Firmware update and SATA II hard drive

*Gregory Mcintire*

+Anybody can lock out any software update so you don't keep getting it to show up every time you check for updates. There is a place in the update menu to do that+.

Response:

Agreed--if you know where this Lock out setting is located and how to do that. .. Frankly I did not.



They did it for me so I would not do it again automatically with Apple software updates, finally after the 3rd Roll back to EFI 1.6.



*Gregory Mcintire:*



+The firmware rollback MUST write to the logic board, not the hard drive. It is firmware. Normally there is no need to remove any hard drive in order for the rollback to work. This is the first I have heard of that.+



Response:



I surmised the Firmware roll back writes to the logic board. The first time I had the MB Pro lock up, my dealer replaced the logic board, and I could finally access my 500 GB SATA // 3rd party Seagate HD. It was after I updated to EFI 1.7 again for the second time did the MB Pro Lock up again. So I figured they resolved the issue by swaping out the logic board for a new one which did not have it the EFI 1.7 installed.

The reason why they had to remove the 500 GB HD was because they could not boot up from that HD. They started from an external HD which had the EFI 1.6 Roll back tool already installed on it.

After they did the EFI 1.6 roll back from that external HD, then they re-installed the 500 GB SATA // Seagate HD and it has worked smoothly with the Performance Update 1.0 installed.



bobg

Ok, everyone… please stop it.

There is precisely ZERO new information being presented in this pointless back-and-forth. The only thing that any of you are doing is making this already very long thread, longer.

Please stop.

fishbert wrote:
Ok, everyone… please stop it.

There is precisely ZERO new information being presented in this pointless back-and-forth. The only thing that any of you are doing is making this already very long thread, longer.

Please stop.

Thank you, sir! May I have another?

{quote}
f you buy a june 2009 15" or 13" Macbook Pro with a 7200 rpm, why it's working ? what drives use apple in 7200 rpm that are working in their june 2009 MBP ?

Response:

Because Apple had them configured differently to avoid this problem if you purchase them directly from them.

It is only when these are larger HDs are purchased as 3rd party HDs can you run into this issue.

Now some suppliers have apparently adjusted the configuration--but SEGATE AND W/D did not have these larger capacity HD reconfigured for the larger capacity stock drives.
{quote}

I am proof that the above is definitely false. I am suffering from random freezes and beacballs on a new MBP I just got for work. I purchased a 15" 2.8/4G/320GB CTO with the 7200rpm drive.

Here are the details of the drive that has shipped from apple direct.
model: ST9320423ASG
serial: 5VH0JWS5

All the potential fixes I've seen online talk about performance update 1.0 and EFI 1.7 having issues.
Unfortunately I don't know how to check my EFI version. The updates list in the preference pane shows only the 10.6.2 update and some other security patches.

Since I'm running 10.6.2 I can't install performance update 1.0 to try it.

Steps I've taken since using my MBP to embarrass myself to a room of over 50 people because Itunes stuttered on almost every song played through the night :P

HDAPM fix == no change
disable onboard SMS (sudden motion sensor) == no change

After even more reading, it kind of made sense that the issue could be caused by the HDDs "g" sensor being triggered randomly. I can't remember exactly where I read the information, BUT, the logic is that the SMC controls the system energy management like sleep modes and the like. If it's brain damaged it could be tripping it accidentally. (this would not be the weirdest hardware glitch I've ever seen) so I've done the following for now:
PRAM reset + SMC reset (links: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379 and http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1411 respectively)

So far (with fingers crossed) the machine seems to be running smoothly and I'm hoping for the best. I'll post back if this is not the case!

bruor:



+I am proof that the above is definitely false. I am suffering from random freezes and beach balls on a new MBP I just got for work. I purchased a 15" 2.8/4G/320GB CTO with the 7200rpm drive.+

+Here are the details of the drive that has shipped from apple direct.+
+model: ST9320423ASG+
+serial: 5VH0JWS5+

+All the potential fixes I've seen on-line talk about performance update 1.0 and EFI 1.7 having issues.+

+Unfortunately I don't know how to check my EFI version. The updates list in the preference pane shows only the 10.6.2 update and some other security patches.+

Response:

Do you know if the MB Pro came with EFI 1.7 when received, or if it was "pushed" via an automatic Firmware update just like software updates and later automatically installed? That is what happened to me 3 times--and I simply installed it unknowingly twice. The last time the Apple Genius was responsible as I thought it was OK to do this after the Performance Update 1.0 was installed.

*Boy was I wrong!*

Your likely issue is that you have a larger HD (320 GB) 7200 RPM drive and the Model shows that you indeed have the sudden motion detector version with the AS"G" suffix.

Why it is not working correctly may be that the EFI 1.7 is indeed installed--and you have to "roll back" to EFI 1.6."

Since you got the MB Pro with the larger drive installed directly from Apple--call Apple Care and schedule an appointment with the Apple Store Genius to get this resolved as it may be a "House Keeping" issue resulting from from with your Universal or PPC program conflicts *or it may be the EFI 1.7 issue*.

They can "roll back" the Firmware there.

Here is my configuration of the Mac Book Pro:

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro5,4
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.53 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP53.00AC.B02
SMC Version (system): 1.49f2

The Boot ROM is the key identifying item.

Check out:

www.support.apple.com/KB/HT1237

They have a listing of the Macs and the appropriate EFI firmware updates and you can check to see which one is in effect.

If indeed you have EFI 1.7 and apparently you do have the identifying "G" suffix, you should roll back to EFI. 1.6.

This worked for me completely--and the Genius resolved the issue. I had to visit them 3 times to get it done properly--but it worked.

