Hard drive beachball problem for the 17"

There is a "known" problem with the new 13 and 15" models. This does not impact the 17" version as that model was not actually refreshed in June with the 13 and 15" versions (and, as you have found, the 1.7 firmware does not apply to the 17" machines). The new 13 and 15" models shipped in SATA 1.5GB mode. The previous versions were SATA 3.0GB mode (this includes the current 17" model). Firmware 1.7 updated the current 13 and 15" models to SATA 3.0... causing tons of headaches with third party drives (there are some reports of stock drive issues... but they are relatively few and far between and it's difficult to determine if they are experiencing the same issue... or at least resulting from the same cause).

Your best bet is to work with Apple on resolving the problem or to see if someone else here has come across similar behavior on a 17" machine. Unfortunately, where there are threads close to 100 pages, folks with similar symptoms get lumped in with everyone else. Beachballing can be caused by any number of problems. The 1.7 firmware that you have been reading about however, isn't the cause in your case.

I should have chosen my words more carefully. I don't typically consider a faster processor or larger hard drive as a refresh. I was basically referring to more significant design changes. The 13 and 15" models actually went through physical design changes. The 13" model gained an SD card reader and integrated battery and the 15" model lost an express card slot in favor of an SD card reader and got an integrated battery as well. Both machines had significant internal changes to accommodate these revisions. For the 17", the faster processor and larger HDD would not likely have caused the beachballing problem (unless there was an issue with the drive itself or it has a built in sudden motion sensor).

I certainly haven't suggested it's a software issue. It is not related to the very specific firmware problem on the 13 and 15" models (which in most cases is resolved when those machines are reverted back to firmware 1.6)

soniktrooth, count me in. I am experiencing the same problem myself - I just recently posted over in the mega forum here: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10222616#10222616

There is a chance that the hard disk could be at fault I guess, but the symptoms of this problem for me are remarkably similar to what I've read in the 96 page post, and on the macrumors forums. To summarise:

* the problem usually begins when I'm playing iTunes all day, and then I'll go to save something, say in TextMate, and then iTunes stops playing.

* Any app you then try to switch to while the freeze is there will then just beachball itself.

* Like you, I know this is something out of the ordinary, since iTunes rarely stops playing music, and hardly ever did on my 4 year old G5.

* I can make the problem go away by restarting and zapping the PRAM. All day today my computer has been fine, but I suspect that sometime tomorrow it'll probably start all over again.

* My drive is a factory Hitachi 5400 RPM drive... what do you have?

* My boot ROM version is the same as yours too.

* I have 8GB of RAM in this machine, so I'm pretty **** sure it's NOT a paging issue for me. paging issues never last 20-30 seconds though, that's absurd if anyone claims that is the cause... also, the hard disk doesn't really crank noticeably while the freeze is there.

I'm wondering if there was some sort of revision too for this model that may be causing this. Seems unlikely that Apple would have changed the motherboard between the january model and this one, but I'm not sure if this is absolutely confirmed...

I too have the MBP 17" with the "hanging for 30 sec" problem. The problem can occur at any time for me. I will typically have firefox, Entourage, Mail, Preview and Fusion running a long with a few other small applications. I have one XP vm and a few Debian VMs for testing things out. I have not restarted my Mac for some days, and the problem occurs several times each day.
Since so many with the 13" and 15" models from the same period are having the same problem I'm guessing this is a common problem for the whole series.

My relevant hardware information:
Model Identifier: MacBookPro5,2
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP52.008E.B05
SMC Version (system): 1.42f4
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

NVidia MCP79 AHCI:

Vendor: NVidia
Product: MCP79 AHCI
Speed: 3 Gigabit
Description: AHCI Version 1.20 Supported

Hitachi HTS545050B9SA02:
Capacity: 465.76 GB
Model: Hitachi HTS545050B9SA02
Revision: PB4AC60Q
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
Volumes:
Interndisk:
Capacity: 465.44 GB
Available: 395.15 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s2
Mount Point: /

Now I guess we only have to wait for Apple to come up with a solution... 😟

I also have the beachball system freezes for 15-40 seconds that occur irregularly whenever I do drive intense tasks. Video playback is impossible when I am surfing web pages in either Firefox or Safari browsers - playback just keeps locking up and freezing. I notice beachballs usually occur when I am writing significant amounts of data to the drive while attempting to multi-task in other applications too.

