Tip: Slow startup at network phase? Try disabling unused ports

If you are noticing that your Mac OS X system is starting up more slowly than usual, and seems to stall for a long time on the network initialization phase, you may need to disable some unused ports.

Open System Preferences, and go to the Network pane. Then use the pull-down menu next to the word "Show:" to select Network Port Configurations. Disable any ports that are not in use.

If you have two or more connection types regularly (for instance, if you use an AirPort connection but sometimes link directly to Ethernet), place the most often used configuration above the less used configuration so that Mac OS X will recognize and utilize it without waiting. The configurations can be dragged and dropped.

Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

Resources