Firmware update and SATA II hard drive (continued)

Have there been any further updates on this issue? This thread seems to have slowed down since it was moved. Overall the whole situation seems like a bad joke!! SATA2 has been around for how long now?

Seriously unacceptable!

Anyway, I just wanted to post to say, I too have been affected by this issue.
I purchased my 15” mid-2009 MBP in September and just tried to upgrade my drive this week and when it turned into an utter disaster I found this thread and another on macrumors.

I am very fortunate (for now) that the EFI 1.6 rollback tool seems to have solved my issues…but this still leaves a bigger problem down the road. I guess I can never put a SSD in this thing or at least use one to its full potential, let alone take any further EFI updates (unless addressed)...

I have also sent feedback to Apple as others have suggested. This is my first Apple computer and if they do not at least acknowledge this issue, I seriously think it will be my last...

I wish I would have found the previous thread about this issue before even buying this thing. 😟

Also, how many people have have resolved the issue with replacing the data cable?

Details in case anybody was wondering:

Stock Drive: Seagate 250GB 5400
Replaced with: Seagate 320GB 7200.4

I first noticed the issue immediately when attempting to install Snow Leopard onto my new drive.

Jumpered the new drive to 1.5Gbit/s speeds, which initially seemed to stabilize it (instead of rolling back the firmware), but the issue came back immediately after the OS was installed.

Right now everything seems to be working fine (no further CRC errors, beachballs, etc.) after the EFI 1.6 rollback, I also left the jumper in place on the drive.

We can't let this issue quiet down!!

I haven´t had any problems after that i configured the Seagate drive to SATA I/1.5GB. The issue with my computer would seem to be a firmware problem with SATA II drives (I am running EFI 1.7). The computer was unusable while the drive was opeating in SATA II.

@zakk_W
And how you do that with seagate drives ? I mean, I have the issue like mdub09 but I don't want to do the rollback until apple release it officially...so can you please tell me in details how you done that with your seagate drive ?

Shifty08,

check the link below

http://www.seagate.com/images/support/en/us/cudasatablock.gif

some more info:

I purchased a new cable from iFixit, and it made no difference. Upon installing the cable, upgrading to firmware 1.7, i went back to beachballing every 30 seconds. So the end result is, the replacement cable doesn't seem like a sure-fire fix.

At this point, i'd try just about anything.

Also, I picked up an optibay bracket (pulled out the dvdrw) and my SSD works fullspeed w/o beachballs on that port. Just not on the proper one. Weep.

If Fishbert is still monitoring this thread, do you have an SSD or a mechanical drive that now works with EFI 1.7 since you've changed out the SATA cable? Because if it's mechanical, maybe the SATA communication speed hasn't really been stressed enough to say whether the cable replacement solved the problem.

Ponzi wrote:
If Fishbert is still monitoring this thread, do you have an SSD or a mechanical drive that now works with EFI 1.7 since you've changed out the SATA cable? Because if it's mechanical, maybe the SATA communication speed hasn't really been stressed enough to say whether the cable replacement solved the problem.

No, a mechanical drive will not stress the interface to its fullest, but yes, the interface will still be operating at 3.0 Gb/s (which was enough to bring out the issue). "The problem" was that, even with mechanical drives, there would be frequent beachballing, significant performance degredation, and a lot of CRC errors detected with the drive.

I have a mechanical drive in the hard drive bay (and just put a SSD in the optical drive bay), so I can't say that I've stressed the limits of a SATA II interface… but I can say that the issue I was seeing went away.

By "went away", I mean I don't get a bunch of beachballing and significant performance issues when copying files across my home network. My CRC error count had gotten up to 6,322 over about a month of running with EFI 1.7 before I downgraded and then swapped out the cable. In the month since changing SATA cables and re-flashing to EFI 1.7, my CRC error count has increased to 6,327. Not perfect — still went up by 1-2 per week — but significantly better than the thousands I was seeing previously.

And remember, all this is still just a sample size of one machine, one hard drive, and one replacement cable.

I got a Seagate 320 GB 7200.4 Momentus for Christmas. I installed it today without a jumper...no problems so far. My mid 2009 13" MBP seems to be much faster now. I had EFI 1.7 preinstalled and applied the PU when I got my MBP.

Here's, what I did:

1. Used CCC to make a full copy of my old drive to the Seagate using an external USB case.

2. Swapped the new drive in.

i now give it up waiting for a final call.
sorry apple, but this is not the service i got in touch until now...

when i'm saying that i'm going to call sb. back, then i do it!

