Q: Firmware update and SATA II hard drive

I bought a 13" 2.26ghz Macbook Pro two weeks ago from the Apple Store in Manchester. It has the stock ram (2gb) and hard disk (160gb Hitachi). After reading this thread it seems I am not alone in having problems!

I updated the firmware shortly after buying it (along with all the other updates) and started to see the spinning beach ball every few minutes! It lasts between 3 and 30 seconds. It affects everything, not just the program I'm working with at that moment. If I'm watching a video in QuickTime it stops and then resumes after a minute or so without sound so I have to stop and restart it.

Initially I installed Limewire and thought that had caused the problem. When I couldn't remove all traces of it I reinstalled OSX 10.7. However, when I then reinstalled other programs I noticed they took much longer than they had during the initial install.

I bought the MBP 13" primarily for surfing the net and writing essays but it's very frustrating when Safari freezes every few minutes and Word takes forever to load up and the keys/touchpad become non responsive for a few seconds every now and then!

My 2003 17" Powerbook (1ghz, 1gb, 60gb, OSX 10.4) has never had such problems and at the moment is running more smoothly than my new 13" Macbook Pro!

I've done the PRAM reset and it hasn't helped. Should I take it back to the Apple Store and demand a replacement or do people think Apple are going to issue a fix? Would the higher spec 13" model be immune to these problems (I didn't buy it because a) I'm a student and cash is tight and b) I didn't think I'd need the extra power for surfing and typing!)?

Steff

No question about it, if you're within your 14 days from buying then take it back for a refund or exchange. Do not let them convince you to repair it.

Note, Im not saying to sue apple but it important people know their options:
British law states that if the item is not fit for purpose you are entitled to your money back. If you opt for a repair you loose your rights to a replacement. 14 days is not relevant, if any manufacture get's funny take them to small claims its free and 90% always win in cases like this:

A friend of mine bought a Sony laptop after 13 months it broke, their warranty was 12 months he paid £2000 the court basically said that a £2000 laptop should be expected to last longer than 12 months.

If you feel you want a replacement do it, if its a software issue i expect you will have the same, I'm sure apple will fix it. Apple always close shop and say nothing its bad for customer relations the last time i saw 40+ thousand hits was the Imac 24" screen being brighter on one side...Maybe the pro is cheaper because the components are poorer? who knows, they do us the cheapest labour force china after all!!

Thanks for your details on what you did earlier. My system was a little slow after switching drives until I cleared the PRAM.

So, is it safe to say the WD Scorpio Blue 500GB works just fine with firmware 1.7? Or did I miss someone's post?

If so, then is this the one I should buy?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136314

It's the model WITHOUT shockguard.

XenoTeK wrote:
So, is it safe to say the WD Scorpio Blue 500GB works just fine with firmware 1.7? Or did I miss someone's post?

You missed a lot of people's posts -- this issue does not appear to be hard drive specific.

I have tried with two Western Digital Scorpio Blue 500 GB drives. OS install failed on both

Just a bump to let Apple know this is driving me NUTS... FIX THIS!!!

I ran SMART Utility, and the only strange thing I see is this:

G-Sense Error Rate: 25769803776

Might this be the issue?

from what i have researched and seen, finding a compatible drive does NOT matter. It would seem you are infected with the 1.7 problem or not. Some have problems with oem drives or not. Others have problems with aftermarket drives while others do not with the same drive.

What i cant seem to understand is why some are effected and others are not. I personally do not have the problem, but why do i not? why do others? If apple is not going to get on this asap, it is up to us to figure it out.

for some odd reason, i feel that our install disc is the culprit. Most, if not all of our machines are built in china... in the same factory. I have seen faulty install discs before that have caused similar problems. Has anyone tried to install a os or hd from a known working 1.7 firmware mbp? i can send a disc image of a basic install from my working 1.7 to see if it works. Idk, im out of ideas.

I really don't think it's likely but I have to admit it would be reaaaaaaaallly nice if it were that simple. However, I reckon apple would know by now if that was it. They'd have done something about it.

I don't think it has anything to do with the install disk, I have verified it. Moreover I also tried to restore from multiple Time Machine backups on both WD disks. I also did a 7-pass zero format. Nothing works. I did the EFI 1.7 upgrade during initial setup on my MBP which I bought two weeks ago. My stock 250 GB has no S.M.A.R.T errors.

It would be nice if Wester Digital could issue pure SATA 1 firmware for their disk. Even better, of course, I Apple could release working SATA firmware.

Apple, please let us know what your plan is.

very unlikely i know that the start up disc is faulty. but what could cause working vs not working 1.7 systems to be different? verification of the disc only checks for scratches, not true content.

im still wondering if someone puts a working 1.7 firmware hd/os into a non working computer. it has yet to be done. if this is tried, we can determine if it is software or hardware issue.

I just hope that this issue can be solved.

Message was edited by: tragicv

I talked to Apple support about this. He said engineering was aware of the problem but that it did not affect a big portion of the user base so it did not seem to be a very high priority. He also told me the "not supported configuration
" story.

A side note: I wonder how much this is costing disk drive vendors in warranty replacement HDDs? I did not find this thread until had returned my first WD Scorpio Blue 500 GB.

Question: When the drive finds bad sectors because of this, are they lost for ever? Will it be possible to retrieve them if a working EFI firmware is released?

Do users whose MacBook Pro arrived with Firmware 1.7 preinstalled experience these issues as well?

I bought two of the Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500GB drives, the new "green power" ones, to put in my new MacBook Pro and Mini but neither of the drives work properly in the MacBook Pro. I have not bothered trying to put them into the Mini as the Mini is a real pain to work on.

I have the EFI 1.7 update.

Basically it's an intermittent problem. Sometimes the drive works OK then it just freezes. It appears to be an issue reading 4K blocks as Xbench chokes on those tests every time in some way or another.