Q: Firmware update and SATA II hard drive

Listen folks, this is how Apple rolls. They mess something up, they rarely ever admit it until they figure out how to fix it in software. If they cannot they will fix it in hardware and luckily for us it happened now before our warranties are up. It ***** but this is how they do it. 95% of the time it [hardware] works great but when it does not, they make you wait till they figure it out. This is obviously a big problem or we would have had a fix and the SATA would not have come out crippled in the first place. I am surprised that they came out with 1.7. It is not something they usually do. Usually they would have a press release saying that most drives would never touch the 1.5 barrier and then come out, if possible, a fix in a few months if possible. Who knows what they were thinking.

I have owned over 200 or more different macs in my life and I can tell you that the experience is usually a positive one.

Just my 2 cents.

Cheers, John.

Ella Price wrote:
L I can tell you that the experience is usually a positive one.

Oh, I totally agree. I still love Apple products... and they always fix the problems eventually.

It's not just Apple that have these glitches- its all the other tech companies like Blackberry, Samsung, Sony etc... I have come to live with it as part of progress and for wanting to stay up to date.

It is very hard to say whether you should or should not buy a MBP now.
It seems like the problem is pretty random that happens in entire new MBP line with all kinds of HDD.

I think it is suffice to say if you can wait...just wait; if you need the laptop right now..make sure you buy from somewhere you can easily exchange/return.

I have purchased two MBP (one 13" base and one MBP 15" 2.66) within the last three weeks and both are working flawlessly...both can run the Intel SSD blazing fast...however, there is no guarantee you'll get one that's work or not...at this point...your guess is just as good as mine.

MBP15 wrote:
So does anybody suggest waiting to buy a MBP right now until the problem is solved or just go ahead and buy it. does anybody know if this problem is still happening with the new mbps that are being sold?

PLEASE HELP.

If you think you may upgrade your hard drive at any point during the life of your laptop, then I would stay away from the current generation of MacBook Pros. The biggest single performance upgrade one can make to a their computer these days (heck, it's the biggest jump in a long while) is installing a solid state drive, and that's precisely where the current MacBook Pros fall flat on their face with this problem.

If you are hard up for an Apple laptop, I'd suggest looking for a used or refurbished MacBook Pro from late 2008. It will actually last you longer because you have more head room for upgrades.

If Apple actually fixes this firmware issue, then scratch the above... but it's been about 3 months now, and there has been zero indication from Apple that they intend to do anything about this broken firmware. That's not something I'd be willing to bet thousands of dollars on, were I able to do it over again.

Fishbert...I understand your frustration of current EFI 1.7 fiasco...and I agree with you that Apple really fall flat this time by not even acknowledging the problem after so many complains in the past three months....

But...I would not speak in such a definite conclusive tone that the current line of MBP will absolutely has this problem...at least there are some people like me who has absolutely no problem with the current MBP 13" and 15" installed with SSD(I still get over 200Mb/s read and 80mb/s write with no freezing at all)

I think it is safer to advice either wait or buy at places where you can return/exchange with minimal penalty if the problem arise - if there is no problem, you can enjoy your MBP happily ever after..^^

Although the differences between the 08 uMB and 09 MBP are minimal performance-wise....I really like the SD slot in the 09MBP especially since my budget can only afford a 80GB SSD...a 32 SDHC can provide a convenient and easy extra storage

Just my 2 cents..
Cheers^^

Message was edited by: CaLciD

CaLciD wrote:
Fishbert...I understand your frustration of current EFI 1.7 fiasco...and I agree with you that Apple really fall flat this time by not even acknowledging the problem after so many complains in the past three months....

But...I would not speak in such a definite conclusive tone that the current line of MBP will absolutely has this problem...at least there are some people like me who has absolutely no problem with the current MBP 13" and 15" installed with SSD(I still get over 200Mb/s read and 80mb/s write with no freezing at all)

I think it is safer to advice either wait or buy at places where you can return/exchange with minimal penalty if the problem arise - if there is no problem, you can enjoy your MBP happily ever after..^^

Although the differences between the 08 uMB and 09 MBP are minimal performance-wise....I really like the SD slot in the 09MBP especially since my budget can only afford a 80GB SSD...a 32 SDHC can provide a convenient and easy extra storage

I didn't say that the current line of MBPs would absolutely have this problem.
I did, however, say that I would not roll the dice on the current line with thousands of dollars out of my pocket.

