Firmware update and SATA II hard drive

fishbert wrote:
The previous MacBook Pro has exactly the same NVIDIA chip, yet supported a properly-functioning SATA II interface just fine.

We don't know if the chipset is exactly the same even if it has the same part number. Apple buys in large enough quantities to dictate changes to NVIDIA. For example, Dell used to sell a system with a Creative sound card having the exact same name as the retail version of the card, but the card used in the Dell system wasn't exactly the same. I believe Dell began inserting a footnote in its product descriptions to state that the retail version was different. Maybe this current crop of MBPs has a slight variation of the NVIDIA chipset that could be causing the SATA problem.

Ponzi wrote:

fishbert wrote:
The previous MacBook Pro has exactly the same NVIDIA chip, yet supported a properly-functioning SATA II interface just fine.

We don't know if the chipset is exactly the same even if it has the same part number. Apple buys in large enough quantities to dictate changes to NVIDIA. For example, Dell used to sell a system with a Creative sound card having the exact same name as the retail version of the card, but the card used in the Dell system wasn't exactly the same. I believe Dell began inserting a footnote in its product descriptions to state that the retail version was different. Maybe this current crop of MBPs has a slight variation of the NVIDIA chipset that could be causing the SATA problem.

Different versions of a card and different versions of a chip are two very different animals. And a sound card name or model number is also very different than an integrated circuit part number.

The chips themselves have the exact same markings (down to the dash number) between the mid-June refresh and the previous generation. The only significant variation with the chip (discounting a fab change - unlikely, especially one that would coincide with another company's product change) would be by lot, and the problem we are seeing is too widespread and too spread out over time to be a lot issue.

The logic board may be different... the SATA cable may be different... etc., but the NVIDIA part used is exactly the same. The problem does not appear to be NVIDIA's "fault".

I just received my 2.8ghz 15" on Monday. I have already had three spins so far. Was trying to attach something to an email and when I clicked the ATTACH icon, nothing happened. Then the beach ball came up and stayed there spinning for over 30 seconds. Finally the file dialog window came up and I could choose my file attachment.

My machine has the Seagate Momentus 320GB 7200rpm drive in it.

I am taking this machine down to the Apple store on Monday to have this drive replaced with a 5400rpm drive. I can't stand the vibration I am getting in the keyboard and the chassis from the spinning of this drive's platter.

Hopefully, a 5400 won't have the beach ball problem either.

I've sent emails to 3 newspapers, no response yet ...

I have a 1st generation unibody MBP that has this issue after upgrading to the same Seagate HDD that shipped with more recent MBPs. The specs are in my profile.

That being the case, I don't think this exonerates the nVidia chipset. They are the same for all unibody MBPs.
nVidia is notorious for things like this.

It may explain the delay. I suspect if this was purely an Apple issue it would have been addressed by now. This smells like it's related to a component or firmware not entirely under Apple's control.

Remember nVidia is the same company that denied for months that anything was wrong with their 8600M chipset until it was so painfully obvious they had to admit it.

Fejimush wrote:


I suspect if this was purely an Apple issue it would have been addressed by now. This smells like it's related to a component or firmware not entirely under Apple's control.

That's why Apple is suppose to be above Microsoft... Because they have total control of their product from all aspects of Hardware to every bit of the Software it's called Quality Control which they seem to be lacking for some reason. They built it, have control what hardware is used in it, and need to stand behind it, regardless... nough said!!!!!!!!!

Lets not forget that they still refuse to pull the EFI 1.7 update from either auto update or manual methods. Most the Books worked fine before the update. So stop shipping them with the update and pull it from the web site. Maybe nVidia is at fault for the update still being pushed?

awerty9999

Have you tried bringing this up to Leo Laporte and the guys on TWIT? These guys are good at bringing up an issue to a wide audiance.

Here's my story...

Bought my MBP 1.53 at Future shop beginning of Sept. The stock Segate Momentus 5400 performed normally until I unwittingly performed the fateful update to efi 1.7. The machine became unusable with 30 second beach balls resulting from doing run of the mill tasks in every application. I did some reading and found out about the efi issue. Because it is a work machine, and since I can't afford downtime and I returned the MB to the 'reluctant to help me out' people at future shop.

The second MBP performed normally until I did the upgrade to Snow Leopard, where efi 1.7 was installed again. Then I was back to really bad beach balling. I tried changing the drive to a Segate Momentus 7200, and am still having the same issue.

I'm off the to mac store do roll back the firmware. I'll report on the outcome.

