Western Digital Scorpio Blue 640 Drive draws too much power in a MacBookPro

Hey Tim,
Thanks heaps for the instructions. I installed a WD 750gb Scorpio Blue and had the constant parking and spin up/spin down problem and the high cycle counts. I used your instructions and it worked like a charm!

I have just spoken to AppleCare and they said that because I cloned my original hdd the difference in sector size (or something) of the new hdd may be causing this and so has advised me to erase and do a clean install on the new hdd (as before I just cloned the original).

Has anyone tried this, had any joy with this? I will give this a try and report back but need to back up other stuff first.

I did. Didn't solve the problem.

I've just noticed something, my computer only slows down significantly after using it on battery power. After I reboot, all goes well until the computer is running on battery power and recharging it afterwards doesn't help. Of course, I could reboot every time after I run it on battery, but what is the point of having a laptop then?

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro3,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP31.0070.B07
SMC Version (system): 1.16f11
Serial Number (system):
Hardware UUID: 00000000-0000-1000-8000-001B63BCBDDD
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

I am planning to upgrade the hard drive in the macbook pro early 2008 model 4,1


Model Name: MacBook Pro 15 inch
Model Identifier: MacBookPro4,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP41.00C1.B03
SMC Version (system): 1.27f2
Hardware UUID: 477FEE49-9FD4-5CD3-B535-247F8215D8A9
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled


After read this thread i got several questions in my mind , kindly forgive me for my lack of experience with macbook pro and software terms.

1. Should i go for upgrade of 640Gb(WD6400BPVT /WD6400BEVT) or 750Gb(WD7500BPVT) both 9.5mm , I think interface is SATA 3 Gb/s , is it same with SATA2 .Does SATA2 work support my macbook pro ?

2. Will they both work fine -without being sluggish and drive throttles? Since most users here had the similar problem of hard drive not being responsive and freezing ...heating so on?

3. What are the steps (please in details thank you) which i need to configure the macbook pro to work this hard drives well in my macbook pro 15 inch.


3. Is there a difference in SATA and SATA2 when placed inside the macbook pro? I am currently running SL 10.6.4 on my macbook pro, on 200GB HD.

4. If these hard drives are not suitable kindly suggest me a suitable drive model number and make ?Do you think hitachi 500gb 7200rpm 7k500 model is got good reliability?


thank you.

AJ

Hi AJ,

I see you found your way over to this thread. 😉

I can answer #1 for you; SATA II is backwards compatible, meaning it will work on the original SATA bus (in our MBPs).

I am planning to upgrade the hard drive in the macbook pro early 2008 model 4,1


Model Name: MacBook Pro 15 inch
Model Identifier: MacBookPro4,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP41.00C1.B03
SMC Version (system): 1.27f2
Hardware UUID: 477FEE49-9FD4-5CD3-B535-247F8215D8A9
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled
After read this thread i got several questions in my mind , kindly forgive me for my lack of experience with macbook pro and software terms.

1. Should i go for upgrade of 640Gb(WD6400BPVT /WD6400BEVT) or 750Gb(WD7500BPVT) both 9.5mm , I think interface is SATA 3 Gb/s , is it same with SATA2 .Does SATA2 work support my macbook pro ?

2. Will they both work fine -without being sluggish and drive throttles? Since most users here had the similar problem of hard drive not being responsive and freezing ...heating so on?

3. What are the steps (please in details thank you) which i need to configure the macbook pro to work this hard drives well in my macbook pro 15 inch.
3. Is there a difference in SATA and SATA2 when placed inside the macbook pro? I am currently running SL 10.6.4 on my macbook pro, on 200GB HD.

4. If these hard drives are not suitable kindly suggest me a suitable drive model number and make ?Do you think hitachi 500gb 7200rpm 7k500 model is got good reliability?
thank you.

AJ (ajsei.nwu@gmail.com) is my gtalk

I am planning to upgrade the hard drive in the macbook pro early 2008 model 4,1


Model Name: MacBook Pro 15 inch
Model Identifier: MacBookPro4,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP41.00C1.B03
SMC Version (system): 1.27f2
Hardware UUID: 477FEE49-9FD4-5CD3-B535-247F8215D8A9
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled
After read this thread i got several questions in my mind , kindly forgive me for my lack of experience with macbook pro and software terms.

1. Should i go for upgrade of 640Gb(WD6400BPVT /WD6400BEVT) or 750Gb(WD7500BPVT) both 9.5mm , I think interface is SATA 3 Gb/s , is it same with SATA2 .Does SATA2 work support my macbook pro ?

2. Will they both work fine -without being sluggish and drive throttles? Since most users here had the similar problem of hard drive not being responsive and freezing ...heating so on?

3. What are the steps (please in details thank you) which i need to configure the macbook pro to work this hard drives well in my macbook pro 15 inch.
3. Is there a difference in SATA and SATA2 when placed inside the macbook pro? I am currently running SL 10.6.4 on my macbook pro, on 200GB HD.

4. If these hard drives are not suitable kindly suggest me a suitable drive model number and make ?Do you think hitachi 500gb 7200rpm 7k500 model is got good reliability?
thank you.

ajsei.nwu@gmail.com is my gtalk

AJ

I have a 640 GB scoripio blue BEVT with no clicking sounds.

I can confirm that Tim's directions have cleared up my load count issue. I had over 100 load-counts per hour and now only have about 15 per day due to sleeping and waking the laptop. Thanks a lot! The detriment to my computing experience was really driving me nuts. The system is snappy again and it seems like I am getting much improved battery life.

Sorry. Can tell me what means by load. Count.

If you run smartctl, you get a statistic called Load cycle count. If this value is high, you may have the problem described in this thread.

I did everything that Tim said and it seemed to have worked. The weird part is, after doing this, when using smartctl, my load cycle is 44893 and NEVER moves. I have surfed the net, opened my iphoto. went to sleep and out 3 times. That is weird, right?

Are there any 'side effects' to your solution Tim? Like any more wear and tear on the machine, etc?
Thanks,
R

I'm glad I didn't just go out and by a new drive as it looks like reading from these posts that it’s a minefield. So does anyone know of a drive that will work with OS X without having to do any hacks such as HDAPM as it looks like that simply stops the drive from going to sleep (even ignoring OS X's energy saver prefs) which I don’t want to do?

I am wondering the exact same thing.

Apple released an efi update to 1.9 on August 26th. Has anyone updated and can confirm if it addresses any of the issues that 1.7 and 1.8 are causing with the WD scorpio HDD?

I'm running a mid 2009 MB Pro Intel Core 2 Duo 15" and swapped my HDD w/ the WD Scorpio 1tb about a week ago. I immediately noticed a major decrease in performance. Songs in itunes that have high bit rates (192, 256, 320 etc) all skip every 10 to 15 seconds and there's been more beachballs than a Phish concert.

I have turned off the SMC, reset the PRAM (or NVRAM for me), and successfully implemented the hdapm idea (although I did not experience any increase noise or notice the drive starting and stopping frequently)

Before I did any of this I foolishly did an Apple update which upgraded my EFI to 1.8

When I try to revert to 1.6 with the usb drive I only get the grey no smoking circle.

I'm contemplating upgrading to 1.9 to see if it helps, but don't want to if there's a way to get back to 1.6 from 1.8 and not from 1.9

Any ideas?