see it within half an hour or so, the test probably won't complete in a reasonable time. In that case, close the Terminal window and report the results. No harm will be done.
11. When the test is complete, quit Terminal. The results will have been copied to the Clipboard automatically. They are not shown in the Terminal window. Please don't copy anything from there. All you have to do is start a reply to this comment and then paste by pressing command-V again.
At the top of the results, there will be a line that begins with "Model Identifier." If you don't see that, but instead see a mass of gibberish, you didn't wait for the "Process completed" message to appear in the Terminal window. Please wait for it and try again.
If any private information, such as your name or email address, appears in the results, anonymize it before posting. Usually that won't be necessary.
12. When you post the results, you might see the message, "You have included content in your post that is not permitted." It means that the forum software has misidentified something in the post as a violation of the rules. If that happens, please post the test results on Pastebin, then post a link here to the page you created.
Note: This is a public forum, and others may give you advice based on the results of the test. They speak only for themselves, and I don't necessarily agree with them.
Copyright © 2014 by Linc Davis. As the sole author of this work, I reserve all rights to it except as provided in the Use Agreement for the Apple Support Communities website ("ASC"). Readers of ASC may copy it for their own personal use. Neither the whole nor any part may be redistributed.

Brightness setting missing after ML upgrade - SMC & PRAM resets don't fix

I've seen a few posts on this issue but none of the solutions have worked for me. PRAM reset definitely worked but did not bring back the brightness settings, and I've tried both SMC resets for portable macs (easily removable battery and non-easy) - but I don't know what to look for to know these worked right... doing ctrl + option + shift + power button when off resulted in a long tone noise, so I assumed I did this correctly to reset SMC?
Anyways, they didn't work, and I'm stuck with an unadjustable screen brightness that burns my eyes out at night time. It was previously adjustable before the mountain lion upgrade from snow leopard.
My specs:
MacBook Pro 2.4ghz 15" - Mid/Late 2007 (Model A1226)

Try
Reset SMC http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
Then reset the > NVRAM & PRAM
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379?viewlocale=en_US
Pete

Could PRAM reset and other reset cause optical drive not to work?

My Superdrive on my Powerbook G4 12-inch was working normally, reading and burning CDs and DVDs, until the very first time I attempted to use it following a P-RAM reset and one other reset (I forget the name) done with Applecare tech support, over the phone. Now when I insert a CD or DVD, it sounds like the computer tries to read it, but discs are ejected after about 30 seconds, never having shown up on desktop.
To summarize, could the above-described resets have caused the problem with my optical drive?
Thank you!

Womanhattan:
The article Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM explains what the PRAM is and what resetting can do. There is no mention of the optical drive in it.
I don't know what caused your optical drive to start rejecting media, but I suspect it is not related to PRAM.
Good luck.
cornelius

SMC & PRAM Resetting: Should We Reset Every So Often for Maintenance?

Hi. Some experts like Leo Laporte make a fresh reinstall of their OS every 6 months or every year I think, even if there's no problem with the OS. Should it apply to resetting the PRAM and SMC? Should these two be reset every so often (how frequently) even if there's no problem as a preventative measure?
Thank you in advance. Have a great holy weelk and advanced happy easter.
God bless.

