Firmware update and SATA II hard drive

Well, i install the "performance update" reinstall my 500 Gb. disk on my Macbook Pro Uni and the problem with the SATA 300 persist, i cannot even be able to restore a time machine backup, so i stop the restore process, reinstall my SATA 150 disk and i'm gonna still waiting for Apple to fix this.

mvillarreal wrote:
Well, i install the "performance update" reinstall my 500 Gb. disk on my Macbook Pro Uni and the problem with the SATA 300 persist, i cannot even be able to restore a time machine backup, so i stop the restore process, reinstall my SATA 150 disk and i'm gonna still waiting for Apple to fix this.

What harddrive was in your system when you applied the update? If the 150 was installed, the patch was negated when you took that drive out as it's a file on your drive, not new EFI...

Hopefully apple will provide users with a new OS disk which incorporates the new drivers to use for clean installs moving forward.

katmeef wrote:

mvillarreal wrote:
Well, i install the "performance update" reinstall my 500 Gb. disk on my Macbook Pro Uni and the problem with the SATA 300 persist, i cannot even be able to restore a time machine backup, so i stop the restore process, reinstall my SATA 150 disk and i'm gonna still waiting for Apple to fix this.

What harddrive was in your system when you applied the update? If the 150 was installed, the patch was negated when you took that drive out as it's a file on your drive, not new EFI...

Right... it doesn't do anything to fix the broken firmware.
Performance Update 1.0 was released to address a completely different issue.

fishbert wrote:
Right... it doesn't do anything to fix the broken firmware.
Performance Update 1.0 was released to address a completely different issue.

Umm.. possibly addressing the OS's incompatibility with the behavior of the SATA II interface under EFI 1.7.... Is that really a completely different issue?

Like the previous poster mentioned, did anyone have problems with EFI1.7 running non-OSX os via bootcamp? Maybe the problem was the OS all along...

katmeef wrote:

fishbert wrote:
Right... it doesn't do anything to fix the broken firmware.
Performance Update 1.0 was released to address a completely different issue.

Umm.. possibly addressing the OS's incompatibility with the behavior of the SATA II interface under EFI 1.7.... Is that really a completely different issue?

Like the previous poster mentioned, did anyone have problems with EFI1.7 running non-OSX os via bootcamp? Maybe the problem was the OS all along...

If you go back and look through some of the early pages in this thread, you'll see that this has been identified as a firmware problem for quite some time, as the problem shows up in other OSes run through bootcamp and also occasionally at boot time before any OS is loaded at all (the gray folder with a question mark or a round "no" sign instead of the apple logo).

I know people really want this to be a fix for the broken firmware, as it has been a real pain for a lot of people, and some beachballing out there does appear to be resolved by it (hooray! seriously, hooray!)... but it's just not. It's a patch to a completely different layer of the laptop's architecture than where this problem is. It's a patch for a different issue.

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Edit: I should add that something like a damaged or insufficient SATA cable (as some have hypothesized the real root cause may be) would also show up as an OS-independent issue.

Message was edited by: fishbert

fishbert wrote:
If you go back and look through some of the early pages in this thread, you'll see that this has been identified as a firmware problem for quite some time, as the problem shows up in other OSes run through bootcamp and also occasionally at boot time before any OS is loaded at all (the gray folder with a round "no" sign or question mark instead of the apple logo).

I know people really want this to be a fix for the broken firmware, as it has been a real pain for a lot of people, and some beachballing out there does appear to be resolved by it (hooray! seriously, hooray!)... but it's just not. It's a patch to a completely different layer of the laptop's architecture than where this problem is. It's a patch for a different issue.

My bad, I didn't remember anyone complaining of problems under bootcamp. Too lazy to look through thread so I'll take your word on that 😉

I did this and trebled the AJA test figures on my 13" MBP:

1) Did a clean install of Snow Leopard

2) Installed the performance update

Dunno which one (or both) was the solution but I am not complaining :):)

Right... it doesn't do anything to fix the broken firmware.
Performance Update 1.0 was released to address a completely different issue.

You say it addresses a completely different issue.
Could you explain exactly what different issue that is please?

coolas wrote:

Right... it doesn't do anything to fix the broken firmware.
Performance Update 1.0 was released to address a completely different issue.

You say it addresses a completely different issue.
Could you explain exactly what different issue that is please?

The Apple release notes state:
"This update addresses intermittent hard drive related pauses reported by a small number of customers."

And they further go on to say that the products affected are:
MacBook Air (Mid 2009), MacBook Pro (17-inch, Mid 2009), MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2009), MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2009), MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2.53GHz, Mid 2009), iMac (20-inch, Mid 2009), MacBook Pro (17-inch, Early 2009), MacBook (13-inch, Early 2009), MacBook (13-inch, Mid 2009), MacBook (13-inch, Aluminum, Late 2008), MacBook Air (Late 2008), MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2008), iMac (24-inch, Early 2009), iMac (20-inch, Early 2009), Mac mini (Early 2009)

You can read more here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3901

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Now, I didn't create the update and I don't have access to information on Apple's internal engineering efforts (and neither does anyone else around here, btw), being that this update replaces a kernel extension of the OS, it seems safe to say that the issue the update addresses is something at the OS-level.

It's also safe to say, based on accounts, that a number of people who have come to this thread about "beachballing" have been affected by this issue, as the update has resolved the problem they were seeing (yay!).

But, what's also safe to say is that, as the EFI 1.7 issue this thread is about has been identified (long ago, very early on) as OS-independent, and that some people in here and elsewhere are still experiencing the same issues as before, this OS-level update does not address the much lower-level firmware issue at hand.

