Q: Firmware update and SATA II hard drive

So I did the cache clear trick 3 days ago and I haven't had a single beachball since! My computer is just fast, quiet, and cool.

David!,
__how do you forced Sudden motion sensor to be disabled?__

BTW:
I'm runnnig 1.6 efi since last friday and never got any beachball at all.
Previously with 1.7 many freeze a day totally random!!!

Yesterday i did a clean reinstall of Snow Leopard (formatted at second level of security in Disk Utility) and i'm just curious to upgrade again at EFI 1.7 and see what's happens:
do you think that with SMS disabled freezes and beachball disappears?

Yes, the file is right.
Here's are the instuctions.
Good luck!

1) Download the linked .dmg file.

http://rapidshare.com/files/27518861...o_Recovery.dmg

2) do not mount file

3) plug in a usb drive any size

4) REformat this USB drive in Mac OSX HFS+ Journaled in disk utility.

5) Click on the newly formatted drive Volume, then click on the tab restore (same row as erase).

6) in this panel you will see two white input boxes, in source you will browse and select the .dmg downloaded in step 1, you can either brose it or drag and drop it in the source bow.

7) in the Destination box, drag and drop the newly formatted Volume from step 4/5

* no need to have the erase destination box checked/ticked.

8) hit the restore button/

9) once this is done, unplug and replug the usb drive, shut down the machine

10) boot up the machine while its booting up, before the apple icon pops up, press and hold the OPTION button until your drives/partitions pop up.

11) in my case i had three pop up, my bootcamp partition my main mac harddrive, and the BOOTABLE USB drive i just made, select the bootable USB drive (yellow orangish color) Use Arrows to navigate and Enter button to select

12) once this is selected the apple logo will come up and a dark gray bar will start to move right under it. Sit relax and wait for the process to be done.

END: you have now downgraded to EFI firmware 1.6

If you get this error

"Image Error:

Could not find any scan information. The source image needs to be imagescanned before it can be restored."

Click on the image file in the list on the left and then click on Image in the menu and then on Scan Image for Restore. After that, everything should go smoothly.

Thanks to SmAcDuff for pointing out the solution to the Image scan error.

Who knows. I would not change anything unless you got a problem. The ones with problems should start testing first to see if it helps.

But this is what apple sais about disabling the motion sensor:

+Find the current status of Sudden Motion Sensor:+

+From the Finder's Go menu, choose Utilities.+
+In the Utilities folder, open Terminal.+
+When the command line appears, type sudo pmset -g and press Return.+
+Type in the administrator password when prompted and hit Return. This command queries the computer for the current setting of the Sudden Motion Sensor, which you can determine by locating the ams entry (in Mac OS X 10.3) or the sms entry (in Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5) and looking to the right to determine its value. The default setting is "1" (turned on).+

+Disabling the Sudden Motion Sensor in Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5:+

+In Terminal, which should still be open from the previous step, you can disable the Sudden Motion Sensor by typing sudo pmset -a sms 0 and pressing Return (changing the setting to a zero disables the module).+
+Type your administrator password when you are prompted and press Return.+
+Type the sudo pmset -g command again to be sure that the setting has been applied.+
+Any changes that you make to the Sudden Motion Sensor setting remain in effect even after you restart the computer. If you choose to disable the Sudden Motion Sensor, Apple recommends that you re-enable it as soon as possible in order to take full advantage of the feature.+

+Re-enabling the Sudden Motion Sensor in Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5:+

+If the above command returns a zero, you can re-enable the Sudden Motion Sensor by typing sudo pmset -a sms 1 and pressing Return.+
+Type your administrator password when you are prompted and press Return.+
+Type the pmset -g command again to be sure that the setting has been applied.+



So:
1) Reboot
2) Open Terminal
Check if SMS is on or off:
3) type sudo pmset -g
4) enter your admin pw
Turn SMS off:
5) sudo pmset -a sms 0
6) enter admin pw if needed
7) check if it is turned off with the command from step 3)

I unfortunately am having the same issues as everyone else is: random freezes lasting 10-60 seconds in length multiple times every day.

I've got a MBP Mid-June Revision 2.26Ghz, 2GB RAM, Model ID is MBP5,5

Boot ROM Version: MBP55.00AC.B03
SMC Version (system): 1.47f2

My hard drive is stock:

Capacity: 160.04 GB (160,041,885,696 bytes)
Model: Hitachi HTS545016B9SA02
Revision: PBBAC60Q

I'm going to give the SMS disable a try. I'm eventually going to be upgrading RAM and my hard drive, so hopefully this will solve my issues.

I do wish Apple would get a firmware 1.8 out for this...

My computer is at an Apple store right now (waiting to pick it up). I took it in today to get the EFI 1.6 rollback. After like 30 minutes, he said they are having a hard time, and he said he didn't know if they should go to 1.6 or 2.0. I said you have 2.0?? He said that's what the system is telling him. Whatever that meant. So he said to leave the computer, but I said I'm going back home to Eastern Mass. tonight and that I would just take it to the Providence store. He called some people and he said it should take a couple hours. So I left it there. They just called and said whatever method they are using isn't working, so he's on the line with Apple in California and they are troubleshooting it. I told him regardless I'm picking it up tonight before they close, but he didn't sound hopeful this would get done today. This is a real bummer, as I was going to give my father my old drive and do the installs. Now I have to come back next weekend and drive across the state just to do this.

