Q: Firmware update and SATA II hard drive

A final update on my case (hopefully), for anyone tracking it...

Background: Random beachball problem on stock, Apple-installed Hitachi 500 GB drive on a June 2009 MBP 13". Appeared at some point after EFI 1.7 upgrade. Problem could be temporarily eliminated by either safe boot + PRAM reset or archive-and-install; would reappear after 1 - 3 days. Upgrade to 10.6 did not change pattern.

Resolution: I had the EFI rolled back at the local Apple Store a week ago. Symptoms have not reappeared. This is the longest period without the beachball problem since it first appeared. Famous last words, but I consider the problem 'solved' in an immediate sense. However, Apple has to come out with a permanent fix eventually. They can't leave a bunch of machines out there that cannot handle a recommended software update.

My guess is that this is a hardware issue on some logic boards, and that Apple is having a hard time figuring out which machines are affected. Since so many problems can cause beachballing, and since a logic board recall is expensive, my bet is that they want a way to differentiate affected machines from unaffected ones that is based on something other than the symptoms.

Hi Bob,

Your revisions are very unique indeed.
EFI MBP53.00AC.B02
SMC 1.49f2 >> most MBP 2009 are 1.48f2

What does the Model Identifier say: MacBookPro 5,4 ?

Looks like a new hardware revision to me.

Ollie.

Oliver F wrote:
Hi Bob,

Your revisions are very unique indeed.
EFI MBP53.00AC.B02
SMC 1.49f2 >> most MBP 2009 are 1.48f2

What does the Model Identifier say: MacBookPro 5,4 ?

Looks like a new hardware revision to me.

Ollie.

It's not.
Mine is also B02 (post-downgrade), and I got my MacBook Pro day and date of the release.

Just to report that I also have stock Macbook Pro 13" 2.26GHz with 1.7 firmware and stock 5400rpm Hitachi hard disk and I get random beachballfests especially when watching movies from hard disk, sometimes with browsing as well.

Applecare doesn't seem to care too much and while I've also filled feedback form about this I think these are largely ignored by Apple (as a company they only care about public exposure and how that affects their bottom line). I'm going to call one more time to report some bugs in Snow Leopard and I'll raise this issue once more while on the line.

Clearing caches tip which I saw on these forums didn't help me, neither did any other trickery. Personally I suspect these machines cannot ever function properly with SATA2 enabled due to hardware limitations, and even if firmware is updated to improve the situation it may come at cost of non-trivial performance degradation as such fix might be necessary to do on-the-fly with firmware code. I'm happy to be proven wrong about this speculation, of course.

In addition I think that if that fix would've been easy Apple would have done it already, and as they have not I suspect it would be quite expensive and they hope that ignoring it makes it go away. And they are probably right: Apple loyalists are already blaming users themselves for these problems on other forums.

It's almost funny that this system (my first personal mac) has more problems than my five year old Windows PC.

To create some public pressure to get this fixed one way or another I would suggest people record their beachballfests and post them on Youtube to stir some publicity.

Oh cool... i buyed the MBP and the SSD yesterday, I made Updates then i installed the new SSD (did no researches and thought that is easily done) and of course i had the Same Problems. The best part is, that Apple does not give a hint to the Problems of the 3gb interface.

It is really disappointing to become no feedback and no help. I was really shocked when i was connected to this forum, so many threads and no bugfix from Apple, i think Microsoft has problems like this every month, but the make solutions. Its not a crime to make a slip, but its a crime to give no solutions or a feedback that they make researches for solutions..., even the Macbook costs that much. Jeah... just want to tell that, i am not amused of that.. like all others, my ssd takes now dust.

Does someone knows what is done by Apple to solve this?

I have EFI 1.7 installed. My stock Hitatchi drive works fine, and I can swap out my clone WD Scorpion with no issues. However, I just bought a Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500GB drive and when I install it internally in my mid-2009 MBP 15", the drive won't be formatted/partitioned HFS+ (journaled). I can pop the drive in an external enclosure and format it there.