That's what I know. If you have other insight on the matter, by all means, do share.

Wan Chai Man wrote:
I did this and trebled the AJA test figures on my 13" MBP:

1) Did a clean install of Snow Leopard

2) Installed the performance update

Dunno which one (or both) was the solution but I am not complaining :):)

It is not the réinstall, I can assure you of that, I did it myself and it didn't work.
Waiting to see if the performance update changed anything.

fishbert wrote:

coolas wrote:

Right... it doesn't do anything to fix the broken firmware.
Performance Update 1.0 was released to address a completely different issue.

You say it addresses a completely different issue.
Could you explain exactly what different issue that is please?

The Apple release notes state:
"This update addresses intermittent hard drive related pauses reported by a small number of customers."

great answer... You have no problem stating it has nothing to do with your impression of the issue at hand - as though you know something we do not, yet refuse to elaborate on your statements.

Are you so closed minded to consider the possibility that those with CRC errors may have some secondary isuse (possibly damaged cables during third party HDD install, possibly EFI update damaged the NVram, who knows...), while the rest of us may have our issues resolved by addressing an OS incompatibility with SATA -II controllers (which clearly we wouldnt have felt with the new 13 and 15's prior to EFI1.7)?

katmeef wrote:

fishbert wrote:

coolas wrote:

Right... it doesn't do anything to fix the broken firmware.
Performance Update 1.0 was released to address a completely different issue.

You say it addresses a completely different issue.
Could you explain exactly what different issue that is please?

The Apple release notes state:
"This update addresses intermittent hard drive related pauses reported by a small number of customers."

great answer... You have no problem stating it has nothing to do with your impression of the issue at hand - as though you know something we do not, yet refuse to elaborate on your statements.

Are you so closed minded to consider the possibility that those with CRC errors may have some secondary isuse (possibly damaged cables during third party HDD install, possibly EFI update damaged the NVram, who knows...), while the rest of us may have our issues resolved by addressing an OS incompatibility with SATA -II controllers (which clearly we wouldnt have felt with the new 13 and 15's prior to EFI1.7)?

If you look a little further up this very page, you'll see I said:

I should add that something like a damaged or insufficient SATA cable (as some have hypothesized the real root cause may be) would also show up as an OS-independent issue.

That said, it is a bit tenuous to have a number of individuals' SATA cables get damaged just enough to show errors at 3.0 Gb/s speeds, but not so much as to show errors at 1.5 Gb/s speeds… that sure sounds strange to me. Within the realm of possibility, sure… but it would be very weird, indeed.

Why do people continue to get so upset and apparently offended at the notion that maybe… just maybe… not everyone in here who complains of beachballs is seeing the same issue? And that maybe… just maybe… this OS patch that Apple released was meant to address one beachballing issue that some people were experiencing, and not another?

I mean, really, you'll have to explain to me why one _OS patch_ that fixes a portion of beachballing issues among a scattering of complaints (some of which are clearly not related to others) means that we should turn everything we have understood about the characteristics and behavior of this _firmware issue_ on its head and proclaim a universal solution has been found.

What we know about this EFI 1.7 firmware issue, going back to the very beginnings of this massive thread:
1) it affects 13" and 15" MacBook Pro laptops from mid-2009 (the ones with the SD card slot)
2) it causes beachballing pauses lasting in the neighborhood of 30-90 seconds before recovering
3) large disk transfers (network backup, for example) are slowed to an absolute crawl
4) the CRC error count on the drive increments
5) the issue is OS-independent, able to cause problems at boot and in other OSes, also survives OS re-installation (if it will let you even complete a re-installation)
6) the issue is not present when the drive is used from an external enclosure
7) the issue is not present when the firmware has been rolled back to EFI 1.6
8) the issue re-appears when EFI 1.7 is installed

Every last one of these things I can check off as being true with my MBP. So can many others who have posted in this thread. There are also many others who have posted in this thread who cannot. Is it really that difficult to imagine that those who can and those who cannot are seeing different issues? And that perhaps this update was directed at what some of those in the "those who cannot" group were running in to?

All I know is that the issue I'm seeing on my machine completely falls in line with the above characteristics of this issue — characteristics that have been defined and accepted by the community in this thread going way back to the very first days and first pages of this issue. And that I have provided before ( http://vimeo.com/5854152) and after ( http://vimeo.com/7078172) video showing that this precisely conforming issue is not affected by Performance Update 1.0 at all.

I am not saying (and have never said) that Performance Update 1.0 does not fix anything or is not beneficial to some of the people who have posted in this thread. Nor have I recommended that anyone not install Performance Update 1.0. I am truly happy for those who have found their issue resolved by the update.

What I have said, what I have shown, and what I continue to stand by is that _*Performance Update 1.0 does not address the EFI 1.7 firmware issue*_ as characterized by the behaviors listed above, which were arrived at by consensus from very early on in this lengthy thread.
+Which, honestly makes perfect sense, as Performance Update 1.0 (again) is an OS-specific patch, while what we have known for quite some time now as the EFI 1.7 firmware issue is OS-independent. To that, I have yet to hear anyone give a response that does not consist entirely of "well, maybe…" speculation.+

Ok, my experience:

Had no problems with my stock drive. I then stuck a SSD in and the computer became almost unusable. I called Apple and they replaced my logic board. This solved my problem. When the rollback tool was released I tried going back to1.7 but the problems persisted so I rolled back and the problems went away. When this Performance Update was released I applied it and then installed 1.7. The result: my problems are gone. I'm running 1.7 with an SSD and it has been super smooth, not a single problem.

Bobrudge,

What SSD are you using in your MBP?

thanks
jason

Intel G2 160GB.