Wrong SMC firmware loaded on Macbook what to do?

[Wasabee!]

Get a proper laptop.

 

[GreGorGy]

Useless contribution

 

[airborne]

Anyone get a chance to have a squizz at the log file?
The high system cpu starts at around 1:27pm

 

[AstroTurf]

I suspect it is stolen and yes it will. The only way for novices to disabled software that tracks stolen macs is to mess with low level stuff like this. So, is the source legit or is it stolen?

He bought it from me and no it was not stolen

 

[airborne]

Anyone of the clever guys get a chance to look at the console log file?

 

[itareanlnotani]

Only thing comes up in google is to try an smc reset - https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/13593

You said you've tried that though?

 

[airborne]

Yebo yes, done SMC and PRAM reset a few times, no joy. I had previously read that thread and half the fudging Internet so far, no luck yet. Seems like it may possibly be related to the video card GPU's.

 

[GreGorGy]

Seeing all those errors around the ambient light, try going into sys prefs-> displays and disable automatic adjust and see if that makes a difference. If not, try doing it the hard way:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/...ensor-screen-dimming-programmatically-on-os-x

and report back.

 

[airborne]

Tried disabling it, didn't help. Will the technique in that link work on El Capitan though, the last post seem to imply the method was slightly unique to the OSX version?

 

[GreGorGy]

Tried disabling it, didn't help. Will the technique in that link work on El Capitan though, the last post seem to imply the method was slightly unique to the OSX version?

I don't know but it is worth trying to find the correct alternative if it does not.

 

[airborne]

An update, I have been quite busy otherwise and pretty much preoccupied with trouble shooting the battery so I never took the time to test for any extended amount of time with El Capitan loaded and the battery unplugged. I tried that and it appears to be stable for a time up to even a few hours, especially if you don't run any apps but after a while the same continuous kernel_task 85-95% cpu useage crops up, sometimes even immediately from a restart after it has been exhibiting the problem, it really seems it can't be the battery.

So as I have noted with the battery unplugged and running off of the charger once the kernel_task 85-95% cpu useage starts even rebooting doesn't always help but it looks like if you shut down, unplug the charger wait a short while reconnect the charger and then start up again it runs fine for an hour or so and then the high kernel_task starts up again.

This has put me off Macs for life, I sit down in front of my rock solid Windows PC and appreciate it, bill gates and all!!

 

[itareanlnotani]

Have you tried flashing the SMC you think it should be using refit?

(This may break the machine quite badly, so don't do it unless you're willing to reflash the SMC manually if it doesn't work).

eg refit
http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/82653/macbook-pro-mid-2010-not-powering-up-after-smc-update

 

[itareanlnotani]

I would say it's100% legit, highly doubt it's stolen, came with the original box all the install OSX install cds etc and the original dead battery that had been removed.

Do Macbooks have the ability to run lojack type tracing services at a firmware level?

Mac's have a serial number which is stored in the SPI flash chip.
This can be overwritten with an SOIC socket + SPI programmer, or using Apple tools.

Generally this is only done when you have a new motherboard, you're trying to remove iCloud / EFI passwords, or you have a bad bios flash.

I occasionally do that sort of thing here for clients.

 

[airborne]

Have you tried flashing the SMC you think it should be using refit?

(This may break the machine quite badly, so don't do it unless you're willing to reflash the SMC manually if it doesn't work).

eg refit
http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/82653/macbook-pro-mid-2010-not-powering-up-after-smc-update

I did try and it gave an error, I mentioned it more in depth earlier on in the thread.