Firmware update and SATA II hard drive

blackmondo wrote:
hrm. or not. fishbert is still having problems 😟

Well, your problem did appear different than the EFI 1.7 issue… so perhaps this update was intended to fix that issue. Apple never said it would address the SATA II problem.

fishbert, did you try going back to 1.7 before running the performance update (or were you already on it now)?

Maybe (and this is a big maybe of course), the performance update is intended to cumulatively apply to the 1.7 SATA II update. i.e. Apple expects that most people would have applied that update already before this one.

Will be interesting to see if anyone else here still has problems too, but it's a bummer if it doesn't work for you.

Install the new performance boost update to resolve issues.

Have mid 2009 Macbook pro 13" purchased in August. I never installed the 1.7 update after reading this thread in July, which was prior to my Macbook pro purchase. I have checked out this thread often to see if there was anything to resolve the issues. Tonight I installed the hard drive performance 1.0, rebooted and then (with crossed fingers) installed the 1.7 update. No problems. All apps/files open and close quickly, no beach balls. Noticed a faster opening of several jpg's at a time in Photoshop. Speed has gone from 1.5 to 3 gigabit. I hope this update solves or improves the unpleasantness many have dealt with since July. You certainly deserve it.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3901
""14. Your computer should restart. If your computer does not restart, contact AppleCare for more information.""

This last step above have stop me from installing this fix...

Moreover, I have just install Intel Gen 2 SSD 80GB this afternoon BUT I have been getting beach ball problem since SL with the "stock hd".
So far no beach ball problem in last 4hours of use with the Intel SSD.

Message was edited by: zzz99

This update unfortunately will not fix anything in relation to firmware.
The only contents it has is a Kernel extension (IOAHCIFamily.kext) which is the software driver for the Disk subsystem. This explains why it applies to a wide range of systems.

It's a bit of a mystery though why they pushed that out and not just made it part of 10.6.2 update. Must somehow address something urgent.

I strongly doubt that this could fix Physical Layer UDMA CRC errors.

****, looked promising, but no cake 😉

Oliver - perhaps not for you, but this seems to have fixed the issue for me. Funny, I just gave up on EFI 1.7 yesterday, and downgraded to 1.6, and then upgraded back to 1.7 and installed this update just now 🙂

Oliver F wrote:
This update unfortunately will not fix anything in relation to firmware.
The only contents it has is a Kernel extension (IOAHCIFamily.kext) which is the software driver for the Disk subsystem. This explains why it applies to a wide range of systems.

Huh? The problem IS with the disk subsystem. No better candidate than the disk driver, IMO.

Just because the prior firmware update broke the disk subsystem, does not mean that the "real" problem is with the firmware update. The firmware update may have simply exposed the problem with the disk driver or controller & disk driver combination.

This may explain why Apple didn't just provide an update to revert the firmware to version 1.6 and why it took so long for the update. Hard problems are not usually the result of one failing or something obvious. I think Apple would have addressed this much sooner otherwise. They're not idiots.

It's a bit of a mystery though why they pushed that out and not just made it part of 10.6.2 update. Must somehow address something urgent.

Theory: Perhaps Apple wanted users to install this disk driver fix before the 10.6.2 update (which is reported to be very large) so that 10.6.2 installs faster and more reliably with fewer brick'd systems (resulting in a better user experience and lower support costs for Apple).

I strongly doubt that this could fix Physical Layer UDMA CRC errors.

Sorry, but a bug'd disk driver could easily produce this problem.

Lastly, will it fix ALL the problems ALL people are seeing? Yet to be seen who this will help, but it does solve the beach ball problem for some. The most likely scenario is that there are several disk problems different people are seeing. The recent Performance fix may fix the beach ball problem for some. At the least, it will allow more focus to be put on those that continue to see disk problems.

