Q: Firmware update and SATA II hard drive

bilals wrote:
I'm hoping that, with this firmware downgrader so simple and straightforward to use, maybe people will be more willing to test out their drives on both 1.6 and 1.7 to draw up their own compatibility lists without fear of being stuck at 3Gb/s.

There are no compatibility lists to have. As has been shown repeatedly already, drive X will work for some, but not work for others.

The problem is a broken SATA II interface with the EFI firmware. These issues are completely independent of the drive used, and as such, ALL drives that use a SATA II interface are potentially susceptible to this issue.

Soliciting people to test their drives and post results in here only clogs up this already extremely long thread with useless filler that everyone else has to wade through.

I wasn't expecting people to post the results here, more like something a bit more centralised, but yeah I realise different people had different experiences with the same drive models, myself included.

So is rolling back to 1.6 not a guaranteed cure for the problems people are experiencing with 1.7? I understand running at 1.5 is not ideal for people whose drives actually do go beyond that (ssd users only, I'd imagine) but I would've thought that for the rest of us, the limit wouldn't have any worse effect than the feeling that we're being cheated out of our money with a purposely stunted sata interface, which is understandable but isn't adversely affecting us right now, like the 1.7 update is.

UNBELIEVABLE!!!

I have the 7200RPM 500GB drive in my Macbook Pro that's a couple of weeks old. I've just been down to my local Apple store (Bristol, UK), and they're scheduling a drive replacement. The chap I spoke to said that there was a firmware rollback tool for the US (is the UK different?) but not here. However, he did mention that this machine was already running the 2.0 firmware update; and of course, it's still beachballing.

Well....

I can't applied the rollback firmware..]. What a f...!!!

First, i followed the procedure with flash USB...formatted, restored, then unppluged, plugged again...restarted, holded optiom key and....NOTHING!

Then i burned into a CD... Restarted, hold opiton key, insert CD...nothing!

Tried again...restarted hold C key to force boot...my MBP restarted alone and nothing again...

I don't know but if this firmware are for macbook not for drives, i think that i don't need to take off my stock Hitachi to apply this firmware, right?

So, maybe i can't get this work for me due a problem with me and my MBP OR this rollback don't work to all...

Can anybody help me to try again? A tutorial?

Thanks!

Hello,

I do have a 17" Macbook Pro mid 2009 w/ 500GB standard harddrive. I did not exchange the drive. It is a BTO option directly from Apple. Every 20 minutes or so the computer freeezes. In particular annoying while watching movies in iTunes.

I hope Apple will fix this soon. I keep my fingers crossed. I left feedback at

apple.com/feedback

I think this is a very important point.

Sorry guys!!

This rollback don't work for me...

I tried to boot without any internal hard drive...only with the CD...

They initiate the boot, but MBP restart 2s after....tried 4 times without any internal HD... i'm sure that this not work for me...

So, have to wait apple for a solution...

P.S.: My MBP was bought on July 01.

Message was edited by: Tiago Cruz

Tiago Cruz,

May I suggest trying to reset the SMC. I was given the rollback tool at an Apple Genius bar, but the genius couldn't get it working. I spent many hours after that trying with no luck until I reset the SMC. It may or may not help you but it worked in my case.
That procedure is:
1. If the computer is on, turn it off by choosing Shutdown from the Apple () menu.
2. Connect the power adapter to a working power source.
3. On the built-in keyboard, press (left) Shift-Control-Option along with the power button once.
4. Wait 5 seconds and press the power button to start the computer.

Note: You must use the keys on the left side of the built-in keyboard.

Good luck!

Thank you TREVGIT!!!!

I read your tutorial now just after that it worked...

Well, the rollback didn't worked with the sotck 250GB drive and didn't worked when i took off the drive...

But, when i insert the Seagate into internal the rollback worked...so...i think this firmware do something in the drive...

My MBP now appears MBP53.00AC.B02

1.5GB/S...

Really works now...!!!

Let's wait apple fix the 1.7 to 1.8 to see if we are able to use 3.0Gb/S.

Regards!

Hey fishbert et all,

Call me crazy, but with the downgrade tool from the macrumours forum in hand, I had the heart to upgrade to 1.7 a second time after Apple had swapped my Logic Board with the old version after my first upgrade.

And voila, all has been working intensively since 7 hours!
VMWARE, Time machine and HD Video running and no Beachball.

It might just be that the new Logic Board had fixed it, but why not give it a shot given we have the downgrade tool in hand now ?

A more happy, but still angry with Apple user.
It's a shame that it takes another user to help out the community here and post that downgrade tool.

Ollie.

I just downgraded my MBP 13/2.26 SD card laptop using the MacRumors method. I had the stock Apple drive in the machine when I did it, because I have not been able to work off my WD Scorpio 320 since 1.7 except out of an external inclosure. Everything went exactly as advertised.

