Q: Firmware update and SATA II hard drive

nico-apple wrote:

katmeef wrote:
The interface itself will report 3GB/s with 1.7 installed, regardless if the drive is jumpered to 1.5 or not. (Mine does anyways with a Hitachi locked down to 1.5G)

The minor point I was making was, in response to fishbert, that Apple does ship 3.0Gbps hard drives, as witnessed with my machine, which was shipped with a Seagate 500GB ST9500420ASG - documented as equipped with a 3.0Gbps SATA-II interface.

Can you be certain Apple has not locked your ST9500420ASG to SATA-I speeds via it's firmware, as I have done with my Hitachi?

katmeef wrote:

nico-apple wrote:

katmeef wrote:
The interface itself will report 3GB/s with 1.7 installed, regardless if the drive is jumpered to 1.5 or not. (Mine does anyways with a Hitachi locked down to 1.5G)

The minor point I was making was, in response to fishbert, that Apple does ship 3.0Gbps hard drives, as witnessed with my machine, which was shipped with a Seagate 500GB ST9500420ASG - documented as equipped with a 3.0Gbps SATA-II interface.

Can you be certain Apple has not locked your ST9500420ASG to SATA-I speeds via it's firmware, as I have done with my Hitachi?

I have an Apple-supplied Hitachi HTS545016B9SA02 in my brand new 13" unibody MBP, and it was locking up every 5 minutes or so.

System Profiler reported it was a 3.0Gbps before I downgraded my firmware to 1.6 using the macrumors forum method, shown at http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=8416559&postcount=323

This would seem to indicate Apple is indeed shipping SATA-II drives on new Macbook Pros and failing to support them properly with the botched 1.7 firmware update.

I can't confirm the drive was locked or anything, only that System Profiler reported it as Speed: 3.0 Gbps. All I know is it was causing major issues and the firmware downgrade was the only working fix. Shame on Apple for not supporting their own hardware in brand-new laptops... and the standard that is supported by the majority of new hard drives.

Thanks to everybody in this thread, and other threads on these forums, for pointing me to that firmware downgrade which (although incredibly sketchy to perform on a brand-new Mac!) solved my problem and saved me a LOT of time with Apple Support.

coolas wrote:

Peter Di Arcangelo wrote:
this isnt going anywhere, were nearing 100 pages and not even a nod, or hint at apple acknowledging this. i believe the chances of a fix coming along are slim.

You can say that again! There is a fix... Ring Apple, tell them the problem, and they will swap you MacBook for a unit that has newer hardware. I did, and my Seagate 500GB works fine now.

coolas wrote:

fishbert wrote:

Canadiandude wrote:
Well, I had a case number and appointment to deal with the SD card and they said they would also look at the HD issue but repeatedly stated that they could not do much since they didn't support 3rd party drives.

Personally, while I have rolled back the firmware, I am not very happy. This is simply a temp solution so I am able to use the HD I paid good money for. It doesn't change the fact that Apple really should be supporting SATA II drives since the majority of 2.5" drives for sale today are SATA II.

Apple can't be expected to support 3rd party drives... but this issue isn't a problem with 3rd party drives, it's with Apple's SATA II interface (something they absolutely should be expected to support). It's a very important distinction.

They do support it. Ring them and find out

We have been over this before, coolas... there is no evidence of "newer hardware" that magically fixes the SATA II issue. The issue has been, from the very beginning, a craps-shoot as to whether it would show up on a given machine. That you had your machine or logic board replaced and it worked means that you won a roll of the dice, nothing more. There are people in here who have had their machine or logic board replaced upwards of 4 times, to no avail.

If you still want to push this "newer hardware" theory of yours, then you should be able to point to what, exactly, has changed with the hardware. Open your "newer hardware" machine, compare what you see with what all the online tear-down images show from back in June when the laptops were first released, and tell us all what has been changed to make everything better.

Please do look, because if you are able to find some meaningful difference to point to in your actual hardware, that would mean there is a potential solution for us all. But if you can't do that, then all you are doing is making wild guesses and passing them off as facts.

katmeef wrote:

nico-apple wrote:

katmeef wrote:
The interface itself will report 3GB/s with 1.7 installed, regardless if the drive is jumpered to 1.5 or not. (Mine does anyways with a Hitachi locked down to 1.5G)

The minor point I was making was, in response to fishbert, that Apple does ship 3.0Gbps hard drives, as witnessed with my machine, which was shipped with a Seagate 500GB ST9500420ASG - documented as equipped with a 3.0Gbps SATA-II interface.

Can you be certain Apple has not locked your ST9500420ASG to SATA-I speeds via it's firmware, as I have done with my Hitachi?