Message was edited by: Mac Enthusiast007

Folks, beachballing is a common symptom that could point to any of a wide variety of issues -- it does not necessarily denote that one has this issue. I've butted heads in here with a few people before who appear to have a different issue than this EFI 1.7 one, but who insist that it's the same problem. I'm not trying to dig that up again… just saying that not everyone in here is seeing the same issue.

The "Performance Update 1.0" released today appears to have solved the problems that some in here have had (which is certainly good news for those of you who fall into this category), but it does not appear to solve the SATA II implementation issue that was introduced on mid-2009 13" and 15" MacBook Pros with the EFI 1.7 firmware.

Granted, all I have to go on with this claim is my own personal experience, and who's to say that's any more or less valuable than those of you who have seen their problems resolved… but Oliver's reasoning is sound, and I would expect that over the next few days more people will be able to confirm that their EFI 1.7 freezing has not been resolved by this update, either.

I will also be putting up a video shortly that shows that the exact same issue is still present with EFI 1.7 and this Performance Update 1.0 installed.

In short:
Install the update; there is no reason not to, and it may solve what you are seeing. But it does not fix the issue this thread is based on.

Good news if some people's issues have been fixed !

I unfortunately can not verify this, as my SATA II issues were fixed by a Logic Board swap after which EF1.7 worked flawlessly with full SATA II performance. The conclusion I can draw from that is that my issues were a Hardware/Firmware related issue.

But as fishbert said, we are seemingly dealing here with a variety of Disk related beach-balling issues which do not necessary have the same root cause.

Ollie.

I'm wondering if 1.7 exposed multiple problems. I have 0 CRC errors accumulated thusfar, yet I too was experiencing the problem with 1.7 & my drive interface opened up to SATA-II speeds.

So far so good for me, drive is at 3.0 with 1.7 and no freezing. I hope it holds up...

I updated before applying the 1.7 efi... if I do upgrade to the efi 1.7, can I reapply the performance fix? I dont think it will show up in software update... any links to the performance update pls?

The Fix Apple released today is not a 100% solution to the SATA 300 problem. The problem IS at a firmware level so the SATA 300 disks present the same problem ouside the OS. What i mean is, Apple patch just the OS to fix the problem, but lets say, as is my case, you need to restore a time machine backup into the SATA 300 500Gb. disk, you need to boot with my Snow Leopard DVD, select restore a time machine backup, select the time machine backup i want to restore and select the 500Gb. disk to restore to. You will find, as i found myself, that every 0.4% the disk stall as usual and you will find that your restore will take 5 hrs!!!!

So, the problem still exist, Apple has patched just the OS.

I hope once the restore finished and boot the OS the patch will work and my 500Gb. SATA 300 disk will work fine.

mvillarreal wrote:
The Fix Apple released today is not a 100% solution to the SATA 300 problem. The problem IS at a firmware level so the SATA 300 disks present the same problem ouside the OS. What i mean is, Apple patch just the OS to fix the problem, but lets say, as is my case, you need to restore a time machine backup into the SATA 300 500Gb. disk, you need to boot with my Snow Leopard DVD, select restore a time machine backup, select the time machine backup i want to restore and select the 500Gb. disk to restore to. You will find, as i found myself, that every 0.4% the disk stall as usual and you will find that your restore will take 5 hrs!!!!

So, the problem still exist, Apple has patched just the OS.

I hope once the restore finished and boot the OS the patch will work and my 500Gb. SATA 300 disk will work fine.

This is not true.

Apple released a fix for something other than the EFI 1.7 problem. This EFI 1.7 problem still exists and has not been addressed.

Alright, finally got it uploaded.

Here is what I saw 2 months ago after applying the the EFI 1.7 update (fixed with a roll-back to 1.6):
http://vimeo.com/5854152
Here is what I see today after re-updating to EFI 1.7 and applying Performance Update 1.0:
http://vimeo.com/7078172

They look pretty similar to me, no?

Additionally… yes, the other identified symptom of this EFI 1.7 issue — increasing CRC errors — is present as well.