Q: Firmware update and SATA II hard drive

You should definitely use it and find out. There is absolutely NO way of knowing what the state of the computer is without opening it and trying it. You HOPEFULLY shouldn't have the problem since you got everything stock from Apple, although some of the users on here are still experiencing the beach ball issues with stock configs. Still, the majority of people with the problem are those that installed a 3rd party Hard Drive. Take you're chances, because there's not much else you can do.

munkford wrote:
Now that's performance!! So while many standard drives, even 7200RPM may not reach the limits of SATA 1.5, this is clear evidence that today's SSD's absolutely require and nearly maximize the bandwidth available on the Sata2 3.0Gbps bus. So far, I've been lucky enough not to experience a single beachball since the re-up to 1.7, but I'm only at day 1. I'll report back if the situation changes, but until then, I'll be basking in the glory of opening Photoshop in 2 seconds flat

Sounds fantastic I've done exactly the same as you, downgraded to 1.6 to use my existing 3rd party hard-drive but also took the plunge and ordered an Intel 80GB gen2 SSD. I'll follow the same steps with the fresh install, updates to 10.6.1 and then finally the 1.7 EFI if all seems well and hopefully have the same result.

Keep us posted if you experience any issues over the next few days after upgrading to 1.7

Thanks! When you meant stock, you meant as in from Apple right and not 3rd party drives. I have the 500GB 7200 RPM configuration, so it's not really stock configuration but yet, it is directly from Apple. I don't know what I should do because I believe if I go to Apple Stores tomorrow, I'll be able to return for my full amount because I got it less than 14 days and it's still sealed.

Anyone else with advices. I really don't know what to do!

MBP15 wrote:
ATTENTION TO EVERYBODY!

I've just received my MBP from Fed Ex and I was wondering what should I do.
I got the 15" 2.8 GHz, 500GB 7200RPM. Should I leave it sealed and go to the apple store to request a refund? Or should I open it and test my luck. I heard if you open it and even though it's within 14 days of being received, you'll just get store credit.

If you open it, Apple can charge you a 10% restocking fee for a return.
I would advise you to return it without opening. Let them know it's because you've heard so much about the problems people are having with SATA II drives. And go buy a used or refurbished 2008 unibody MacBook Pro. You'll save some coin, and you will have a working hard drive interface.

I wouldn't risk a 10% restocking fee on a roll of the dice over the broken SATA II interface.

I read elsewhere on this topic that switching to the 'Higher Performance' graphics option in Energy Saver stopped the beachballing. I switched to that mode a couple of hours ago, and haven't had a beachball since then. To recap, I'm running a mid-09 15" MacBook Pro with the supplied stock 500GB Seagate drive (ST9500420ASG), and which shipped with the EFI 1.7 firmware.

The drive has already been replaced by Apple in an attempt to resolve the issue - the guys at the Genius Bar in my local Apple store (Bristol, UK) hadn't heard of the rollback tool.

I guess therefore that the faster graphics chipset also has its own drive controller which doesn't seem to be affected by the problem; it only manifests when using the slower, integrated 9400 chipset.

Does anyone else also see this?

danfairs wrote:
I read elsewhere on this topic that switching to the 'Higher Performance' graphics option in Energy Saver stopped the beachballing. I switched to that mode a couple of hours ago, and haven't had a beachball since then. To recap, I'm running a mid-09 15" MacBook Pro with the supplied stock 500GB Seagate drive (ST9500420ASG), and which shipped with the EFI 1.7 firmware.

Lots of problems present beachballing as a symptom.
Your problem is likely caused by something other than the SATA II interface problem this thread is about. Which GPU is selected has been shown to be unrelated to this SATA II interface issue.

I guess therefore that the faster graphics chipset also has its own drive controller which doesn't seem to be affected by the problem; it only manifests when using the slower, integrated 9400 chipset.

No. The 9600M GT discrete GPU does not have its own hard drive interface; it is only a GPU (hence the 'discrete' part).

I'm aware that many problems can cause beachballing. Can you indicate where it has been shown that the GPU selection is unrelated to the SATA II issue? It could provide further insight into my particular case.

I take your point about the 9600 not having its own drive interface. However, this does not rule out the possibility that whether the 9400 chip is activated or not affects the SATA II interface. As you say, they're integrated; the behaviour of the SATA II interface could well be affected by whether another part of the same integrated piece (ie. the 9400 chip) is activated or not.

I do accept this could be a different issue to those people having problems with third-party drives, of course; that said, there are a minority of posters here (such as myself) who are having problems with similar symptoms with MBPs shipped with 1.7 and shipped with a stock drive, who have rolled back to 1.6 and seen the beachballing disappear:

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10154087#10154087

Possibly the message here is that the 1.6 rollback is a workaround for both third- and first-party drives. There is also evidence that switching to the discrete GPU (where available) ameliorates the problem, at least for those with stock drives. Hence, I was asking whether anyone else (with third or first-party drives) had tried this, and whether it had an effect.

Thanks for your response.

Alright so this is mostly a question to Fishbert or any one else has that has figured something out.

