Firmware update and SATA II hard drive (continued)

Peter Carlstedt wrote:
My unibody mid 2009 MBP 17" just started exhibiting the spinning beach ball which causes the system to freeze for close to a minute, and this is happening frequently rendering the computer practically useless. This thread is rather confusing as to what the causes and solutions are. Anyone care to put it in a nutshell for me? And are my symptoms different in that they seem more severe than most reported here.

thanks,

Peter

The problem addressed by this thread is limited to the revision of the 13" and 15" MBPs first sold in June 2009. The EFI version 1.7 firmware released by Apple to permit SATA 2 speeds was for those systems. Since your system just started having the beachballing problem, you should look for other possible causes, such as processes running in the background, impending hard drive failure, etc.

Apple's refusal and inability to resolve this issue is exceedingly frustrating. I've been looking to upgrade my HDD and been waiting out for more than 6 months and the situation is still as it was. Apple, quite being pathetic.

I wish I had found this thread before I bought this computer.

A Western Digital WD6400BEVT (640GB) is glacially slow in this machine. Snow Leopard install took several hours. After the first reboot, simple tasks like clicking the Apple menu resulted in beach balls.

Thought it was a bad drive, replaced with a Samsung HM641JI (also 640GB). This drive was even worse - Snow Leopard install would hang up at "Checking Catalog File" in the install log.

This is a brand new machine, received last week. Nice to realize my $300 Lenovo netbook can support any drive I want, while my $1800 MPB is more finicky than Morris the Cat.

And folks wonder why people Hackintosh Dells... give me a break, Apple.

Exactly.

If Apple wants it customers to buy more storage-heavy content on iTunes and edit media content on their "Pro" machines with softwares such as Aperture 3, they had better ensure users can upgrade their own HDDs with 3rd party aftermarket purchases. Especially given that the default configuration is so limited in capacity and they charge an arm and a leg for BTO machines.

They are damaging a lot of brand equity here amongst the more savvy users.

An update... I followed the EFI downgrade procedure listed here:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=8414998&postcount=305

Then attempted a fresh install. It finished quite quickly, and booted up about as quickly as the factory installed drive. My next steps will be to migrate my data and applications over from my broken-hinged 1st Gen. aluminum MBP, run some benchmarks, and keep checking for log errors and beach balls.

Apple's premium price used to mean a premium product. Not any more, it seems.

All of my legacy Apple products still work - from my Mac Plus with the original 20 megabyte Rodime hard drive to an Apple IIe and an absolutely ancient portable with a monochrome screen. Rock solid machines, the lot of them. I think we have Woz to thank for that. Present-day hardware is cheap commodity junk with a pretty shell and nothing more - and the support is equally as bad.

I'm sad to see the decline of Apple. They need to wake up before the alienate the very customers who contributed to their maddening success.

Has Apple Care resolved this issue for anyone? I don't have Apple Care (yet) but am wondering what good it is if Apple won't/can't fix this problem.
I'm now more concerned with being prepared for when the stock Hitachi 230GB drive goes belly up than I am with gaining more capacity and speed. And, if the stock drive does stop working, and I have Apple Care, what can I expect Apple to do? I'm dreading the thought of them replacing the drive with a SATA II and then encountering the stalling problem all over again.
BTW, I've tried a WD 650GB and Hitachi 500GB and both had the stalling problem.

Model: - MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2.53GHz, Mid 2009)
Build Country: - Your Mac was built in Changhai, China.
Build Year: - Your Mac was built in 2009.
Build Week - Your Mac was built in week 24 of that year (June).
Production Nr.: - Your Mac was number 957 to be built that week.

Hi,
does anyone know if the Crucial RealSSD C300 / 128MB
works in the Macbook Pro 13 with EFI 1.7???

Unfortunately there is no way of knowing without trying it out. Any hard drive has the potential not to work as the problem is not with the drives but the MacBook itself. However you will be able to roll back to 1.6 and it will work, albeit at reduced speeds.

Ok, thanks, I just thought someone already is using this SSD.
It seems that some drives work and other drives don't.
Maybe it also depends on the firmware on the drive.

In preparation for a Hard Drive upgrade in my MacBook Pro (which fits the profile of the ones having problems with upgrade) I decided to once again call applecare just to ask some questions and see what today's party line might be on the whole thing. 1st responder said "any" drive that fits and is SATA should work fine with no problems. He wasn't aware of anyone having any problems with upgrading the drive and said "one of his buddies" just did exactly that with no problem. I asked to be sent up to a higher tier tech support person. this person would give no opinion or help in the matter of downgrading firmware or drive compatibility (or incompatibility). He told me of how Apple used to offer upgrades at the time of servicing and how they won't do that anymore. He told me my computer was designed to work with the hardware installed in it, and that they will only give support for the installed hardware. He opined that the reason people are probably having problems with spinning beach balls and bad or slow performance with their MBP's has to do with them trying to put drives into their laptops that have different power requirements to operate properly. His example...if your MBP came with a 250 GB 5400 rpm drive, and you want to install a 500 GB 7200 rpm drive (how'd he guess, that is EXACTLY what I want to do!) that the reason it won't work properly is because the newer, faster, larger drive will not have it's energy needs met by the laptop, and will develop problems.

HMMMMMM!?!?

Previous to this he told me that pre-sale my same MBP could be ordered with an updated drive that is a 500 GB , 7200 RPM model. He wouldn't say anything about what mechanism they use other than they usually use Hitachi and Western Digital drives with motion sensors. I asked him if when you custom ordered a MBP with the higher performance drive if they also modified the laptop to accomodate the power needs of the bigger drive....his answer was that the computer would be "configured" to work with the drive ordered.

This probably doesn't add any or much useful information to this dilemma, but it will give you an idea of what to expect from upper-tier applecare tech's when you question them about the issue.

Thanks for the response, this confirms my suspicions.

And, what if I did use the 1.6 fw rollback image that's floating around on the web and introduced a new problem? Would Apple Care even talk to me?

Message was edited by: chrisle

Is the EFI fw installed in ROM on the MBP or on the HD?

I'm sure you're all sick of hearing this by now, but has anyone tried 8gb ram in the late 2008 2.8 unibody Macbook Pro after the firmware update? I know that 6gb works, but 8gb would be awesome for video editing.

I've used the Firmware downgrade from Macrumor site, and I'm finally able to install my WD Black Scorpio 320GB into the machine.
The 1.6 Firmware works flawlessly with this HDD, while 1.7 wouldn't even allow me to finish install OS at all.

When I first had the problem with firmware 1.7, I called Applecare and also went to the store. They all gave me standard answers. "We will not service anything that doesn't come with the original config. What you got from the box is what you got".

After that incident, my rating on Applecare drops from a 10 star to 5 star.

amdrocks wrote:

When I first had the problem with firmware 1.7, I called Applecare and also went to the store. They all gave me standard answers. "We will not service anything that doesn't come with the original config. What you got from the box is what you got".

After that incident, my rating on Applecare drops from a 10 star to 5 star.

You were not asking them to service your new hard drive. Instead, you were asking them to fix what is apparently a malfunctioning SATA bus in your MBP. The bus, including the SATA cable that connects to the drive, came with the machine and should be Apple's responsibility.