You may want also try booting from your Apple Hardware disk and run the extended test to see if you indeed have a different Hardware issue. It confirmed my issue.

bobg

bruor:



+I am proof that the above is definitely false. I am suffering from random freezes and beach balls on a new MBP I just got for work. I purchased a 15" 2.8/4G/320GB CTO with the 7200rpm drive.+

+Here are the details of the drive that has shipped from apple direct.+
+model: ST9320423ASG+
+serial: 5VH0JWS5+

+All the potential fixes I've seen on-line talk about performance update 1.0 and EFI 1.7 having issues.+

+Unfortunately I don't know how to check my EFI version. The updates list in the preference pane shows only the 10.6.2 update and some other security patches.+

Response:

Do you know if the MB Pro came with EFI 1.7 when received, or if it was "pushed" via an automatic Firmware update just like software updates and later automatically installed? That is what happened to me 3 times--and I simply installed it unknowingly twice. The last time the Apple Genius was responsible as I thought it was OK to do this after the Performance Update 1.0 was installed.

*Boy was I wrong!*

Your likely issue is that you have a larger HD (320 GB) 7200 RPM drive and the Model shows that you indeed have the sudden motion detector version with the AS"G" suffix.

Why it is not working correctly may be that the EFI 1.7 is indeed installed--and you have to "roll back" to EFI 1.6."

Since you got the MB Pro with the larger drive installed directly from Apple--call Apple Care and schedule an appointment with the Apple Store Genius to get this resolved as it may be a "House Keeping" issue resulting from from with your Universal or PPC program conflicts *or it may be the EFI 1.7 issue*.

They can "roll back" the Firmware there.

Here is my configuration of the Mac Book Pro:

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro5,4
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.53 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP53.00AC.B02
SMC Version (system): 1.49f2

The Boot ROM is the key identifying item.

Check out:

www.support.apple.com/KB/HT1237

They have a listing of the Macs and the appropriate EFI firmware updates and you can check to see which one is in effect.

If indeed you have EFI 1.7 and apparently you do have the identifying "G" suffix, you should roll back to EFI. 1.6.

This worked for me completely--and the Genius resolved the issue. I had to visit them 3 times to get it done properly--but it worked.

You may want also try booting from your Apple Hardware disk and run the extended test to see if you indeed have a different Hardware issue. It confirmed my issue.

bobg

LOL, even Family Guy is getting in on the act 😉

http://www.flickr.com/photos/44916721@N02/4127011464/

Mazda3s wrote:
LOL, even Family Guy is getting in on the act 😉

http://www.flickr.com/photos/44916721@N02/4127011464/

I nearly p1ssed myself last night when I saw that 😀

Boy, this thread is confusing...

If I buy a Seagate Momentus 7200.4 320 GB HDD without the sudden motion sensor for my mid 2009 13.3" MacBook Pro (with EFI 1.7) and +use the jumper on the HDD to limit it to 1.5 Gb/s+, will it work just fine?

Legge wrote:
Boy, this thread is confusing...

If I buy a Seagate Momentus 7200.4 320 GB HDD without the sudden motion sensor for my mid 2009 13.3" MacBook Pro (with EFI 1.7) and +use the jumper on the HDD to limit it to 1.5 Gb/s+, will it work just fine?

As long as the drive is communicating at SATA I speeds (forced by firmware / jumper, or a native SATA I drive) you should be unaffected by this particular issue. Not a big deal now, but if you want to get a SSD drive down the road the SATA I limitation could be a major issue.

katmeef wrote:

Legge wrote:
Boy, this thread is confusing...

If I buy a Seagate Momentus 7200.4 320 GB HDD without the sudden motion sensor for my mid 2009 13.3" MacBook Pro (with EFI 1.7) and +use the jumper on the HDD to limit it to 1.5 Gb/s+, will it work just fine?

As long as the drive is communicating at SATA I speeds (forced by firmware / jumper, or a native SATA I drive) you should be unaffected by this particular issue. Not a big deal now, but if you want to get a SSD drive down the road the SATA I limitation could be a major issue.

OK, that's exactly how I understood the situation. I just find it weird that there are lots of people with standard Seagate 7200.4 series HHDs having problems even though it can be solved with the jumper (without losing anything in the overall speed).

Sorry about that but what is a jumper/how I get it ?

Shifty08 wrote:
Sorry about that but what is a jumper/how I get it ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumper_(computing)
But this will only help if your hard drive has a jumper on it to select between SATA I or SATA II.

If you have a Hitachi drive, you may be able to use the feature tool on their website to do the same thing sans jumper.

Fishbert, do you work for Apple? Honestly, please answer that question.

The good thing about the length of this post is that it is attracting attention, which may be the only thing that actually gets Apple to fix the issue. People should continue posting their issues here. Just keep it relevant.

I just got off the phone with a 2nd level support after doing the "schedule a callback"

I can confirm that I have had no issues with the machine since doing an SMC and PRAM reset.

However this information was really interesting.

They told me that all apple patches should be inclusive, meaning that my system only showing update 10.6.2 for snow leopard means that EFI update 1.7 and performance update 1.0 should both be installed (though they aren't in the list). As well as Hard Drive firmware update 2.0 (0007APM2 for seagate drives)

I asked the tech how to check my system to see if performance update 1.0 is actually installed and how to check my current EFI revision to see if I need a rollback. He walked me to:

System Profiler -> Software -> Extensions -> IOAHCIBlockStorage

Since it said 1.6 I asked and he confirmed that Performance update 1.0 is in fact an EFI rollback patch to re-limit the system to sata I speeds..

I will note however that system profiler shows this drive as operating at 3Gb/sec and I have not had any issues with freezes since yesterday.