But going with a late-2008 MacBook Pro, you are virtually guaranteed to have a properly functioning 3.0 Gb/s SATA II interface just waiting in anticipation of being fed a nice, juicy SSD to play with.

Oh, and I filled the express card slot in my old(er) 2008 MBP with a 4-in-1 memory card reader. Cost me about $30, sat flush with the exterior of the laptop, and read a wider variety of cards than what's now built in. Even better? I could replace that card reader with anything else I wanted at any time.

As far as I see it, the only benefits for going with the current line of MacBook Pros over a discounted late-2008 model are:
1) you want a 13" unibody
2) you want more battery life
3) you want more than 4GB of RAM
Now, frequently running VMs, I value being able to drop in 8GB of RAM (whenever that becomes affordable). It is precisely why I sold my 2008 MBP in favor of one from the current line. But knowing that my machine definitely is affected by this broken firmware, and that any modern (or future) SSD that I invest in will be crippled by it... this outweighs the improved RAM ceiling any day in my book.

I am sorely missing my 2008 MBP, though I keep holding out hope that a real solution to this mid-2009 firmware issue will surface.

fishbert wrote:

CaLciD wrote:
Fishbert...I understand your frustration of current EFI 1.7 fiasco...and I agree with you that Apple really fall flat this time by not even acknowledging the problem after so many complains in the past three months....

But...I would not speak in such a definite conclusive tone that the current line of MBP will absolutely has this problem...at least there are some people like me who has absolutely no problem with the current MBP 13" and 15" installed with SSD(I still get over 200Mb/s read and 80mb/s write with no freezing at all)

I think it is safer to advice either wait or buy at places where you can return/exchange with minimal penalty if the problem arise - if there is no problem, you can enjoy your MBP happily ever after..^^

Although the differences between the 08 uMB and 09 MBP are minimal performance-wise....I really like the SD slot in the 09MBP especially since my budget can only afford a 80GB SSD...a 32 SDHC can provide a convenient and easy extra storage

I didn't say that the current line of MBPs would absolutely have this problem.
I did, however, say that I would not roll the dice on the current line with thousands of dollars out of my pocket.

But going with a late-2008 MacBook Pro, you are virtually guaranteed to have a properly functioning 3.0 Gb/s SATA II interface just waiting in anticipation of being fed a nice, juicy SSD to play with.

Oh, and I filled the express card slot in my old(er) 2008 MBP with a 4-in-1 memory card reader. Cost me about $30, sat flush with the exterior of the laptop, and read a wider variety of cards than what's now built in. Even better? I could replace that card reader with anything else I wanted at any time.

As far as I see it, the only benefits for going with the current line of MacBook Pros over a discounted late-2008 model are:
1) you want a 13" unibody
2) you want more battery life
3) you want more than 4GB of RAM
Now, frequently running VMs, I value being able to drop in 8GB of RAM (whenever that becomes affordable). It is precisely why I sold my 2008 MBP in favor of one from the current line. But knowing that my machine definitely is affected by this broken firmware, and that any modern (or future) SSD that I invest in will be crippled by it... this outweighs the improved RAM ceiling any day in my book.

I am sorely missing my 2008 MBP, though I keep holding out hope that a real solution to this mid-2009 firmware issue will surface.

fishbert - I'm sorry to say that a new firmware is not going to fix this, so you will have a long wait. You need to get your MBP swapped for a unit that has the newer hardware, which fixes the 3Gbps fault.

I say your analyze is fair enough...and I apologize for not being more precise on my comment...my comment is based on my current needs of a 13"....in which the 13" 09MBP, in my humble opinion, is far more superior than the 08 models (better screen, higher-capacity battery, 8GB Ram capable, SD card slot, back-lit keyboard)...given that your machine do not crippled under this EFI 1.7 problem that is...

but like you said, if one is interested in the 15"s or the 17"s....I would go with the Express Card slot any time of the day...well...unless you want a 15" WITH a matte screen...^^

Coolas - May I ask where you get the info that there are 'new hardware' that's gonna fix this problem?

Although I am not affected...I would like to know how do I check whether I have these 'New Hardware' just to make sure....if there is any?

coolas wrote:
fishbert - I'm sorry to say that a new firmware is not going to fix this, so you will have a long wait. You need to get your MBP swapped for a unit that has the newer hardware, which fixes the 3Gbps fault.