So I did that, and popped it back in my MBP and installed Snow Leopard... installation hung. Wouldn't install. So I took it back out and put it in my external enclosure, and was able to install Snow Leopard.

Now... popped it back out of the external and put it back inside the MBP... it won't boot. The apple flashes at startup, then quickly followed by a circle with a line through it, then just gray screen.

I have come to the realization it's the 1.7 firmware. So I made a Genius bar appointment and want them to rollback to 1.6. Anyone here have this drive (Momentus 7200.4 500GB) and had the same problems as I.

I spent 6 hours yesterday before being pointed to this thread. I heard about this long ago, but it didn't affect me... until now.

VERY frustrating. Any official word from Apple????????????

Bryan

Oliver F

In your recent posting, you questioned which Model Identifier I had on my LapTop. See full info below:

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
Serial Number (system): (WXXXXXXXX)
Hardware UUID: 961058BB-22A8-5F4C-A2DE-386511CF01C1
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

My identifier as noted above clearly indicates I have a MacBookPro5,4

I rolled back my FW 1.7 to FW 1.6 at the Apple Store with a very co-operative Genius.

The roll back is confirmed by one suggestion from this board.

My beach ball issues presently have gone way--but I have not yet installed my 3rd party 2.5 inch Seagate 7200 RPM Sata II HD yet.

This is my next move which I will complete after my replacement power supply arrives so I can connect my LaCie d2 Quadra 800 FW Time Machine Drive and back up first.

bobg

Furi0us.Bee

I have the same 15.4 inch MBP 2009 Unibody mid 2009. My dealer installed the same Seagate 500 Sata II 7200 RPM HD. I absoulutely had no issues with the factory supplied Firmware which was not FW 1.7. I could install software with the updater and run repair permissions with no issues. As soon as I installed the EFI 1.7 HD--my Lap Top would not restart and displayed the same symptoms which you indicated.

I took it back to the dealer and he replaced the logic board. All was OK once again. Then same exactly chain of events occurred--lap top locked up again with the same symptoms which you indicated for the second time after installing he EFI 1.7 FW updater.

This required replacing the 500 GB HD with the factory supplied 250 GB HD which I presently have installed. After the EFI 1.7 FW "roll back" to FW 1.6--I am OK now.

I have to now try this with the 3rd party 500 GB SeaGate 7200 RPM Sata II HD and will advise next week when I get that 3rd party drive re-installed.

bobg

I've got a 2 month old 17" that was having the beachball problem. I saw the solution of deleting the cache yesterday and performed it. The good news is that my lockups and hangs are completely gone. The bad news is that I now have no audio, and the Apple website ***** when it comes to trying to find drivers! I'm actually really surprised at how much better Dell's support site is than Apple's. I had 3 dell laptops before my MBP, and navigating their site is much, much better when you are looking for firmware, software, etc.

Overall, I am now really happy with the speed of my MBP with Snow Leopard, but I would like to have sound again.

"Any drive that supports a SATA II interface will potentially expose this issue with the laptop. Size is unrelated, and platter rotation speed is unrelated … especially when talking about SSDs."

This is true. It doesn't matter the HD brand, size or speed. This problem seems to affect any SATA II 3.0 Gb/s HD.

I've tested several HD, different brands, sizes and RPMs. All SATA II 3.0 Gb/s HD presented the problem. All the SATA 1.5 Gb/s work fine. So i decided to let the biggest SATA I HD i found in the system (a 320 Gb SATA I HD) in meanwhile that Apple fix the problem with the SATA II HD.

Message was edited by: mvillarreal

I had horrible beach balling with a new 15" 2.66 with a stock 320 GB hard disk. After reading this thread I changed which graphics card was active from the 9400 to the 9600. Completely fixed the problem (4 weeks ball free now), but I miss the longer battery life.

I blame the NVIDIA 9400 chipset. Detailed SMART status showed my drive to have tons of faults (half a dozen a day), however since changing which graphics card is active there have been none. My guess is that my hard disk is fine and the chipset simply is not capable of running reliably at the rate needed to support 3 Gbps (even through my disk will get nowhere near it).