Message was edited by: oldmanpants

OK, so I just got back from my appointment with a Genius at the Mac Store. He tried a number of times to roll back the firmware, but it would not take. It kept going back to 1.7. His superior Genius also tried, but was unsuccessful.

Since I have already been on the phone with apple care once, my only recourse seems to call apple care back and check-in my machine for repairs. This is a huge inconvenience that will end up costing me $$ since it is my work machine. I'll report back on my progress when I get somewhere.

As I write this I'm getting 15 second beach balls all over the place. Forgive me if I haven't read though all the whopping 100+ pages. I have one of the 160GB Hatiachi drives. Because this drive is relatively small for the price of the computer I put a 500GB Segate Momentus in my macbook. This went great for 1 week, no beach balls, freezes or anything like this. Then my OSX partition became corrupted, the bootcamp partition was fine so I kept using it, until that corupted in another week. Both days the laptop was sitting on my desk, so I can't put this down to physical damage. This may just be a bad drive?

I wonder if anyone else can recommend a drive that works with 1.7 firmware I would appreciate that.

I also now have two corrupted partitions which disk utility is unable to repair or mount.

I can't believe apple has not done anything about this issue that affects a whole product line. I've come to the opinion that apple is all talk and no walk.

Keyo123 wrote:

I can't believe apple has not done anything about this issue that affects a whole product line. I've come to the opinion that apple is all talk and no walk.

All talk? Where's the talk? Apple has not said anything as far as I know.

Keyo123 wrote:
As I write this I'm getting 15 second beach balls all over the place. Forgive me if I haven't read though all the whopping 100+ pages. I have one of the 160GB Hatiachi drives. Because this drive is relatively small for the price of the computer I put a 500GB Segate Momentus in my macbook. This went great for 1 week, no beach balls, freezes or anything like this. Then my OSX partition became corrupted, the bootcamp partition was fine so I kept using it, until that corupted in another week. Both days the laptop was sitting on my desk, so I can't put this down to physical damage. This may just be a bad drive?

I also now have two corrupted partitions which disk utility is unable to repair or mount.

It could be a bad drive... bad memory… a whole host of things can cause data corruption. But it's not a characteristic of this firmware problem.

I wonder if anyone else can recommend a drive that works with 1.7 firmware I would appreciate that.

Your data corruption problem is probably not due to the firmware issue, but in so far as the firmware issue goes… the only drives that can be considered "safe" with EFI 1.7 are drives that do not support a SATA II interface. With how widely varied the reports are, we can only assume that any SATA II drive may be capable of illustrating the firmware issue.

fishbert wrote:

Keyo123 wrote:

Your data corruption problem is probably not due to the firmware issue, but in so far as the firmware issue goes… the only drives that can be considered "safe" with EFI 1.7 are drives that do not support a SATA II interface. With how widely varied the reports are, we can only assume that any SATA II drive may be capable of illustrating the firmware issue.

I believe that it is directly caused by the firmware not correctly supporting SATA II. I have had 2 brand new SSD drives fail this exact way within one month of installing them. Many others have had the same thing happen. I am really hoping that something is done to address this soon.

Here is what happened with Apple Care...

The first support person I spoke with put me though to a 'product specialist' when I said that I wanted a replacement MBP given that the one I have is not currently usable, and that I am getting quite frustrated.

The product specialist took me though one further hardware test, which you can find on the 'applications' DVD that comes with your new MBP. The test revealed no issues with the hardware.

At that point, the product specialist said that Apple is aware of the issue is an is working on a firmware update that will fix the issues with efi 1.7. He said that he is instructed by Apple to tell people who are having the issue to "sit tight" until the new firmware arrives.

The specialist also said that Apple would do nothing else to help out with my situation. I know it could be quite expensive for apple to have to provide (working) replacement machines to people who are having the issue. But at least Apple could release a beta version of the new firmware to people that request it. All I know is that I have already lost a few days of work because of the issue, and I really can't afford to lose any more. I'm not sure why the Apple user should be the one to bear the cost of product research and development.

Message was edited by: oldmanpants

Hi,

I am thinking about buy a new MBP 13", I see that they came with 5400rpm HDD and SL, I have four simply questions:

1. will the notebook work perfectly in the default configuration?

2. if I want to upgrade to a 7200rpm disk will I have issues?

3. what about case temperatures and vibration with 7200rpm drive on MBP 13"?

4. is that a problem related to 13" MBP only?

Thanks!