Before downgrade, system profiler reports:

NVidia MCP79 AHCI:

Vendor: NVidia
Product: MCP79 AHCI
Speed: 3 Gigabit
Description: AHCI Version 1.20 Supported

Capacity: 149.05 GB
Model: Hitachi HTS545016B9SA02
Revision: PBBAC60Q
Serial Number: xxxxxxxxxx
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified

After the computer came back up, I shut down and installed the WD Scorpio back into the machine after weeks of booting fron a USB external inclosure. The machine appears to be working perfectly. System profiler now reports:

NVidia MCP79 AHCI:

Vendor: NVidia
Product: MCP79 AHCI
Speed: 1.5 Gigabit
Description: AHCI Version 1.20 Supported

Capacity: 298.09 GB
Model: WDC WD3200BEVT-22ZCT0
Revision: 11.01A11
Serial Number: xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified

Doing a software update now requests update to EFI 1.7, a mistake I will not soon repeat. In the last hour since the operation I have been trying to push the drive by copying large amounts of data both to and from an external drive simultaneously while watching a movie ripped to the HD. So far no beach balls whatsoever.

I will report anything anomalous, but this seems to have done it for me. Thank God for that Russian who was willing to post the file. I've been a Mac user since the 80's and never so frustrated with the company. You guys have been great, thanks for the community help.

Oliver please keep us poste don your second shot at upgrading, thanks.

Oliver F wrote:
Hey fishbert et all,

Call me crazy, but with the downgrade tool from the macrumours forum in hand, I had the heart to upgrade to 1.7 a second time after Apple had swapped my Logic Board with the old version after my first upgrade.

And voila, all has been working intensively since 7 hours!
VMWARE, Time machine and HD Video running and no Beachball.

It might just be that the new Logic Board had fixed it, but why not give it a shot given we have the downgrade tool in hand now ?

A more happy, but still angry with Apple user.
It's a shame that it takes another user to help out the community here and post that downgrade tool.

Ollie.

This again raises the question of whether this is a hardware problem with some of the SATA controllers. It never made sense to me that Apple would lower the SATA data transfer rate in its latest generation of 13" and 15" MBPs. There must have been a reason for the release of these systems with SATA 1 speeds. It's hard to believe it was a mistake on the part of an engineer.

One possible reason for the speed reduction is the unreliability of the data transfer for some of the controllers in the initial run, and Apple wanted to meet the deadline for releasing the newer MBPs. When the discovery of the slower speed caused an uproar, Apple released the EFI firmware version 1.7 to increase the SATA speed, but this highlighted the problem as shown by the many posts here and elsewhere.

It's possible that Apple was counting on the eventual correction of the hardware problem so that version 1.7 would work reliably in all current systems and that only a subset of initial customers would experience the problem when adding SSDs or third-party drives. Those with problems would be handled on a case-by-case basis. This is certainly cheaper than recalling all logic boards where some people may not experience the problem.

I have no idea if this possible explanation makes any sense. I'm not a software or hardware engineer. I hope that Apple is busy solving this, whatever the cause of the problem.

I have a 13" MBP with a stock drive that doesn't beachball or hiccup with version 1.7 firmware. But I don't know whether I have a lurking problem which will show up when I add a SSD when prices come down.

This has been unresolved for over two months. Thanks to people like Fishbert, this thread has been pretty focused on finding a solution.

Ponzi wrote:
This again raises the question of whether this is a hardware problem with some of the SATA controllers. It never made sense to me that Apple would lower the SATA data transfer rate in its latest generation of 13" and 15" MBPs. There must have been a reason for the release of these systems with SATA 1 speeds. It's hard to believe it was a mistake on the part of an engineer.

One possible reason for the speed reduction is the unreliability of the data transfer for some of the controllers in the initial run, and Apple wanted to meet the deadline for releasing the newer MBPs. When the discovery of the slower speed caused an uproar, Apple released the EFI firmware version 1.7 to increase the SATA speed, but this highlighted the problem as shown by the many posts here and elsewhere.

But this isn't the initial run of the hardware. The late 2008 15" MacBook Pro unibodies had the exact same chipset (down to the core revision number) and they handled SATA II just fine. In fact, NVIDIA has never released a GeForce 9400M chipset that didn't feature a 3.0Gb/s SATA II hard drive interface.

This is not a hardware problem... at least, not with the chips. It could possibly be a signal integrity issue with the routing of the logic board or in the SATA cable... that's pure speculation, but if it were the case, that should rightly fall upon Apple as a hardware recall.

fishbert wrote:

But this isn't the initial run of the hardware. The late 2008 15" MacBook Pro unibodies had the exact same chipset (down to the core revision number) and they handled SATA II just fine. In fact, NVIDIA has never released a GeForce 9400M chipset that didn't feature a 3.0Gb/s SATA II hard drive interface.

This is not a hardware problem... at least, not with the chips. It could possibly be a signal integrity issue with the routing of the logic board or in the SATA cable... that's pure speculation, but if it were the case, that should rightly fall upon Apple as a hardware recall.

I'm talking about a manufacturing defect in chip production, not design.