Q: Firmware update and SATA II hard drive (continued)

Na they are pretty hard on this one to the point of talking to a brick wall. I was even asked if I knew how much my asking them for help cost them. I thought that was a bit silly as Apple is a billion dollar company.

I tried to get Apple Care to do the stuff you guys are doing here they said NO. They then told me all you posters on their forums are not telling the truth. I tried more than once and even watched for a shift change to ask again. Funny they all said the same thing.

The funny thing is this does not show on benchmarking and is intermittent so they have room to dodge it. What happens when you benchmark it is it does not pick it up as the benchmarking is run from that machine. It just catches up when the freeze clears. I hope that makes sense what I am trying to say. If you have this issue you know it never causes any other problems just freezing. When it unfreezes it just quickly does all the stuff to catch up.

Apple know they are 2 years out and the minority with this issue are well out of warranty now if they can just hold on they can clear the Apple Care also. Then they are home free. They are close now.

So...I fixed this myself in the end by asking a friend to do what you guys are saying fixes it. What you guys say it goes away with. I just tore up Apple Care and will never buy a Mac again. I should NEVER have had to do this myself! The arrogance was hard for me to cope with. I spent a lot of time in the Apple store feeling bad I had to grovel for help. They made me feel it was all just me and I was crazy.

I know they have the upper hand here and I can't fight them but it is very depressing when you fall into a grey area repair.

To be fair the phone guys with advice were good but once I got to the shop stage it was a disaster.

I think as well this situation is most unpleasant. I doesn't even live in a country with an apple store to go to. All I have is this channel, and their users kidness to ask questions and get answers.

Still can get my 1tb hard drive to work. I upgraded to Lion a couple days ago, but still no use.

Hope someone can point me out in the right direction someday.

Thanks for your time!

I found this to be due to the HDD cable.  I just fixed 2 of these computers with the same issue.  Now the firmware is upgraded and Hard Drive is running fine.

Hi everyone,

please excuse me if my question has been asked yet, but i just take a look around the two threads.

So, i'm experiencing the "1.5 Gbit issues" and, having a brand new SSD, it's really frustrating.

By the way my MBP is blazing fast with this drive but i think it could be even faster if capable of 3 Gbit negotiatiated speed (as it should be!).

Now the questions start:

I found this to be due to the HDD cable.  I just fixed 2 of these computers with the same issue.  Now the firmware is upgraded and Hard Drive is running fine.

Could you specify wich model was the Mac you repaired, just to know, thanks!

And: does anyone solved it bringing the Mac to the Apple store for a firmware downgrade?

Please let me know, thank you!

Macbook Pro 15" 2.53 ghz mid 2009 and a 13 in" mid 2009.  Once i changed the Hard Drive cable i was able to update to 1.7 without stalls. 

Blessoill wrote:

 

Macbook Pro 15" 2.53 ghz mid 2009 and a 13 in" mid 2009.  Once i changed the Hard Drive cable i was able to update to 1.7 without stalls. 

please can you give me the details how do you purchased the cable ?

Everyone who's managed to get it running at 3GB/s has had constant beachball. Some people running SSD's which are stuck on 3GB/s are posting here trying to find a way to bring it back to 1.5GB's due to the problems.

Actually and luckly despite the 1.5 gbs as i said in the post my mbp is really fast after the installation of the ssd, so do you think i should let it run as it is now to avoid worst issues?

Well I'm no expert on the issue, although I suffer (from what it's telling me) from it.

I will let someone who knows for certain answer that one for you.

Thanks!

A year and a half (about) later and my 09' MBP is still steady and strong with a Patriot Torqx SSD. 

Picked up a new Macbook Air last week.  Did a side-by-side boot up and random tests... the old MBP edges out the new Air in every test.  For all it's flaws, the mid-09' series MBP is a benchmarker. 

Quick summary for the folks who didn't see my older posts;  all I did was install Leopard to the Torqx in my MacPro.  Then put the drive in my Macbook Pro and it booted right up;  no problems. 

Trying to install Leopard on the fresh disk installed into the MBP was a no-go, just like most of you.  But everything was fine once an OS was on it via the MacPro.  Later on, I was able to do a fresh install of Snow Leopard shortly thereafter on the MBP;  also without any problems. 

Just continuing to share this info so it might help some of you find a solution of your own.  No hardware hacks, no replacement parts, no jumpers, etc... just formatting the disk and installing OSX on a different Mac before putting it into the MBP. 

Curious if anyone else has success with this. 

Just like you i hvae installe Lion on my ssd via USB (i put the ssd in a 2.5" usb enclosure and connected it to my MBP)  and only after the installation i put it on my MBP, maybe that's why i have encountered no problem installing the os...

Wow, this thread is kind of overwhelming... I've been through all sorts over these weeks after my logic board was replaced on my Mid-'09 2.53 MBP. Had no problems before the logic board replacement, using an OWC SATA II SSD. I had FileVault 2 switched on and when it was returned after repair and I replaced the stock HDD with the SSD the laptop was almost unusable; major beach balls and stalls every 10 seconds. Now I have downgraded to EFI 1.6 yesterday and no stalls whatsoever since then. Only the speed now shows as 1.5Gbit/s but that doesn't seem to have any negative impact on performance - to the contrary, all flies the way it should now. I gathered there is no hope for the SATA II speed now? I haven't read the million posts from these threads but I assume that's everybody's solution? To downgrade to EFI 1.6? And I've read some people are trying out a different logic board >> HDD cable? Any luck with that at all?

I have considered seeking council about this as Apple have let many users down. Last Macbook I ever buy. I am so disappointed and so sad over this you guys have no idea! Apple have made no effort to help me and as I said I had a failed drive and could not get another one to work in my machine without downgrade. I ended up with community help! So very sad I had to ask Apple community for help for a machine under warrenty and they solved it and Apple could or rather would not.

This is frankly shameful and they deserve what they get if I find a no win fee type to go after them on this.

The council idea may work. If the company is forced to fix this through a court order or something, and amend the policy. A bit harsh, but fair. Think of all these people with this dud that have no fix and have to put up with this major performance hit.