I believe if the drive was locked to SATA-I speed via firmware, or even via jumpers for that matter, then I would not have seen the NVidia SATA controller report 3.0 Gbps connection to the HDD after I applied the EFI 1.7 firmware upgrade. It would have failed to negotiate a 3.0 Gbps connection speed with the drive and reported 1.5 Gbps instead.

Plus the fact that Apple is still having defective laptops shipped to engineers when they come across means that Apple does not know what this issue is to even come out with a "secret" hardware fix.

powerpak wrote:

katmeef wrote:

nico-apple wrote:

katmeef wrote:
The interface itself will report 3GB/s with 1.7 installed, regardless if the drive is jumpered to 1.5 or not. (Mine does anyways with a Hitachi locked down to 1.5G)

The minor point I was making was, in response to fishbert, that Apple does ship 3.0Gbps hard drives, as witnessed with my machine, which was shipped with a Seagate 500GB ST9500420ASG - documented as equipped with a 3.0Gbps SATA-II interface.

Can you be certain Apple has not locked your ST9500420ASG to SATA-I speeds via it's firmware, as I have done with my Hitachi?

System Profiler reported it was a 3.0Gbps before I downgraded my firmware to 1.6 using the macrumors forum method, shown at http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=8416559&postcount=323

This would seem to indicate Apple is indeed shipping SATA-II drives on new Macbook Pros and failing to support them properly with the botched 1.7 firmware update.

I can't confirm the drive was locked or anything, only that System Profiler reported it as Speed: 3.0 Gbps.

I don't have my mac in front of me to verify, but I believe that System Profiler only provides information on what the SATA interface on the logic board is capable of... not what the hard drive itself is capable of.

It is known that Apple puts their own custom firmware on the hard drives that come with their laptops. I don't have any first-hand knowledge that this custom firmware on the drives limits the interface speed, but a few pages back, Oliver posted:

Oliver F wrote:
I have dealt with Apple Specialists for about 8 weeks on this issue. After that Apple engineering came back with the unhelpful result of Apple only shipping SATA I drives hence not fully supporting SATA 2. While enabled by the EFI 1.7 update, The controller does not fully support SATA 2 standards hence the issues we are all seeing.

I had then a call from a not so friendly Apple Specialist telling me that "This is the end of the rope in terms of a solution to my problem" and that I can not expect Apple to fix this as they never sold any SATA 2 drives.

Needless to say that I am speechless and disgusted at this result as:
1) My 2008 MBP supported SATA 2 flawlessly
2) How can a manufacturer get away with not properly supporting a Industry standard ???
3) There is not even an option to buy an Apple SSD drive after the initial purchase of the MBP.

I am ******!

As any one purchased their macbook pro recently like in the past 2-3 weeks? and noticed these lockups and beachballs?

if coolas is right, no one should be answering to that question.

Guys/Gals:

There is a subtle difference observed.

My Seagate drive documentation indicates that it *Seagate 500GB ST9500420AS*--notice it is not a ST9500420ASG drive. The Mac Book Pro is MC118LL/A and the drive is a new drive is (Seagate 500 2.5inch 7200 RPM drive) and not the factory supplied 250 GB Hatachi HD.

Hitachi HTS545025B9SA02:

Capacity: 232.89 GB
Model: Hitachi HTS545025B9SA02
Revision: PB2AC60Q
Serial Number: 090617PBC200QSH51NKH
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
Volumes:
RJG MBP:
Capacity: 232.57 GB
Available: 69.01 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s2
Mount Point: /



May be this is where the difference resides.

I checked my packing slip and my invoice.

bobg

Peter Di Arcangelo wrote:
As any one purchased their macbook pro recently like in the past 2-3 weeks? and noticed these lockups and beachballs?

if coolas is right, no one should be answering to that question.

I wouldn't say that "NO ONE" should be answering in the affirmative because there could be other reasons for beachballing. For example, some people have seen system slowdowns with Snow Leopard. Also, if there were a hardware revision, we don't know how long it has taken for revised hardware to be filling the pipeline. If a hardware revision is taking place, there will be a drastic reduction in complaints of this nature over time.

I haven't read any explanation for Apple's release of the current system with a slower SATA interface than previous models. When this came to light in June, the press couldn't explain it. See this article from Computerworld for example:

http://tinyurl.com/n2mx8g

It's like releasing a new model with USB version 1.1 technology instead of 2.0. It's curious to say the least. Restoring the higher speed with a firmware upgrade was apparently easy enough because Apple quickly issued the version 1.7 firmware. But the statements that accompanied the firmware update were also curious, specifically noting that Apple does not support the higher speed drives. It's almost as if Apple knew there would be problems.