How to maintain a Mac
1. Make two or more backups of all your files, keeping at least one off site at all times in case of disaster. One backup is not enough to be safe. Don’t back up your backups; all should be made directly from the original data. Don’t rely completely on any single backup method, such as Time Machine. If you get an indication that a backup has failed, don't ignore it.
2. Keep your software up to date. In the App Store or Software Update preference pane (depending on the OS version), you can configure automatic notifications of updates to OS X and other Mac App Store products. Some third-party applications from other sources have a similar feature, if you don’t mind letting them phone home. Otherwise you have to check yourself on a regular basis.
Keeping up to date is especially important for complex software that modifies the operating system, such as device drivers. Before installing any Apple update, you must check that all such modifications that you use are compatible. Incompatibility with third-party software is by far the most common cause of trouble with system updates.
3. Don't install crapware, such as “themes,” "haxies," “add-ons,” “toolbars,” “enhancers," “optimizers,” “accelerators,” "boosters," “extenders,” “cleaners,” "doctors," "tune-ups," “defragmenters,” “firewalls,” "barriers," “guardians,” “defenders,” “protectors,” most “plugins,” commercial "virus scanners,” "disk tools," or "utilities." With very few exceptions, such stuff is useless or worse than useless. Above all, avoid any software that purports to change the look and feel of the user interface.
It's not much of an exaggeration to say that the whole "utility" software industry for the Mac is a fraud on consumers. The most extreme examples are the "CleanMyMac" and “MacKeeper” scams, but there are many others.
As a rule, the only software you should install is that which directly enables you to do the things you use a computer for, and doesn't change the way other software works.
Safari extensions, and perhaps the equivalent for other web browsers, are a partial exception to the above rule. Most are safe, and they're easy to get rid of if they don't work. Some may cause the browser to crash or otherwise malfunction. Some are malicious. Use with caution, and install only well-known extensions from relatively trustworthy sources, such as the Safari Extensions Gallery.
Never install any third-party software unless you know how to uninstall it. Otherwise you may create problems that are very hard to solve. Do not rely on "utilities" such as "AppCleaner" and the like that purport to remove software.
4. Don't install bad, conflicting, or unnecessary fonts. Whenever you install new fonts, use the validation feature of the built-in Font Book application to make sure the fonts aren't defective and don't conflict with each other or with others that you already have. See the built-in help and this support article for instructions. Deactivate or remove fonts that you don't really need to speed up application launching.
5. Avoid malware. Malware is malicious software that circulates on the Internet. This kind of attack on OS X was once so rare that it was hardly a concern, but malware is now increasingly common, and increasingly dangerous.
There is some built-in protection against downloading malware, but you can’t rely on it—the attackers are always at least one day ahead of the defense. You can’t rely on third-party protection either. What you can rely on is common-sense awareness—not paranoia, which only makes you more vulnerable.
Never install software from an untrustworthy or unknown source. If in doubt, do some research. Any website that prompts you to install a “codec” or “plugin” that comes from the same site, or an unknown site, is untrustworthy. Software with a corporate brand, such as Adobe Flash Player, must come directly from the developer's website. No intermediary is acceptable, and don’t trust links unless you know how to parse them. Any file that is automatically downloaded from the web, without your having requested it, should go straight into the Trash. A web page that tells you that your computer has a “virus,” or that anything else is wrong with it, is a scam.
In OS X 10.7.5 or later, downloaded applications and Installer packages that have not been digitally signed by a developer registered with Apple are blocked from loading by default. The block can be overridden, but think carefully before you do so.
Because of recurring security issues in Java, it’s best to disable it in your web browsers, if it’s installed. Few websites have Java content nowadays, so you won’t be missing much. This action is mandatory if you’re running any version of OS X older than 10.6.8 with the latest Java update. Note: Java has nothing to do with JavaScript, despite the similar names. Don't install Java unless you're sure you need it. Most people don't.
6. Don't fill up your disk/SSD. A common mistake is adding more and more large files to your home folder until you start to get warnings that you're out of space, which may be followed in short order by a startup failure. This is more prone to happen on the newer Macs that come with an internal SSD instead of the traditional hard drive. The drive can be very nearly full before you become aware of the problem.
While it's not true that you should or must keep any particular percentage of space free, you should monitor your storage use and make sure you're not in immediate danger of using it up. According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of free space on the startup volume for normal operation.
If storage space is running low, use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper to explore the volume and find out what's taking up the most space. Move seldom-used large files to secondary storage.
7. Relax, don’t do it. Besides the above, no routine maintenance is necessary or beneficial for the vast majority of users; specifically not “cleaning caches,” “zapping the PRAM,” "resetting the SMC," “rebuilding the directory,” "defragmenting the drive," “running periodic scripts,” “dumping logs,” "deleting temp files," “scanning for viruses,” "purging memory," "checking for bad blocks," "testing the hardware," or “repairing permissions.” Such measures are either completely pointless or are useful only for solving problems, not for prevention.
To use a Mac effectively, you have to free yourself from the Windows mindset that every computer needs regular downtime maintenance such as "defragging" and "registry cleaning." Those concepts do not apply to the Mac platform. A well-made computing device is not something you should have to think about much. It should be an almost transparent medium through which you communicate, work, and play. If you want a machine that needs attention, use a PC.
The very height of futility is running an expensive third-party application called “Disk Warrior” when nothing is wrong, or even when something is wrong and you have backups, which you must have. Disk Warrior is a data-salvage tool, not a maintenance tool, and you will never need it if your backups are adequate. Don’t waste money on it or anything like it.

