Q: Firmware update and SATA II hard drive

In my case it is also an intermittent problem. And only when it's reading not when it's writing. The AJA Disk Read/Write test is a very simple test which writes a file and then it reads it. While writing the speed is constant, about 80MB/s, but then when it reads it, it's at 80MB/s for a few seconds, then goes down to 1-2MB/s for a while and goes back to 80 and so on.

Today I've took my MBP to the Apple store, they will take a look at it, they agreed that it's not working properly but didn't know anything about the firmware update.

In my case it's a WD 3200BEVT. I used this disk in my white MacBook. After buying the MBP the WD HDD worked fine (without reinstalling OSX) until EFI 1.7

Then I got a new MBP and the HDD stoped working after EFI 1.7

I used another (80GB) HDD from Hitachi and it worked fine. I installed OSX and used it for a week without problems.

Now my MBP is in repair to be checked after I called apple and told them the problems I had after EFI 1.7

On your question- I would think whether sectors were recoverable or not would be dependent on if the disk was actually bad or if the EFI was just corrupted. Take out your disk and hook it up to another system and see if it is readable. Can the defective EFI actually damage a disk?



question - Is there more than one type of EFI update problem out there or is it only SATA support?
If not- could the affected systems have defective memory - the memory blocks that hold the code for the sataII features has been written to wrongly or some such thing?
Anyone had a logic board replaced and resolved their issues?

Bumping the thread because me plus one more person are having this issue here too. I also have the WD 320 BEVT, even bought it at an authorized Apple Reseller, alas, it was for upgrading my white MacBook (in which it worked). So I don't think I'll have much luck getting it replaced, and even if I could, with what disk?

This machine (MBP 13") is so full of trouble, Hackintosh people are beginning to ridicule me

Bought my 13" Pro from the Apple online store on 18th July. When it was delivered it didn't have EFI 1.7 installed. So it seems that some new stock hasn't got the update. As I have upgraded my drive to 500Gb and upgraded the ram to 4Gb (purchased myself) I have held off installing this update.

Lucky you! I got my 15" MBP (base model, 2.53GHz, 4GB DDR, 250GB HD) and it has the 1.7 EFI update already. I bought this in-store in Cleveland, OH on July 17.

Felt i better add my voice to this too if it'll help apple prioritize a fix.

I've been having very much similar issues to most of the posters above since the 1.7 update, with OSX sporadically freezing and beachballing. It should also be noted that im using the standard Hitachi HD that came with the MBP rather than any 3rd party drives that are 'unsupported'.

However, the OSX problems are pretty minor compared to the issues now present with my windows XP partition. XP is now effectively unusable, with it freezing every few seconds for long periods, a complete inability to read off the HD, and often culminating in XP locking up totally and requiring a restart. I've attempted multiple reinstalls, with the same issues occurring every time its installed. Im about fairly sure this can be directly traced to the 1.7 update, as its clearly a HD issue, and because none of these problems were present prior to the update.

So what do we reckon, can we expect a fix for this? Or maybe a firmware rollback patch if thats even possible?

Hi Folks,

I experienced the same thing (beach ball hanging) with my new MBP after the 1.7 update (which was pushed to me by the software update tool) with the stock 500 gig 7200 rpm drive. I managed to get a replacement shipped to me...but they made it very clear that the reason they were doing it was ONLY because of a customer sat issue... not a technology one. ;->

I have a question related to time machine backups with the time capsule. When I get my new MBP (hopefully NOT with the 1.7 update already on it) can I just do a time machine restore or will it put the 1.7 upgrade back on my machine if I do? Thanks!

OMG, APPLE, FIX THIS ALREADY, I'm using the laptop for work and have been really frustrated because I have to deal with this issue every single day. Yesterday I used the laptop to do a presentation that have a short video clip and guess what it froze multiple times during playback, so much for the "just work" experience in front of the whole company.

Since I switched over Mac from Windows, my experience so far is nothing but frustrating and disappointing. I bought my first Mac which was the late-2008 alu macbook and had to suffer the memory issue for a while even though I bought the memory from OWC which specialized in Mac components. It took forever for Apple to fix the issue and also fixed the touch pad's instability.

I sold my alu Macbook to get this new 13" macbook pro thinking its gonna be much better and problem-free but I was wrong. First was the crippled 1.5 SATA then it got fixed promptly with a broken 3.0 SATA. The retail store which I bought the laptop refused to do a refund or make an exchange because I've been waiting for the fix from Apple too long and have felt out of the 14-day period. Now I'm stuck with this "just work" macbook PRO which can't do anything without freezing. I kinda miss my trusty Dell M1330.

I figured I would include my voice in this. I have the WD 320 BEVT as well on the uMBP 13", same issue. The drive worked great in my three year old macbook, which is both very disappointing and terribly frustrating.

I most sincerely hope that apple is working on a new EFI update. Even though I have been a long time apple fan, I must tell my friends to not purchase the new macbook pros who need the SATA II until this is resolved.

I was planning to take my mbp to the Genius bar for some answers to the beach balling but..

Unfortunately, all reservations are currently booked.

Might take a week or so but i will report back

Well everyone, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that my computer is back to functioning near 100%. The bad news is i had to pay 150 dollars for one of these: http://store.mcetech.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&ProductCode=OBSXGB-UNB&Category_Code=STORHDOPTIBAY&ProductCount=0 I installed my intel SSD in place of the CDROM and everything now functions perfectly (except i don't have a cdrom). I'm not holding my breath on apple releasing a fix, and i shouldn't have to go through such lengths to have a working computer.

Also, i think i should also add that the X25-M IS running at 3gbps. Here is an XBench:

Results 234.18
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.6 (10A402a)
Physical RAM 4096 MB
Model MacBookPro5,4
Drive Type INTEL SSDSA2MH080G1GC
Disk Test 234.18
Sequential 150.19
Uncached Write 135.09 82.94 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 113.73 64.35 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 128.15 37.51 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 379.70 190.83 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 531.27
Uncached Write 605.59 64.11 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 232.82 74.53 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 1772.89 12.56 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 981.75 182.17 MB/sec [256K blocks]

I took my 13" MBP to a 'genius' this evening. He looked through the logs and tested the hard disk by booting from a usb drive. He said there was nothing wrong with it. When I mentioned the problems related to the firmware update he said it was nonsense and if such a problem did exist he would have a queue stretching out of the store. I know there's a problem - last night it froze four times in one hour! Anyway, he agreed to swap it tomorrow (I need to take back the original packaging) for my peace of mind.

I was thinking of paying a bit extra (well, quite a bit!) and getting the 2.53ghz model. However, I'm not sure if it's worth it - it will cost around £130 to get 4gb ram from Crucial and a 500gb 7200rpm hard drive from OCUK - which was my initial plan. I reasoned that there probably wasn't much real-world difference between the 2.26 and 2.53 chips. However, now this firmware update has caused problems for lots of people who have installed hard drives and ram I'm concerned I might buy something I can't use. What do people think? Is it worth £200 extra at Apple for the higher spec model?

Steff

If this is true! Then this tells me that Apple either does not see this as a problem (or they only see it a isolated problems) or they just do not know about the problem at all.