Q: Firmware update and SATA II hard drive

I would like to report success with an OCZ Vertex 250GB drive with firmware 1.3 in a MacBook Pro 5,3 (mid 2009, 15" 2.8GHz) with EFI 1.7.

Read more at:
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=59515

Good Luck!
Jeroen

Who has reported that fans on max does not solve the issue?

Message was edited by: manubbb

We can assume heat is probably not an issue when so many people (me included) cannot even complete booting OS X on a cold machine, on two different MBP.

If you assume so, why don't you give a try with smcFAN? With fans at normal speed, i could not boot in Windows 7 (failure always at the same time) and sometimes i could in MacOSX and sometinmes i couldn't. With the fans at full speed absolutely no problem both in MacOSX and in W7. The point that you cannot boot even with a cold machine does not prove anything: the internal temperature of a chip can increase a lot in just one second.

In order to have some idea of what's really hapenning, can anyone try this software and report a scientific result? This tool is absolutely harmless for the computer: to return to previous settings, you just have to shut down the computer.
Manu

manubbb wrote:
If you assume so, why don't you give a try with smcFAN? With fans at normal speed, i could not boot in Windows 7 (failure always at the same time) and sometimes i could in MacOSX and sometinmes i couldn't. With the fans at full speed absolutely no problem both in MacOSX and in W7. The point that you cannot boot even with a cold machine does not prove anything: the internal temperature of a chip can increase a lot in just one second.

In order to have some idea of what's really hapenning, can anyone try this software and report a scientific result? This tool is absolutely harmless for the computer: to return to previous settings, you just have to shut down the computer.
Manu

Nothing about the firmware update did anything to alter the thermal impedance between the die and the surrounding air, so the same relatively good efficiency at moving thermal energy away from the die is at play -- something would've had to alter that thermal impedance chain for runaway die temperatures to occur at boot on a cold machine. But ok, let's assume that this firmware update is magical and did alter some relevant thermal impedance chain in the hardware... that makes transfer of the thermal energy to the surrounding air less efficient, which in turn means that increasing the fan speed will do very little because the surrounding air doesn't contain very much of the thermal energy to begin with.

So, you're either a shill for the software you keep pushing... or you're just taking blind pot-shots, ignorant of where 27 pages of evidence points.
If it's the former: go away, you're not wanted here.
If it's the latter: I think it's a memory issue; you should remove one of your sticks of RAM and let us know if that helps.

At first the sata chipset was slowed down by Apple to sata 1.5 Gb: hence its temperature was lower. With the new EFI update, the chipset is now Sata 3Gb so it should be hotter when used with a fast SSD ou HD. I really don't care which tool you use to increase the fans speed, just pick the one you prefer.
The only point is that i don't really understand why nobody accepts to give a serious try in this direction. Finally, concerning the memory issue, do you really think that 80% of MB or MBP have memory issues? (http://www.doodle.com/bmexq4f9c2xri5mz )

My machine won't even boot (reported here earlier) without a PRAM reset. Once I do the reset, the system runs flawlessly. If setting the fans to max fixes your problem, then perhaps you are making a manual change to a setting that avoids what is clearly a software bug (at least in my case).

I'm linking your firmware setting change (fan speed) with my PRAM reset. Both change some kind of firmware settings. Have you tried shutting down after making the fan speed change, or have you just been restarting. If I restart, it boots fine. It's the shutting down (and possibly parking the drive) that causes the symptoms to appear. Waking from sleep has the same issue, the drive won't post.

Try sleeping and shutting down. Max fan speed isn't a solution, but any alternative "bandaid" could be helpful to those of us with problems.

I can personally confirm that cranking the fans up to maximum does not solve the issue. I can reliably replicate the freezing issue with my 13.3" and Intel 80GB X25-M while the fans are set to maximum. This does not prove that it isn't a heat-related issue, but it does prove that setting the fans to maximum does not solve the freezing problem for everyone. At any rate, even if it did solve the issue, keeping the cooling fan at 6000+ RPM is not good for the longevity of the fan or the user's ears.

i get the beach balls on my 13inch MBP with standard HDD

please fix this apple

Hey guys, just wanted to share my story. Yesterday I got my 13" MBP (2.26). I booted it up first of the OEM HDD and it DID NOT have 1.7. So, I upgraded the RAM myself, and I also installed a 128GB Patriot SSD. It work amazingly fast and have absolutely no probalems. Note, I did not update EFI firmware after I installed my SSD.

What do you do when the stock drive with the stock 1.6 firmware even doesn't work ? And when you get a new machine and the problem repeats itself ? You cannot always get another new computer while hoping it will work.

Some people get their work speed impacted by a 5400 rpm drive instead of an SSD. It can be more than just annoying.

On one machine I cannot even cold boot OS X with an SSD.
On another one it boots ans doesn't work properly immediatly.

I guess that prevents the use smcFAN

Even though I tried afterwards and it did change anything.

clementjoubert wrote:
What do you do when the stock drive with the stock 1.6 firmware even doesn't work ?

What would I do?
I'd look into other possible causes, because if your issues persist after going back to 1.6, that just doesn't sound like what this thread is on about.

From the original post in this thread:

IanBurrell wrote:
After the firmware update yesterday, the machine has started freezing randomly; the spinner comes up sometimes when reading or writing to the drive.

I am actually having spinning balls as well at first I thought it was compounded by mail and safari running, I have a new pro 13" 2.26 stock everything except 4GD ddr3 memory (1.7 installed) . I thought it was my wifi connection being slow but all other macs are OK ( no 1.7) maybe not?

sooooo, after 2 weeks waiting for a reaction from apple I called the apple hotline (Germany) and oh wonder: they never heard of problems in regard with EFI 1.7 and SATA HDD. He told me I should go to the appstore and let the MBP be checked by a technican. He wrote a notice to his supervisor regarding this problem and also that there is a thread in Apple Discussions about this topic.

So pleeeease all of you, call the hotline and tell them your story.