Is there a sure fire way to test a machine for this problem? i just got my hard drive and logic board replaced, and so far ive noticed it freezing up a few times while transferring files over from the optical drive.

Any one figured out a way to trigger it? (apart from the quicktime aja system test, that doesnt seem to work for me in SL)

Thank you

Same experience here as Munkford.

My OCZ Summit 250GB SSD works flawlessly with similar performance after my second upgrade. Working issue-free since 2 weeks now.

Word of warning though, that this does not mean that OCZ Summit's are guaranteed to work as I experienced the issue as well for a while until I upgraded a second time.

Ollie.

Also id like to add, with firmware 1.6 i get better write speeds then with 1.7

1.6 Yields 79-80mb/s write and 79-80 mb/s read

1.7 Yields 60-61mb/s write and 79-80 mb/s read

Oh great. What a colossal UPGRADE (sarcasm)

danfairs wrote:
I'm aware that many problems can cause beachballing. Can you indicate where it has been shown that the GPU selection is unrelated to the SATA II issue? It could provide further insight into my particular case.

I take your point about the 9600 not having its own drive interface. However, this does not rule out the possibility that whether the 9400 chip is activated or not affects the SATA II interface. As you say, they're integrated; the behaviour of the SATA II interface could well be affected by whether another part of the same integrated piece (ie. the 9400 chip) is activated or not.

I do accept this could be a different issue to those people having problems with third-party drives, of course; that said, there are a minority of posters here (such as myself) who are having problems with similar symptoms with MBPs shipped with 1.7 and shipped with a stock drive, who have rolled back to 1.6 and seen the beachballing disappear:

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10154087#10154087

Possibly the message here is that the 1.6 rollback is a workaround for both third- and first-party drives. There is also evidence that switching to the discrete GPU (where available) ameliorates the problem, at least for those with stock drives. Hence, I was asking whether anyone else (with third or first-party drives) had tried this, and whether it had an effect.

Thanks for your response.

You seem to be trying really hard to mash this into a GPU-related box. GPU switching is one of the first things people tried way back in June/July, and it has been shown not to be related to this SATA II interface issue.

You concede that your beachballing may be due to something else… yet you still claim it as evidence that switching GPU "ameliorates the problem". It does not ameliorate this SATA II interface problem, which has already been shown long ago to not be dependent upon which GPU is selected.

Peter Di Arcangelo wrote:
Alright so this is mostly a question to Fishbert or any one else has that has figured something out.

Is there a sure fire way to test a machine for this problem? i just got my hard drive and logic board replaced, and so far ive noticed it freezing up a few times while transferring files over from the optical drive.

Any one figured out a way to trigger it? (apart from the quicktime aja system test, that doesnt seem to work for me in SL)

Thank you

I have found two ways to test for this on my machine…

1) If you have any video files (xvid, h.264, etc.) that are in the 600-700 MB size range, make a copy of it. Start playing one of the file copies in Quicktime, then make another copy of the other file (just so you're not copying the one playing … not to say that won't work, just that I've always separated them in the past so I do it for consistency).

2) Install AJA System Test and then open the program. If you have any video files (xvid, h.264, etc.) that are in the 600-700 MB size range, start playing one in Quicktime. While that's playing, start a run of AJA System Test (with something more than the default sample size… I think I used 512MB in the past or something like that). This will not cause the issue to show itself each and every time (I'd give it a 80-90% chance of freezing, given the issue is present). If you can run through 5 to 10 passes of this test without the problem showing up, then I'd say you're good.

Technique #2 is what I used to get the results shown here:
http://vimeo.com/5854152

I've not tried these methods on Snow Leopard, as I had the rollback done before 10.6 was released.

I would just to re-iterate for everyone having the Sata II problems. Myself and few other users have found that disabling the "Sudden Motion Sensor" seems to be working. I've been going on my 4th day now without a single freeze up or beach ball of death. I know I've already stated this, and I'm not trying to spam my fix or anything, but it is without a doubt working for me, and I just want to make sure everyone is aware of it and trying it themselves. Yes, I know I have to be more careful with transporting my laptop around when on and running, but it's much better then random freeze ups.

The1Payday wrote:
I would just to re-iterate for everyone having the Sata II problems. Myself and few other users have found that disabling the "Sudden Motion Sensor" seems to be working.

Conflicts with the sudden motion sensor are _*completely different*_ than the SATA II interface issue that is the subject of this thread. In fact, not only are the two problems unrelated, but the two system functions (the SATA II interface and the sudden motion sensor) are completely unrelated in the hardware design itself.

This is not a catch-all thread for anything and everything that causes beachballing. The SATA II interface bug is very specific.

After trying everything suggested in this site, i'm running again from 1.6 to 1.7, SMS disabled and the only freeze i've got is with iPhoto (edit pics in full screen mode).
These freeze are very weird:
the clock works, cursor too, itunes in streaming radio as well, just the beachball running, and no way to force quit............then, magically after 30, 40 secs everything re-start working and commands given during freeze (i.e. launch application) works again.
So, after hours and hours of tests, IN MY CASE, only iPhoto causes that freeze (trying delete preference file, same problem).