I am experiencing the same issue - late 2009 Unibody 15", purchased a WD 750g and it simply does not work as an internal drive. Works just great via a USB connection, but when in the MBP, I get beachballs every 30 seconds or so and the machine is completely unusable.

I've done some more work on this and i'm fairly certain it is the cable.

If you look at the previous early-2009 unibody MBP's you'll see the hard drive cable is relatively thick and has a layer of wrap-around shielding on the outside on one end and a nice thick sleeve on the other.

http://www.ifixit.com/MacBook-Parts/MacBook-Pro-15-Inch-Unibody-Late-2008-Early- 2009-Hard-Drive-Cable/IF161-015

Since I had a spare cable here for the mid-2009 i'm having issues with, I made some home-made shielding (aluminum foil + electrical tape) and it now works much better, though I have had just a single CRC error in the past 48 hrs. I know, its pretty ghetto.

I basically made a home-made version of this:

http://www.intermark-usa.com/products/EMC/Cable/FRCS.shtml

Before: Beachballing w/ CRC errors every time the HDD was accessed. The machine was completely unusable.

After: No beachballing, benchmarks showing 200-230 Mb/s.

My advice now is if you're having this issue, try getting another cable. You can pick them up at ifixit.com and powerbookmedic.com. That alone may work for you, but if it does not, take your new cable and do what I did. You can buy something similar from intermark-usa.com above, or you can do the aluminum foil + electrical tape method.

With the foil+tape, be warned: It has to make a downward bend in the middle where the two eyelets/screw-holes are. If your foil/tape is too thick, you will have fitting issues. Mine looks like crap, but i focused on keeping it as flat as possible rather than pretty.

hey nivenh,

could you please post some fotos of how you did that?

I can't at the moment. Its really pretty easy though. You'll want to take the cable completely out of the machine to do this.

I would also suggest you make ****** sure you have a spare cable. If you rip or damage the cable in any way, you'll be SOL until you can order a replacement. They're very delicate.

Cut some strips of aluminum foil, about 1/2" wide. The longer the strips the better. Wrap strips around the cable, making sure to stay as close to the original shape of the cable as possible. When you get to the eyelets for the screws stop. Skip that part for now.

The cable then branches off into two directions. One has a plastic bracket with the sleep slight attached. This is the thinner of the two branches. The thicker one goes to the SATA connector. Wrap both of these branches individually.

Once you've got the foil on, wrap over the foil with your electrical tape. Again, make sure to stay as true to the original shape as possible, particularly around those eyelets. Also, don't put it on too thick. You just want to hold the foil on as well as cover it. One layer is plenty. When you're done, go back to those eyelets that we skipped earlier.

Place a thin piece of foil over that area, on both sides. Be sure not to cover the holes. You're going to need to screw this part down later. Also place a small bit of electrical tape over the foil on both sides.

Now make sure it fits. If it doesn't, carefully attempt to undo the parts that don't fit properly and make them fit. CAREFULLY!! I guarantee you if you have run into an area that doesn't fit, it will be the first 90 degree bent in the cable or around the eyelets.

My research into this issue seems to indicate the worst afflicted are the 15" mid 09 MBPs, followed by the 13"s. I can confirm that jumpering a seagate 7200.4 500Gb drive down to SATA I seems to help. Interestingly the stock drive on our mid 09 15 MBP is a SATA II 250 GB Fujitsu which was working well enough. A seagate 5400.5 320Gb would only stall on more demanding tasks such as video import. In 500Gb drives we tried both a WD Scorpio Blue and the aforementioned Seagate 7200.4. Neither of the half terabyte drives worked (constant freezing, beachballing) with the seagate being worse than the WD until jumpered. I can understand why the faster drive seems worse but can not account for why it seems worse with rising capacity...
Interestingly our mid 09 13" MBP which is older than our 15" will happily use any drive it's given!

You know, this is just ridiculous. Kudos to the guy that figured out how to shield the cable and/or replace the drive cable, but I'll be ****** if I'm going to start reverse engineering cables & cable shielding on a brand new computer.

Both Apple & Western Digital have really dropped the ball here - neither of these two firms are admitting there is a problem. I'm ******. I spent an hour on the phone with WD support this morning and the end result was that he recommended I apply a jumped across pins 4 and 3 to force the 750g drive to SATA I. Of course it didn't work. What a pain to remove the drive, try it, then have to put the stock drive back in.

My first computer was a Mac way back in 1984 - the original Mac 128k. I've had many Macs since then and can never - ever - remember something this frustrating.

This is at least worth a knowledge-base article as there are hundreds of folks out there that are complaining about this issue.

Come on Apple, what's happening here?