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PRAM Zapping on Steroids or Fun Things to do in Open Firmware

Back in the good old days we used to be able to do a little thing with our Macs called Zapping the PRAM. This was the procedure for resetting that small chunk of memory that didn't get erased when you powered down your Mac. It would occasionally become corrupt and so we would do that magic 4 key salute and more often than not, this would address those strange behaviors your Mac would begin to exhibit after long hours of use. Well, believe it not this functionality remains even in this golden age of OS X. However, now there's a better way to Zap your PRAM and in the process give another section of memory, called NVRAM a little goose in the keaster as well. Here's the procedure:

1. Restart your Mac holding down the Command, Option, O, and F keys. Wait a few seconds and then you will be presented with a plain white screen with a small bit of text indicating that you now in Open Firmware mode.
   
2. At the prompt type: 'reset-nvram' (without the quotes) and press Return (your nvram settings are now factory default)
   
3. Again, at the prompt type: 'reset-all' and press Return.
   
4. Your Mac will immediately restart.
   

While you can still do the 4 key salute of Command-Option-P-R this has the added advantage of doing a more complete reset of the PRAM while taking even less time to do it.

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