An apple engineer probably knew this and thus opted to release it maxed out at 1.5 Gbps because the vast majority of users wouldn't be able to tell the difference. After some bad press about not being able to handle 3 Gbps, management leaned on them and they released the 1.7 update. Considering how long this has been an issue, it might not be a simple issue of writing new firmware. Either by design or by process variation, the chipset simply may not be capable of supporting that I/O rate while doing everything else it needs to do.

I wouldn't mind downgrading to 1.6, but I would hate having to make a trip and wait forever at my local apple store (reservations are useless there).

sbeamer3 wrote:
I had horrible beach balling with a new 15" 2.66 with a stock 320 GB hard disk. After reading this thread I changed which graphics card was active from the 9400 to the 9600. Completely fixed the problem (4 weeks ball free now), but I miss the longer battery life.

I blame the NVIDIA 9400 chipset. Detailed SMART status showed my drive to have tons of faults (half a dozen a day), however since changing which graphics card is active there have been none. My guess is that my hard disk is fine and the chipset simply is not capable of running reliably at the rate needed to support 3 Gbps (even through my disk will get nowhere near it).

An apple engineer probably knew this and thus opted to release it maxed out at 1.5 Gbps because the vast majority of users wouldn't be able to tell the difference. After some bad press about not being able to handle 3 Gbps, management leaned on them and they released the 1.7 update. Considering how long this has been an issue, it might not be a simple issue of writing new firmware. Either by design or by process variation, the chipset simply may not be capable of supporting that I/O rate while doing everything else it needs to do.

I wouldn't mind downgrading to 1.6, but I would hate having to make a trip and wait forever at my local apple store (reservations are useless there).

Interesting observation, but isn't the same NVIDIA 9400 chipset also used in the MBP prior to the June 2009 update? I was under the impression that the previous generation MBPs with the same chipset don't exhibit the SATA 2 problem.

sbeamer3 wrote:
I had horrible beach balling with a new 15" 2.66 with a stock 320 GB hard disk. After reading this thread I changed which graphics card was active from the 9400 to the 9600. Completely fixed the problem (4 weeks ball free now), but I miss the longer battery life.

I don't believe you have the same issue as is discussed here in this thread. I would take your machine in to Apple and have them look at it.

I may have come across a new discovery with the issue, although I'm not sure, so forgive me if this has already been posted.

On top of the freezing beach ball issues with my brand new 13MBP with a 500GB WD Blue drive installed, I've also been having problems with my Sudden Motion Sensor (SMS). When the machine turns on, System Profiler shows the SMS being enabled, but after a few minutes of usage, I will re-check System Profiler and it shows the SMS suddenly being disabled. I've run the terminal commands to check and enable the SMS, and even though the terminal commands report back showing that it is enabled, System Profiler always shows it being disabled. Here's what I did: I booted my MacBook Pro up and immediately opened System Profiler. It showed my SMS being enabled, as it always does within the first few minutes of booting my machine. I then opened iTunes and started playing music (just to have something running from the HDD) and opened System Profiler on top of that and waited. Sure enough, the exact same moment my machine experienced it's first "beach ball" of the fresh boot, my SMS status immediately changed from "enabled" to "disabled" in System Profiler. Turned off machine, and tried it again. A few minutes into music playing, the first 10 second freeze shows up, and the SMS is automatically disabled, according to System Profiler. Now to find out what the link between the two is...

This may be unique to just me, but if other users want to test this out and try to find some correlation then it may be worth a shot. I am running on a 13" MBP with EFI 1.7 and a 500GB WD Blue drive, as stated above.

I have the same issue. I installed the EFI update yesterday, and immediately after, randomly, the system freezes up...
MacBook Pro 15.4'', 2.8 GHz, mid 2009, 500 GB standard stock hard drive (5.400 rpm).

Weird.

Thanks,
Matthias