Brian Shaw3

Q: Defective SATA data cable in Macbook Pro

I have a mid-2012 Macbook Pro (13", MacBookPro9,2) in which I installed an Other World Computing (OWC) SSD early in 2014. It ran beautifully for several months and then one day it would no longer boot. After working with OWC techs for several hours over several days, including swapping in a brand new replacement SSD, the system still would not boot off an internal SSD (but would always boot just fine off the SSD when it was mounted in an external enclosure and would always boot off the original 750 Gb original HDD mounted internally). Although most the symptoms suggested that the issue was with the SSD, I eventually took the machine into an authorized Apple repair depot. After initially denying there was anything wrong with the Mac itself, they replaced the serial ATA cable that connects any internal drive to the motherboard and voila!, problem solved. The system had subsequently been running perfectly for several months until last week. Suddenly the exact same problem arose again. I spent considerably more effort with OWC this time, including yet another replacement SSD, but no luck this time either. Per OWC's tech (GREAT company and people, BTW): "It may be a internal SATA cable. As the internal SATA cable gets older it can start to degrade. It will work just fine with slower drives but when it has a fast SSD attached to it and tries to push the data at the speed of the SSD it just can not do it." It's a mystery to me how a cable can degrade, but nonetheless, I'm off to the Apple repair facility again for yet another cable.

 

With the above background, I'm posting this message to 1) advise others who may have encountered a similar issue and 2) to determine to what extent others may have experienced the same issue and identified the same solution. Since this is the second cable my system has needed in two years, it'll probably happen yet again in another few months, by which time my Applecare extended warranty will have expired and this problem will start costing me money to fix. I'd like to build a case that this is a design defect worthy of a more permanent fix.

MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.2), 8 Gb RAM, 250Gb SSD

Posted on Feb 26, 2015 8:18 AM

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Q: Defective SATA data cable in Macbook Pro

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  • by Squeekjjy,

    Squeekjjy Squeekjjy Feb 26, 2015 8:28 AM in response to Brian Shaw3
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Feb 26, 2015 8:28 AM in response to Brian Shaw3

    This is an interesting case you hold and I would like to see how many other people have this issue.

     

    I have run a Samsung SSD for over a year in my mac and never had an issue. The thing throwing me off is that the cable died so soon... This sounds like (I could be wrong) there is to much power running through the cable which is damaging these cables. Could be the SSD drive which is making them faulty, they might be trying to push the cables to hard, use to much power or push to much network down the cable for it to handle. I think it might be an idea to try an older HDD to see if what they say is correct and if it still works with older drives. They have been around to long to be only be able to last a year before breaking which is why it seams odd. There has to be an underlying issue with your system in my eyes.

  • by Brian Shaw3,

    Brian Shaw3 Brian Shaw3 Feb 26, 2015 8:45 AM in response to Squeekjjy
    Level 1 (139 points)
    Mac OS X
    Feb 26, 2015 8:45 AM in response to Squeekjjy

    Hi Squeekjjy

     

    Thanks for your input. However, I'm not sure what you mean by an "older HDD". As I mentioned in my original post, the HDD that came with the system works perfectly (although as slow as molasses by comparison with an SSD, of course) and always has (it's in the system now and I'm responding from that system). An HDD older than that one would be slower, not faster. Since the suspected issue is that an SSD is too fast for the cable, not too slow, testing with an older HDD will not prove anything one way or the other.

     

    Your thought about too much power is interesting; I'll ask the technician if that's even possible, i.e. if the SATA controller could be defective in that regard.

  • by Squeekjjy,

    Squeekjjy Squeekjjy Feb 26, 2015 8:51 AM in response to Brian Shaw3
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Feb 26, 2015 8:51 AM in response to Brian Shaw3

    I do apologies, I did not see you had put your original HDD back into your system which is the older HDD I was talking about..

     

    The power is just a theory but still is worth asking your technician about the controller as you have mentioned.

  • by Brian Shaw3,

    Brian Shaw3 Brian Shaw3 Feb 26, 2015 8:53 AM in response to Squeekjjy
    Level 1 (139 points)
    Mac OS X
    Feb 26, 2015 8:53 AM in response to Squeekjjy

     

     

    I'll report back what I learn (if anything)!