This is my first MBP, and I'm a bit disappointed in the way this has been handled. I'm still giving Apple the benefit of the doubt because of the many posts that say Apple supports its customers. There's no question the company has smart engineers. So I'll wait and see. My MBP works fine with its stock hard drive, and its a great computer. But I do know I'd like to install a SSD in my system at some point, and I hope I don't experience the problems posted by some of the contributors to this thread.

i see, i mean it would be fir enough if it was only third party drives that suffered these issues, but so do their own hard-drives, like in my case Hitachi HTS545032B9SA02is shorting out every time i want to watch a movie, and its apples stock drive.

I am very disappointed at the situation, apple needs to put out a statement and more importantly a solution.

Why wouldn't a company want to let its customers know they are working on a fix? because there isnt one coming maybe?

Im scheduled to get my logic board and hard drive replaced, if that doesn't fix it, i will be unsure what the next step for me to take will be.

Coolas you need to put out some concrete examples to prove your point, any case ids? Who you spoke to? i mean ive called apple about 8 or 10 times and ive only managed to get somewhere once, and even at that it seems the lead is thinning out....

This blows.

In case Apple is listening, I was ready to purchase some MBPs this summer for a client, but we decided against it after learning about these problems. The ability to swap hard drives has always been important to my Mac clients, and until now it has never, ever, been a problem. Specifically, we are new to SSD drives, and wanted to be able to put in an HDD if they don't perform as expected over time.

We would have accepted a straight-forward specification of SATA-I 1.5 Gb/s for such and such reasons as long as it was reliable, but upon learning that only Apple-supplied drives with customized firmware work in these units, and seeing the word "unsupported" in the jimmied 1.7 EFI firmware tech note, we got way too nervous that they were glossing over a design flaw that might manifest over time. We are waiting for Apple to address the problem directly, since it has clearly affected so many loyal and new customers.

Gimbal:

Apple isn't listening to this thread. If you want them to hear what you think, post your thoughts to http://www.apple.com/feedback/macbookpro.html

I haven't run into the problem directly, but I too would like to upgrade to an SSD one day and don't want any compatibility problems. I posted two different comments to that link regarding my concerns over this issue and future HD upgrades. They can't hear you unless you talk to them directly. Perhaps a call to the Apple Store expressing the idea that they lost a large sale over this issue might get some attention up the chain of command. Remember, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Peter Di Arcangelo wrote:
i see, i mean it would be fir enough if it was only third party drives that suffered these issues...

I disagree, it's is wholly unacceptable to not tell customers that your new laptop is a downgrade from your previous laptop in such a significant metric as hard drive interface speed. Even if it were strictly limited to 3rd party drives.

I completely agree with Ponzi's assessment:

Ponzi wrote:
It's like releasing a new model with USB version 1.1 technology instead of 2.0.

Plus, this limitation is not something that would be obvious even to those of us who do enough research before buying to check the chipset on the logic board (the 9400M is capable of SATA II). Heck, even when it was made known through wide reporting that the hard drive interface was strangely crippled on these laptops, Apple released a "fix" with EFI 1.7 in record time to silence the critics and stop the questions. That made it look like the whole thing was an oversight or something. But what it really did is make everyone potentially vulnerable to freezing and beachballing, even those who get hard drive upgrades through Apple-authorized service centers.

I mean, it's not like upgrading your hard drive isn't allowed, or anything... Apple publishes DIY instructions on how to do it, and even lists it as a user-replacable part in the MBP manual. I'd even call it a routine upgrade; something most people probably consider at least once over the life of the product.

So, no... I don't think it would be fine enough if it was only third party drives that suffered these issues.

Peter Di Arcangelo wrote:
This blows.

Yes, it really does.

Peter: If you can, try the firmware downgrade mentioned in:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=8414998&posted=1#post8414998

It seems to have solved the random hanging issues with my 13" unibody. I was using the stock Apple-supplied Hitachi 160GB drive.

This will save you a lot of time getting perfectly fine hardware replaced.

PFloyd1973 wrote:
Gimbal:

Apple isn't listening to this thread. If you want them to hear what you think, post your thoughts to http://www.apple.com/feedback/macbookpro.html

I haven't run into the problem directly, but I too would like to upgrade to an SSD one day and don't want any compatibility problems. I posted two different comments to that link regarding my concerns over this issue and future HD upgrades. They can't hear you unless you talk to them directly. Perhaps a call to the Apple Store expressing the idea that they lost a large sale over this issue might get some attention up the chain of command. Remember, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Leaving feedback is highly recommended. But don't forget to also call Apple Support about the issue.

I'm not saying Apple does this (I don't know), but it's easy to ignore a few website feedback responses. Phone support is expensive, and tends to get noticed if a number of people are complaining about the same thing. My advice: do both... then check back with phone support periodically to see if there's been any progress toward a resolution.