Display problem fixed with PRAM reset????

My 1.5G 15" Powerbook G4 had a weird fuzzy messed up display when started today. Shutdown and restart didn't help. I read in Support a video problem might need a PRAM reset. So I held down the Command-Option-P-R keys during restart and display looked fine. Might just be a coincidence so I'm wondering if this could have helped the problem. If so does it need new internal batteries? Can they be replaced by me? Are there instructions somewhere? Are there two batteries called System and Backup?
Phil

Hi, Phil. Some display settings are stored in PRAM, and resetting PRAM restores them to their defaults. There are some other settings that can affect the display's appearance (notably in Universal Access) that may not be wiped away by resetting PRAM, but evidently your problem was traceable to something that had been stored in PRAM — probably a reduced resolution setting.
Unless you have some other indication that one of your PB's batteries — which are commonly called the main battery and the internal backup battery — is bad, there's no need to replace them.

Migrated to ML from OS/X 10.6.8 on an iMAC 24'' (2009). Now system starts up in verbose mode and holds on the root(!) prompt. PRAM reset doesn't solve the problem

This is really buggy, because anybody could enter the system as "root" after switching on the system.
A PRAM reset works only for the actual boot; after a cold start the system holds again on root prompt.

If you've tried everything else there's always the SMC reset:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964

Hello, my backspace and enter keys suddenly stopped working. I have done a PRAM reset and used the keyboard viewer to see if the buttons work and they don't. The PRAM reset didn't work either

Dear All, the backspace and enter keys on my wireless keyboard suddenly stopped working. Im using OS 10.7.5 and have tried a PRAM reset which didn't work. I also used the keyboard viewer to see if the keys worked on that but they don't. This is driving me mad, can anyone please tell me what to do? It happened just after an update but this could be a coincidence. Thank you for your time

For my computers, though some of them support BlueTooth devices and accessories,
my preference and economy of standard, is to have wired USB and also use powered
USB hubs for accessories.
I've used USB wired keyboards and mouse products; and some I've bought from the
original owners who had upgraded to BT, and never used the new Apple USB model;
so I have spares of these on-hand since they seldom fail, but do work when BT won't.
{A SMC reset should not cause a problem, or seldom has; but can solve some.}
In my opinion, the wired USB keyboard is an essential accessory, if not a necessary
primary means of user access on a continuous basis. At least until the wires fail...!

Pram reset question

hi everyone,
a co worker of mine decided it would be a good idea to reset the PRAM on a macbook here in our office (while I wasn't there, of course), because he said the charging icon just kept saying it was calculating even though the battery was full - anyway, he tried to do a PRAM reset and apparently held down apple/option/R/P and then held the power button down, to which he said the "breathing light" on the front of the macbook started blinking a lot and there was a noise from the speakers, he let go and the machine booted ok. I did a proper pram reset on the machine and repaired permissions and the battery charging/etc. is reading correct now... so my only question is, will this affect the machine? Is there anything that could have been messed up by this, or should it be ok because it was just a wrong button config? I can't see anything wrong with the machine, but I just want to make sure.
Being in IT is fun. ;P
Just wondering... help is appreciated, thanks.

thanks Troy, I think it's ok, everything seems to be ok, and the PRAM seems to be holding all info ok, like if I shut it down it remembers the previous volume settings, etc. so I'm sure it's fine. Thanks for the help, it means a lot. I was just worried because of the whole "weird noise and the light blinking a lot" thing... mostly I was worried that the RAM could have been damaged because the power was held down while the PRAM reset keys were held down, that didn't sound good to me, but these machines are pretty resilient, so I think I'm ok.

