Q: Firmware update and SATA II hard drive

Wow, you have it easy.

I have a Corsair 256GB SSD that supposedly does 200/250mb per second. With Firmware 1.7, i beachball every 5-10 seconds for well over a minute, no matter what app i'm in, or what i'm doing. ie: completely and utterly unusable.

Performance Update 1.0 didn't do squat for me here. I tried 1.7 again, both installing it prior to upgrading and after.

I'm back on 1.6 (which is perfect, sans the lower SSD speeds), and after all the moaning and groaning, I expect apple will never fix it. I will be wary about buying another macbook pro. Lack of SATA II is unacceptable, as is the cost of their stock SATA I SSD drives.

FWIW, i'm with fishbert. An OS update to fix a firmware issue is completely ridiculous. Think about what would happen if you ever had to reinstall your OS? I bet finding/setting up/installing the Firmware downgrade just to install your OS in less than 8 hours (if you're lucky) would be a super trip through happy-camp (sarcasm intended).

I am going for a logic board replacment the next week before my warranty void on my macbook pro unibody late 2008. Apple tell me that it is NOT a known issue, that even if we are a lot on the discussion board we are only a few compared to all macbook pro unibody sold. So the problem is specific to my mac. I do not really believe them... Do you think this bloody issue will be fixed after that or nothing will change?

RV wrote:
I am going for a logic board replacment the next week before my warranty void on my macbook pro unibody late 2008. Apple tell me that it is NOT a known issue, that even if we are a lot on the discussion board we are only a few compared to all macbook pro unibody sold. So the problem is specific to my mac. I do not really believe them... Do you think this bloody issue will be fixed after that or nothing will change?

The EFI 1.7 firmware update only applies to mid-2009 13" and 15" MacBook Pros. Whatever you're seeing on your 2008 machine is not related to this firmware update.

And if your problem was not related directly to this firmware, but that your machine are suffering a hardware failure, a piece of equipment wich is only used with the 1.7 update?
Apple, even when I say they are plenty of user on their discussion board having similar issues, keep saying there is no know issue, and even a lot of people (a couple of dozen) is almost nobody compared to all the macbook pro sold. If they were not wrong? That is why I wanted to know if one of you tried a logic board replacement.

RV wrote:
And if your problem was not related directly to this firmware, but that your machine are suffering a hardware failure, a piece of equipment wich is only used with the 1.7 update?
Apple, even when I say they are plenty of user on their discussion board having similar issues, keep saying there is no know issue, and even a lot of people (a couple of dozen) is almost nobody compared to all the macbook pro sold. If they were not wrong? That is why I wanted to know if one of you tried a logic board replacement.

Yes, people in here have had logic board replacements. Some have worked, some have not. Apple has not been very willing to do logic board replacements for people with this issue since the rollback tool came out. But that doesn't apply to you, because you don't have a mid-2009 MBP.

I'd suggest that you start a new thread about the issue that you are seeing, as the one from this thread has been pretty strictly limited to mid-2009 13" and 15" MBPs. And, really, this thread is already 120 pages long anyway.

could someone please summarize which HDD could be installed in the MBP13" EFI 1.7 ?

i'm selling my MBP and I have to take out the Intel SSD

so i don't know which HDD i can put inside

many thanks

The original hard drive is probably best.

i don't have it anymore

sold it when i got the ssd

now i have to find a compatible brand

seems like seagate momentus won't work

what about samsung or hitachi ?

The EFI 1.7 issue does not appear to care what brand a hard drive is. It seems that any drive with a SATA II interface may bring out the issue with the laptop.

I'd say your best bet would be to buy one of the (only) 8 SATA I drives that newegg will sell you. Or perhaps someone who is running EFI 1.7 without problems would be willing to sell you their original drive?

it's not very convenient for me to hunt someone having a stock HDD

it seems that WD and Hitachi are running well

If you already had an answer, why did you ask the question?

You want to believe WD and Hitachi are magic brands that will work even if you know your machine is affected by the EFI 1.7 issue... go right ahead. Or, you can read through the other 119 pages of this thread and discover for yourself that there is no such pattern.

Jerry H. wrote:
it's not very convenient for me to hunt someone having a stock HDD

it seems that WD and Hitachi are running well

the Hitachi 5k500.b can be set to SATA-I via the hitachi firmware tool.

To All:

*DO NOT revert to EFI 1.7 if you have an SATA // 7200 RPM HD Drive--even after the PU 1.0 install if you are running EFI 1.6.*

I installed the PU 1.0 and called Apple Support and they suggest it was OK to go back to EFI 1.7. *Bad News!*

I downloaded the EFI 1.7 with software update. I went through the Software installer routine. I thought I had migrated to EFI 1.7.

I later stopped at the Apple Store to have them check out a few other things regarding a "Bootable "Universal" External drive" which is the factory supplied Hitachi 250 GB 5400 RPM drive in an enclosure which I am planning to set up to work with my MB Pro and my wife's Power PC iBook..

While there they tried to see if the EFI 1.7 was reintalled. *+Aparently it was not.+*

Then we tried to install it.

I never saw this type of installation set up before. *+Upon completion we booted up the disk--and the MB Pro locked up again just as it had done 2 x before. This is the 3rd time for me!+*

Now the MPB Pro is in the shop for 5 days getting reverted back to the EFI 1.6 so I can use it again--and hopefuly with the Universal boot drive.

See Apple KB--HT2595 for the instructions on how to do the latter which I am using from my wife's iBook top write you all these details of this sad tale.

bobg

Robert Gulyas wrote:

Now the MPB Pro is in the shop for 5 days getting reverted back to the EFI 1.6 so I can use it again--and hopefuly with the Universal boot drive.

See Apple KB--HT2595 for the instructions on how to do the latter which I am using from my wife's iBook top write you all these details of this sad tale.

I mad an EFI 1.6 rollback disk using one partition of an external hard drive and it works perfectly to roll back from 1.7 to 1.6.

I then decided I didn't want my USB partition tied up for that purpose so I used a 1GB SD card (dirt cheap) for the same purpose. I simply formatted the SD card as Mac OS extended GUID partition and then used Disk Utility to Restore the downloadable disk image of the 1.6 rollback to that card.

Now whenever I want to experiment with trying out 1.6 I just boot with that SD card, it installs 1.6 firmware then it reboots again with my internal hard drive. There is nothing to it. It certainly does not require a stay at an Apple store. Since I am booting with the firmware rollback disk (SD card) it does not matter that the computer is unable to boot into its own drive and with EFI 1.7 installed in the computer's firmware at the time.

Gregory Mcintire wrote:

Now whenever I want to experiment with trying out 1.6 I just boot with that SD card, it installs 1.6 firmware then it reboots again with my internal hard drive. There is nothing to it. It certainly does not require a stay at an Apple store. Since I am booting with the firmware rollback disk (SD card) it does not matter that the computer is unable to boot into its own drive and with EFI 1.7 installed in the computer's firmware at the time.

In the process of getting my SSD to work with my MBP I have tried a lot of different things, and in so doing I have needed to try both 1.6 and 1.7, back and forth a few times. I finally do have it working but in 1.6 only so far.

The quoted paragraph above may not be very clear. It was an attempt to say that whenever I want to install the 1.6 firmware I can do so quickly and easily with my SD card. The if I later want to install the 1.7 firmware I do that with the downloadable installer that I keep a copy of on my internal hard drive.