ICH8-M AHCI Macbook Pro 4,1 : Firmware Update ????

Yeah that's totally right.
I'm and we are waiting for an update of this chipset since 3years now.
So please Apple do something for us !

Thins is really a need now because of the public introduction of the SSD's technology.

I've got a Macbook 3,1 and my SSD speeds have been hampered by the ICH-8M. It is capable of running SATA 2, but Apple artificially limits it to SATA 1.5.

It never mattered when I had a platter based hard drive, but since I've updated to an SSD my maximum speeds are 130 MB/s when they should be close to 250 MB/s.

I got a macbook 4.1 and was also looking for a SSD, then after some research I found out that the controller is limited to 1.5 gb.
Is there no way to fix this?

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=7835786&postcount=17

MacRumors wrote:
Yes you are correct. The ICH8-M used has SATA 3.0 Gbit/s capability but is capped at 1.5 Gbit/s. There is a reason for that and it affects other laptops as well - Dell, IBM/Lenovo etc

The ICH8-M was incompatible with many SATA-PATA bridge chipsets at the 3.0 Gbit/s level. Since the SATA-PATA bridges were needed due to optical drives being PATA, you'll see this on many laptops. On Desktop motherboards where a separate chipset was used to provide IDE channels and on laptops that had no PATA optical drives, the chipset can and does provide 3.0 Gbit/s

Feel free to risk frying your MacBook Pro with a firmware hack that will break the internal optical drive.

But to ask, let alone expect, Apple to do so for you is just silly.

Bessem wrote:
I will not attempt anything that would jeopardize the macbook, also so far there is no procedure to activate 3Gbits. So users who are awaiting activation TRIM SSDs are stupid! What arrogance ...

I suggest you relax and read the quote I posted above through, again.

IF the explanation proposed by harshw on the MacRumors forums is correct (I have no way to verify this; it was the first plausible explanation I've found), then the reason why the speed is limited to 1.5 GBit is TECHNICAL.

If the S-ATA controller runs at full speed, the optical drive is broken.

If Apple offered a firmware upgrade, it would require replacing the optical drive.

So Apple's "arrogance" is to provide a working - but slower - solution, rather than a faster - but broken - one.

And my "arrogance" is telling you not to expect Apple to break their own hardware by offering a firmware upgrade.

I can live with that.

Apple employees don't generally read these posts (just administrators) - you need to post on www.apple.com/feedback.

Bessem wrote:
Should we expect a negative response even from them?

Probably not.

My Macbook Pro 4,1 is in almost perfect shape, except for the fact that I cannot upgrade to an SSD, because I wouldn't profit from the full speed due to the bus-limitation. Apple, please give us an EFI update, even if it disables the optical drive, which I haven't used because it no longer reads any media since almost 2 years.

Once again: you aren't talking to Apple when you post in these forums. We are all just other Mac users here. To tell Apple what you think and what you want, post here:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macbookpro.html

You will not receive a reply, positive or negative, but your message will go directly to the appropriate people at Apple.

Apple generally doesn't release firmware updates for superseded computer models, but maybe you'll get lucky.