Q: Firmware update and SATA II hard drive

I have a Patriot Torqx 128GB SSD and have been having all kinds of issues. First of all, I couldn't even get Snow Leopard to install on the SSD (clean install) -- it would always fail during the installation process. I had to FIRST install Snow Leopard on my original 160GB HDD on my 13" MBP and then SuperDuper the drive over to the SSD via a SATA-to-USB adapter.

That seemed to work for a few days until I start getting random beach balling even with the 1.6 firmware (I have not yet updated to Firmware 1.7).

The system will get the spinning beach ball, the mouse will move, but the entire system is unresponsive. I can't access any applications and hitting commandoptionescape doesn't respond either. It requires shutting down the system to fix it.

And sometimes if I leave the machine running on AC power for a while with the screen open, I will come back to a machine that has it fan spinning, but a blank screen with no response to any inputs.

This is really starting to tick me off.

Not sure if this is a repost, but if you have a 17" MacBook Pro that shipped with 1.7, you cannot downgrade the EFI Firmware to 1.6. Firmware tool has a circle with a slash through it...So I'm stuck with 1.7 for now and its inherent problems.

realmac wrote:
Not sure if this is a repost, but if you have a 17" MacBook Pro that shipped with 1.7, you cannot downgrade the EFI Firmware to 1.6. Firmware tool has a circle with a slash through it...So I'm stuck with 1.7 for now and its inherent problems.

As mentioned previously,

1.7 is not and has never been an EFI update available for the 17" MBP. It is only for the 13 and 15" models.

You can see a list here of which firmware versions are compatible with which Macbooks: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1237

i swapped the 320gb on my pro 15 with 500gb 7200rpm seagate with g-force. I formatted the drive and installed snow leopard and some how it seems to work without any problems. its been 4 days. I haven't even switched off the macbook fall sensor...

hi there,
some time ago i posted, that the P-RAM reset worked for me. it did, but now it´s all back to EFI 1.7 beachballing. So for me the P-RAM reset was only a temporary fix.

So downgrading to EFI 1.6, won´t this void my warranty?

i had 2 20 second beachballs writig this.

p.s. the upgrade to snow leopard changed nothing

Message was edited by: lindemeyer

Thanks Fishbert, I for one am doing all of the above ^^^^

I have moved the SSD to an older macbook and it makes it scream,. I will still push for being able to use my new PC

I can confirm that you can downgrade with the method posted in the Macrumors forum. My firmware shows 1.5 SATA speed.

lindemeyer wrote:
So downgrading to EFI 1.6, won´t this void my warranty?

Taking your computer in to an Apple Store's genius bar and having them do it _will not_ void your warranty.

Burning a disc of files that some russian guy posted on the internet and using that to roll back the firmware yourself own will void your warranty (if Apple finds out).

Taking your computer in to an Apple Store's genius bar and having them do it will not void your warranty.

Which store did you have this downgrade done in? I've gone to one (Oakridge in San Jose, CA), and called 2 others (Los Gatos & Valley Fair), and only 1 of the 3 said they knew how to do the downgrade of the firmware (Valley Fair). I'm headed there for an appointment and I'll know for sure if they can do the downgrade soon enough. Do I need to bring it to Apple's headquarters to get someone to downgrade it??

I confirm the downgrade does not void warrantee, i repeat does not void warrantee.
Ive been to the apple store and told them about it and they didn't even bat an eye.

Warrantee states any unauthorized physical modifications...... firmware downgrade isn't a physical modification.

Still, ive done it and i suggest doing it at your own risk.

I have a question. The speed of 1.5 Gbps and 3.0 Gbps for Sata 1 and Sata 11, what are those speeds in layman term?

Having gone through two Intel X-25's that were not able to even be seen on my MBP after the 1.7 update last June, I finally downgraded to 1.6 today and am able to see the X-25 without problem.

XBench after the 1.6 today (with a drive that actually could be seen):
Disk Test 197.98
Sequential 128.22
Uncached Write 116.60 71.59 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 107.82 61.00 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 109.27 31.98 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 238.50 119.87 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 434.18
Uncached Write 558.24 59.10 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 200.17 64.08 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 1319.81 9.35 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 599.48 111.24 MB/sec [256K blocks]

For kicks, I decided to pop the original drive back in, update to 1.7 (again) and boot off of the original without problem. Confirmed 1.7 installed, shut down the system and popped the X-25 back in. The MBP will not see the X-25 (again).

So - moral of the story, the X-25 works under 1.6, but after 1.7, it can't even be seen. Period.

I have a question. The speed of 1.5 Gbps and 3.0 Gbps for Sata 1 and Sata 11, what are those speeds in layman term?

MBP15, the speeds refer to the fastest possible speed of data transfer between the disk and the memory. 1.5Gbps is 1.5 Gigabits per second. 1 Gigabit is 125 Megabytes (MBs), so 1.5 Gigabits is 187.5 MBs. Thus if the 1.5Gbps speed is the limiting factor, in 1 second you could move about 37.5 songs from the disk to memory (assuming 5MB/song). And 3Gbps is double the speed, so that would mean about 75 songs per second.

Now these speeds are the limit of the bus between the memory and disk, and are generally not attainable, as there are other limiting factors, such as the drive's sustained transfer speed. If you are using a spinning disk hard drive (not SSD), then the 1.5Gbps is greater than the disk's transfer speed, so you do not need the 3Gbps speed of "SATA-II".

Message was edited by: eriksj

The Valley Fair store had a Genius that was able to perform the downgrade to EFI 1.6, despite 2 other stores claiming no knowledge of how to perform this.

When I got home I was able to install Snow Leopard on the WD Scorpio Black drive whilst it was inside my Macbook Pro, which previously hung forever at "28 minutes remaining". The first thing I did on bootup was go into the Software Update and marked the EFI 1.7 firmware update to be ignored forever.

Seems to be running fine now. I highly recommend that anyone having related issues try downgrading to EFI 1.6.

Similar problems here. I bought a new MBP 15" last week, took the 320GB Scorpio drive out of my old MBP and placed it in the new one to install Snow Leopard. No good, would just freeze trying to install or trying to format the drive.

Replaced with the stock 250GB drive that came with the new MBP and it would install without issue. Strange, but I could live with it.

Annoyingly though, I was also planning to upgrade to a new Intel G2 SSD as the primary drive, but if the only solution to get the system to even see one of those is to downgrade to EFI 1.6 which doesn't allow it to be used at 3Gbps then there doesn't seem much point. I'm almost tempted to return the MBP altogether until this is resolved given that you get a 14 day no-questions-asked period...