Macbook PRO EFI 2.3 firmware update broken

Question

EFI 2.3 firmware update broke the network again. EFI 2.2 fixed what was broken in 2.0 & 2.1 but the
same problem is back in 2.3. Laptop wakes up and I have to wait about a minute for things to kick-in.
I am able to use utilities using system calls (ping, dig, etc) but Mail.app, Safari or anything else for
that matter is reporting that network is down (not sure if these are using an internal caching daemon
or something similar). On the initial 2.3 update the screen wake-up was also broken, I would touch
the pad or a key but the screen would remain dim and would light up after 30 or so seconds. Applying
2.3 twice fixed this issue. Following is an entry from system.log, you can see that the laptop is trying
to connect to the AP twice:
Nov 16 07:32:59 mobilepunk mDNSResponder[12]: ConfigResolvers: interface specific index 5 not found
Nov 16 07:33:00: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Nov 16 07:33:00 mobilepunk configd[15]: network configuration changed.
Nov 16 07:33:02: --- last message repeated 2 times ---
Nov 16 07:33:02 mobilepunk airportd[42241]: _doAutoJoin: Already associated to “balkan”. Bailing on auto-join.
Nov 16 07:33:06 mobilepunk configd[15]: network configuration changed.
Nov 16 07:33:06 mobilepunk mDNSResponder[12]: ConfigResolvers: interface specific index 5 not found
Nov 16 07:33:06: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Nov 16 07:33:06 mobilepunk UserEventAgent[11]: CaptiveNetworkSupport:CaptivePublishState:1211 en1 - Probe
Nov 16 07:33:06 mobilepunk UserEventAgent[11]: CaptiveNetworkSupport:CaptiveStartDetect:2343 Bypassing probe on balkan because it is protected and not on the exception list
Nov 16 07:33:06 mobilepunk UserEventAgent[11]: CaptiveNetworkSupport:CaptivePublishState:1211 en1 - Unknown
Nov 16 07:33:06 mobilepunk configd[15]: network configuration changed.
Nov 16 07:33:08 mobilepunk mDNSResponder[12]: ConfigResolvers: interface specific index 5 not found
Nov 16 07:33:09: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Nov 16 07:33:09 mobilepunk login[42315]: USER_PROCESS: 42315 ttys000
Nov 16 07:33:35 mobilepunk com.apple.backupd[42326]: Starting standard backup
Nov 16 07:33:35 mobilepunk mtmd[65]: Set snapshot time:1321446817 (current time:1321446815)
Nov 16 07:33:35 mobilepunk com.apple.backupd[42326]: Error -35 while resolving alias to backup target
Nov 16 07:33:45 mobilepunk com.apple.backupd[42326]: Backup failed with error: 19
Nov 16 07:34:38 mobilepunk prl_naptd[39549]: Reloading configuration...
Nov 16 07:34:38 mobilepunk prl_naptd[39549]: vnic0: DHCP/NAT for 10.211.55.1-10.211.55.254 netmask 255.255.255.0
Nov 16 07:34:38 mobilepunk prl_naptd[39549]: vnic1: DHCP for 10.37.129.1-10.37.129.254 netmask 255.255.255.0
Nov 16 07:34:38 mobilepunk airportd[42328]: _doAutoJoin: Already associated to “balkan”. Bailing on auto-join.
At one point I though it was Parallels that's breaking this, but disable/restart of Parallels did not help.
Any hits ?

Answer 1

Wow! Exact same issues here. Exactly! The same slow screen-wakeup and screen-saver freezes.
Additionally, any time I try to view video in a web browser, it freezes (other things seems to do it too, but the web video (e.g. youtube) was one thing which was a reliable/reproducible cause of crash). BUT, when I use gfxcardstatus to force Discrete graphics only, then it seems to work fine. Manually switching it to Integrated (with gfxcardstatus), or allowing it to automatically switch, results in an immediate freeze. The freeze is not a kernel panic; the mouse still moves, but the interface is totally unresponsive. Well, technically almost totally unresponsive: Ctrl-Eject did EVENTUALLY (like, after minutes!) bring up the shutdown dialog on at least one occasion. But that's largely irrelevant, I can't work like that.
I had real trouble trying to install the EFI 2.3 update - in fact, I have not managed to install it according to Software Update.
After "installing" EFI 2.3, upon restart I get a bad chime (the sad-Mac sort of noise) rather than the usual start-up chime. Then there's a noise as though it's trying to spin up a hard disk or something, which abruptly cuts off though. It does that a few times (brmmmm,chk...brmmmm, chk, ...). I force-restarted it with the power button, held Cmd-Opt-P-R and then it did it's usual restart, and then booted. But Software Update says that the EFI 2.3 firmware is not installed.
Sounds like a hardware issue to me. Any thoughts?