CaLciD wrote:
Coolas - May I ask where you get the info that there are 'new hardware' that's gonna fix this problem?

Although I am not affected...I would like to know how do I check whether I have these 'New Hardware' just to make sure....if there is any?

There is no 'newer hardware' that fixes the broken EFI version 1.7 firmware.
He's either honestly mistaken, or he's a troll. Either way, it's incorrect.

Well, it could very well be a problem that has to do with hardware and software. But the fact the the older Firmware fixes the issue makes it very likely that Apple could release a firmware update that fixes the issue.

Btw - how can I find out what Firmware I have. As I reported already - I have a 17" mid 2009 Macbook Pro w/ stock 500 GByte drive. I get a beachball each time the computer has to access the drive (as it spins up I assume). Is this the issue thats discussed here ?

I had the same issue in 10.5.8 and hoped 10.6 will fix it. No luck.

Here is the GetInfo:
NVidia MCP79 AHCI:

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

Hitachi HTS545050B9SA02:

Capacity: 500,11 GB (500.107.862.016 bytes)
Model: Hitachi HTS545050B9SA02
Revision: PB4AC60Q
Serial Number: 09071*RXG <Edited by Host>
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Rotational Rate: 5400
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
Volumes:
Macintosh HD:
Capacity: 499,76 GB (499.763.888.128 bytes)
Available: 263,04 GB (263.039.713.280 bytes)
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s2
Mount Point: /

andschmi wrote:
Btw - how can I find out what Firmware I have. As I reported already - I have a 17" mid 2009 Macbook Pro w/ stock 500 GByte drive. I get a beachball each time the computer has to access the drive (as it spins up I assume). Is this the issue thats discussed here ?

There is only one firmware version for the current 17" MacBook Pros.
But for the benefit of others, you can find your firmware version by doing: "apple->about this mac->More Info..." this will open System Profiler, and on its initial page there will be a string "Boot ROM Version: XXXXX.YYYY.ZZZ" where the X/Y/Z stuff is your firmware version identification. On my 15" MBP, EFI 1.6 has ZZZ=B02 and EFI 1.7 has ZZZ=B03.

Some people have said they see the issue that we find present in the EFI version 1.7 firmware for the 13" and 15" MBPs in their 17" MBPs as well, but that's been more difficult to pin down (probably because we don't have an A-B comparison of firmware to look at). All I can say is that this is what the issue looked like on my 15" MBP before I had the rollback:
http://vimeo.com/5854152

Hello,

this video shows exactly my issue. That means my stock 17" w/ stock drive has the same issue. Here is the interesting part of my getinfo:

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro5,2
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2,8 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1,07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP52.008E.B05
SMC Version (system): 1.42f4

Message was edited by: andschmi

Message was edited by: andschmi

andschmi wrote:
this video shows exactly my issue. That means my stock 17" w/ stock drive has the same issue. Here is the interesting part of my getinfo:

I'd suggest you contact Apple Support regarding the problem. Be polite about it, but don't let them ignore your issue. Also, leave feedback here: http://www.apple.com/feedback/macbookpro.html

I believe it is easy for Apple to push those of us with 13" and 15" MacBook Pros off to the EFI version 1.6 firmware and call that good. But if the 17" MacBook Pros also have this issue with the SATA II interface, there is little choice but for Apple to provide a proper solution.

Keep in mind that you may find your issue is caused by something else... but in case it isn't, please make some noise about it.

Just an update on my second try at using 1.7.

After 1 one more day of pretty intense usage, still no issues at all.
So there would be only two things I could attribute this to now:
1) There indeed is an issue in the firmware upgrade process which happens sporadically to some users (including me in my first attempt)
2) As my Logic Board and SATA flat ribbon cable was swapped after my first upgrade, it might be what Ponzi has speculated in terms of the initial runs of Logic boards or cables having hardware issues causing the errors on the SATA bus when in 3GB/s mode.

I can just encourage you to upgrade a second time to give it a shot. If it does not work you can always downgrade again now. In which case you probably should insist in a logic board swap as well.

For me, the issue seems to be solved now. My OCZ Summit SSD drive now is reporting 120MB/s writes and 203MB/s reads. Without 1.7 it was only 80MB/s writes and 122MB/s reads.

Pretty big difference !

Ollie.