My symptoms follow exact those of the 13" and 15" MacBook Pro users in this thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2054387&tstart=0

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro5,2
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP52.008E.B05
SMC Version (system): 1.42f4
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

NVidia MCP79 AHCI:

Vendor: NVidia
Product: MCP79 AHCI
Speed: 3 Gigabit
Description: AHCI Version 1.20 Supported

ST9500420ASG:

Capacity: 500.11 GB (500,107,862,016 bytes)
Model: ST9500420ASG
Revision: 0007APM2
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Rotational Rate: 7200
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified

Yes I applied the update as soon as it came out. It solves the click and beeps issue, but the beach ball lock ups continue to persist for the vast majority of us. Also that particular update was never designed to address the system freezes. I somehow doubt we ever will see a permanent fix for this issue at this point.

Count me in. I've got the stock Hitachi 500GB, 5400 rpm drive.

Pram resets work for several days, and so I've just gotten in the habit of resetting the pram whenever I see the problem coming back.

It's very annoying to have to do, but if I stay on top of the pram resets it doesn't get really out of control.

Next time I'm going to try to disable SMS after doing the pram reset. This was mentioned in the mega-thread, so I might as well give it a shot.

The other possible fixes I've heard about are clearing the cache or switching to the 9600 graphics card. Anyone else with 17" beachballing try those out?

Bump!

Anyone else with a 17" MBP and beachball problems caused by harddrive? Post it here.

guys, has anyone else tried using HDAPM, as suggested here:

http://www.erodov.com/forums/13-15-macbook-pro-owners-still-plagued-sata-ii-issu es/24807.html

as referenced in the megathread here: http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10267483#10267483

I downloaded HDAPM from here http://mckinlay.net.nz/hdapm/ and set the level to "max" as suggested, and I haven't had a single freeze yet in about 3 days.

worth a shot! I'm guessing this might mean your battery drains slightly faster, but my machine is a desktop replacement laptop, so that doesn't bother me at all.

I wanted to try using HDAPM, but I haven't found clear instructions on how to do it.

I'm not particularly skilled with terminal--I can use it when there are very clear step-by-step instructions all spelled out, where I can basically cut and paste the stuff into terminal. But anything requiring any additional knowledge is pretty much beyond me.

Are there any dummed-down instructions out there for how to do this?

Ernst, try downloading HDAPM from the site here first:

http://mckinlay.net.nz/hdapm/

There's a PDF on the Disk Image (DMG) file that contains pretty clear instructions on how to use it. The "installation" section might be the only thing that stumps you:

"Copy hdapm to somewhere on your system - I suggest /usr/local/bin. If you want to have hdapm run automatically at startup, also copy the hdapm.plist to /Library/LaunchDaemons
Note that you may need to edit hdapm.plist with your desired settings. By default it assumes you installed the hdapm binary in /usr/local/bin, and will set the primary drive (disk0) to the maximum performance APM level."

If those instructions aren't clear, try this to install it:

1. Open the /usr/local/bin folder in Finder. To do this, while in Finder type Cmd-Shift-G. Now type "/usr/local/bin/" in the box and hit enter.

2. Copy the "hdapm" file (should look like a terminal) from the disk image you downloaded into the folder you just opened. You will probably need to enter your login password at this time.

3. In Finder, browse to the top of your main hard disk, then "Library", then "LaunchDaemons". Copy the "hdapm.plist" file from the image into this folder - this apparently allows hdapm to start automatically as your system starts.

4. Now, assuming that all went well, hdapm should be able to be run from the terminal. Open Terminal and type:

"hdapm disk0 max"

If you get something like "hdapm: command not found", then your install didn't work, so try starting from scratch.

Otherwise, if it does work, you should see something like:

"Setting APM level to 0xfe: Success"

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I don't want to jinx it, but I've just got through another full day without a single beach-ball freeze. Usually my machine would have started doing it about 1.5 - 2 days in, but I'm about 3 days in now.

If this DOES actually resolve the issue, it also bodes pretty well for us all getting a SOFTWARE fix from Apple sometime soon. I'll take slightly reduced battery life if it means a system that won't freeze up for 30 seconds every few hours!

Good luck!