  • by dmaturana,

    dmaturana dmaturana Aug 25, 2015 10:32 AM in response to Brian Shaw3
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 25, 2015 10:32 AM in response to Brian Shaw3

    Hi Brian,

    I will love to know more about these, something similar hapens to me recently and I'm still looking for a solution. I have a mid2012 macbookpro, the original HD start to work bad and very slow. I decide to change it and bouthg an ssd PNY 480GB. I installed in the SATA port and works perfect, I was so happy with my computer so fast doing all my work faster etc.. After 4 days working perfect I fligth to another city, I just close my Mac as always. When I opened it at the airport, a gray screen and nothing I can do so I did a hard shut down. When I turned it on, my new (4 days old) ssd disappear, The system doesn't find it. I got an externall enclosure put my ssd and connect it through USB port, works perfect, so the ssd is working fine. I've been reading a lot of the issue and a lot of solutions (from charging the ssd, update the firmware, change the SATA cable). From my point of view the solution is case dependent and I still don't have a solution for my case.

    The ssd works one time in between all my tries but I turned the macbook off and ssd disappear again. Please I do need help.

     

    Best

  • by Arun Lal,

    Arun Lal Arun Lal Sep 7, 2016 12:36 AM in response to Brian Shaw3
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Sep 7, 2016 12:36 AM in response to Brian Shaw3

    Hi all,

     

    Just adding my misery to the fray here.

    - for the past 4 weeks, I seemed to have issues with constant rainbow wheel .... (death wheel!!).

    - the hard disk wouldn't repair through Disk utility

    - got a new SSD, which wouldn't format/erase either

    - got two new SSDs and external enclosure. Formatted two drives and restored from time capsule while on USB.

    - these SSDs as internal drive would not boot up. They both got stuck at Apple logo and progress bar to 100%

    - the macbook would however boot up with these SSDs from USB

    - now thinking that the problem is with the SATA cable. So I have ordered one and waiting.

    - put back the original non-SSD hard disk and the computer boots up albeit extremely slow as before.

     

    My conclusion: very interesting point about SATA cable being unable to handle the fast data transfer. At least, this has not been a problem with my wife's SSD for about 1.5 years.

     

    On these occasions I am always nostalgic about the days when I bought my Powerbook when DELL and Microsoft were changing the world ;-)

     

    Cheers.

  • by alex7375,

    alex7375 alex7375 Sep 7, 2016 5:17 AM in response to Brian Shaw3
    Level 2 (205 points)
    Desktops
    Sep 7, 2016 5:17 AM in response to Brian Shaw3

    I Have the same MBP with a Samsung Evo 850-series 500gb. SSD and have had no problems.

    Upgrade went fine.

     

    Did you do an SMC, NVRAM, PVRAM reset ?

  • by Brian Shaw3,

    Brian Shaw3 Brian Shaw3 Sep 7, 2016 5:18 AM in response to Arun Lal
    Level 1 (139 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 7, 2016 5:18 AM in response to Arun Lal

    Hi Arun.

     

    Be advised that if your MacBook is a mid-2012 model, Apple has implemented an extended warranty for this particular cable issue.

     

    BTW, my cable just failed again yesterday - for the fourth time.

     

    Brian

  • by Arun Lal,

    Arun Lal Arun Lal Sep 7, 2016 5:23 AM in response to alex7375
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Sep 7, 2016 5:23 AM in response to alex7375

    @: Actually not. I'll try that now.

     

    @Brian: That is a good news, but would they still honor the warranty if I have opened the hood?

  • by Brian Shaw3,

    Brian Shaw3 Brian Shaw3 Sep 7, 2016 6:04 AM in response to Arun Lal
    Level 1 (139 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 7, 2016 6:04 AM in response to Arun Lal

    They do for me.

  • by Arun Lal,

    Arun Lal Arun Lal Sep 7, 2016 6:34 AM in response to Brian Shaw3
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Sep 7, 2016 6:34 AM in response to Brian Shaw3

    Just an update for Alex: I performed the SMC, NVRAM, PVRAM reset.

    Unfortunately it didn't make any difference. The restored SSD is inside. The sequence is: Apple logo, progress bar to full, and then power down.

  • by Arun Lal,

    Arun Lal Arun Lal Sep 9, 2016 2:18 AM in response to Brian Shaw3
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Sep 9, 2016 2:18 AM in response to Brian Shaw3

    Just an update ....

    It was the SATA cable. I replaced it with a new one, and everything is working wonders, also the HDD that was not any slower than usual

    Now fingers crossed that the cable works for LONG.

  • by Brian Shaw3,

    Brian Shaw3 Brian Shaw3 Sep 9, 2016 7:11 AM in response to Arun Lal
    Level 1 (139 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 9, 2016 7:11 AM in response to Arun Lal

    Hi again Arun

     

    I had no doubt that it was the cable. But the important question is: did Apple replace it as part of their extended warranty for that particular part or did you do it yourself?

     

    Brian