Tried PRAM reset - now broken

So i have an M-audio firewire solo external sound card. For some reason it stopped working and i saw on a forum that resetting your pram could solve the problem. I tried resetting it but my mac book pro froze on the gray screen with no apple or gear. I rebooted it and it got stuck on the gray screen. I booted in safemode and it got stuck again. I tried reformatting the harddrive and holding "c" when rebooting and it ejected the disk and booted. After about 5 minutes it froze and now everytime i boot it up it sometimes boots and sometimes doesnt and when it does it freezes. ?? Any Ideas??

Boot from your install disc and run the repair disk option. To use the Install Mac OS X disc, insert the disc, and restart your computer while holding down the C key as it starts up.
Select your language.
Once on the desktop, select Utility in the menu bar.
Select Disk Utility.
Select the disk or volume in the list of disks and volumes, and then click First Aid.
Click Repair Disk.
Click Repair Permissions.
Restart the computer.
Try resetting the PRAM again or reset the SMC Apple Portables: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)
Make sure the sound card's system requirements is ok for your os system before you reinstall.

ALT Startup will not work any longer, PRAM reset will not work any longer.

Hi folks,
I just bought and plugged in my Mac Pro to a new Belkin battery back up unit yesterday, and now when I try to restart using the ALT key it will not work, it starts up to my default drive only. When I try to reset the PRAM, using the option-command P-R keys it also boots to the default drive.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Jim

Troubleshooting is sortof voodoo, if you do "a" and get response "b" then don't do it!
There have been other problems, USB hub, cable, etc.
OS X doesn't "need" PowerChute which also hasn't been updated in two years and can cause problems. APC works. APC's software for Windows is excellent though. Shame.
As for why... I'll leave that for philosophy class.
Wired keyboard? check. 1000VA or above? check. Any UPS also can have a strong EMF field around it that I guess could affect other electronics (cell phones etc and AC adapters have been known to cause problems and RFI).

I have just recently lost use of 2 USB ports and my isight camera. I have an isight G5 imac that has been working great. I have rebooted, reloaded my OS, and tried PRAM reset. I can use my keyboard, but not other peripherals. Any ideas on diagnostics?

I have just recently lost use of 2 USB ports and my isight camera. My keyboard works fine, but there is not any indication of connections when probing USB in "About this MAC". I have rebooted, executed a PRAM reset, and reloaded my OS, but to no avail I am out 2 of my 3 USB ports. I don't know how to diagnose the issue. Any ideas?
--kevinfromflagstaff

Well, if you've tried different USB cords and devices and have reset your PRAM:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
And SMC:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
I'd say your USB ports are shot - since they are an integral part of the logic board, replacing it will most likely be expensive. I'd still go for a definitive diagnosis at the Genius Bar.

Keep receiving "USB Over Current Notices" since updating to OSX 10.6.8. I have no devices plugged into my Imac and running everything wireless. SMB/PRAM resetting did not work. Does anyone have some advice or can help?

Keep receiving "USB Over Current Notices" since updating to OSX 10.6.8. I have no devices plugged into my Imac and running everything wireless. SMC/PRAM resetting did not work. Does anyone have some advice or can help?

Hi Melissa,
Pretty strange, but...
Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, does it happen in Safe Mode? Reboot when it completes.
(Safe boot may stay on the gray radian for a long time, let it go, it's trying to repair the Hard Drive.)

Could a SMC or PRAM Reset Affect a Superdrive's CD and DVD Read/Write?

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