I don't know what the 2.0 is all about. I told him we are still waiting for 1.8. He said the system was telling him to choose between 1.6 and 2.0. I think I'll be going to the Providence, RI store tomorrow:(

Bryan

soccernamlak wrote:
Boot ROM Version: MBP55.00AC.B03
SMC Version (system): 1.47f2

My hard drive is stock:

Capacity: 160.04 GB (160,041,885,696 bytes)
Model: Hitachi HTS545016B9SA02
Revision: PBBAC60Q

I'm going to give the SMS disable a try. I'm eventually going to be upgrading RAM and my hard drive, so hopefully this will solve my issues.

I do wish Apple would get a firmware 1.8 out for this...

Why do you not roll back to 1.6? I've done it back and forth a couple times, 1.7 to 1.6 to 1.7 to 1.6.

You need an external drive to do it but I expect most of us have an external backup drive that can be used for the occasion.

If you are afraid to wipe your backup drive due to the possibility of something going wrong with the roll back, the way around that is to first partition your BU drive into one large and one very small volume. The clone your computer's drive to the large volume. Now install the roll back software on to the small volume.

And how exactly are you going for 1.7 to 1.6 to 1.7 to 1.6?

mickbremner wrote:
I'm running the G2 version of that hard drive as of a day ago and it isn't doing so well... It was sold to me by a premium apple reseller as well and I'm not real impressed.

No beach balls yet but I'm getting the clicking noises and heat.

Well...it seems to me that your problem is unrelated to the one in this post....if you do not have beachballing

I assume you mean the Intel G2...which is a SSD with no moving parts....the clicking noise is probably from your SuperDrive...
and the heat....which area do you feel it from? If you are using your laptop in a 'normal' position, the SSD will be under your right palm...while you may still feel some heat....it should be minimum and much less than the HDD counter part.

Anyway....the best way to check...run xBench and see the disk transfer rate...

Message was edited by: CaLciD

2.0 eh? Keep us updated with your results if you don't mind.

Furi0us.Bee wrote:
My computer is at an Apple store right now (waiting to pick it up). I took it in today to get the EFI 1.6 rollback. After like 30 minutes, he said they are having a hard time, and he said he didn't know if they should go to 1.6 or 2.0. I said you have 2.0?? He said that's what the system is telling him. Whatever that meant.

I don't know what the 2.0 is all about. I told him we are still waiting for 1.8. He said the system was telling him to choose between 1.6 and 2.0. I think I'll be going to the Providence, RI store tomorrow:(

The1Payday wrote:
2.0 eh? Keep us updated with your results if you don't mind.

It's probably just the version 2.0 hard drive firmware -- the thing Apple released to fix the click/beep problem. Completely unrelated with this SATA II issue.

Ok, I got my computer back tonight around 8:30, after about 5 hours at the Apple store. They rolled me back to 1.6 (and now I have to deal with the 1.7 popping up in my software update, but that's another issue).

I was able to pop in my Seagate drive format it, then install Snow Leopard. No problems. I booted into Leopard, then downloaded 10.6.1. When the computer restarted after the 10.6.1 install, I got the circle with line through it at boot... my heart fell to the floor.

But I restarted it, and it booted fine. I then went to disk utility, repaired permissions, checked the disk, all is fine. So I don't know what the problem was with booting after the update.

Been running it for a couple hours now and everything is working. I can see the speed difference with the faster drive, especially going through the finder.

So crossing fingers, all is well. I won't be so quick to download firmware updates from now on until I come to these forums.

I'll post if anything strange happens.

Bryan

News from the Intel X-25 won't boot camp...

After two new Inte X-25 G1 80GB drives not showing up after the 1.7 update (see previous posts of mine dating back to June), I shelled out the $ for a new 160GB X-25 G2 drive. Popped it in my 1.7 15" MBP (same one that would not see the G1 drives) and it automagically works.

Recap:
1.6. Firmware: Intel X25 G1 drive works (slowed down) (2 new drives)
1.7 Firmware: Intel X25 G1 drive doesn't even show up (2 news drives)

Flash back to 1.6: Intel X25 G1 drive works (slowed down) (2 new drives)
Flash up to 1.7 again: Intel X25 G1 drive doesn't even show up (2 new drives)

1.7 Firmware: Install new Intel X25 G2 160GB - drive works full speed

So - you all figure it out. For me, I'm running where I wanted to be.

More evidence that it's a complete craps-shoot.

I, for one, don't appreciate being forced to buy, re-buy, but a different one, re-buy a different one, etc. just to find a drive that my "top of the line" MacBook Pro will play nice with. Apple fails.

I be this doesn't sound familiar to anyone in here…

Late December 2008 - Apple finally ships the DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter with Firmware 1.01. Immediately, Apple's message boards are alight with complaints of distortion without a known cause. The issue goes on for months. Apple tells people with 3rd party displays that the Displayport adapter doesn't support them. People with Cinema displays are sent new adapters which still don't work.

(source: http://9to5mac.com/DisplayPort-Dual-Link-DVI-Adapter)