Help! Samsung 830 SSD in MBP 13" (Mid-2012) - 20 minutes boot up!

[NMF]

I downgraded to a 13" MBP last week. I had previously been using a 15" MBP with a 256GB Samsung 830 in the HDD bay and the stock 500GB HDD in the optical bay. I had TRIM enabled via groths TrimEnabler and everything worked perfectly. I used this set up for about 6 months with no issues.

Fast forward to now; I swapped the same SSD and HDD into the 13" last week. I installed a fresh copy of Mountain Lion via USB and enabled TRIM once again via groths TrimEnabler. Everything seemed to be working fine. I was getting like 11 second boots, 400mb/s reads, etc. Life was good. Then out of nowhere things started getting weird. My machine is still snappy as hell and Mountain Lion is running like a champ -- after the MBP boots. The boot process itself takes between 15-20 minutes. I have to sit and stare at the white Apple screen with the spinning circle under it for that entire time.

Any idea what is causing this? I've tried verifying and repairing permissions, verifying and repairing the disk itself, verifying the S.M.A.R.T. status in Onyx. Everything says the drive is perfectly fine, and it's certainly performing fine. My machine just takes forever to boot up.

Anyone know how to rectify this?

[Tenashus1]

Originally Posted by NMF

I downgraded to a 13" MBP last week. I had previously been using a 15" MBP with a 256GB Samsung 830 in the HDD bay and the stock 500GB HDD in the optical bay. I had TRIM enabled via groths TrimEnabler and everything worked perfectly. I used this set up for about 6 months with no issues.

Fast forward to now; I swapped the same SSD and HDD into the 13" last week. I installed a fresh copy of Mountain Lion via USB and enabled TRIM once again via groths TrimEnabler. Everything seemed to be working fine. I was getting like 11 second boots, 400mb/s reads, etc. Life was good. Then out of nowhere things started getting weird. My machine is still snappy as hell and Mountain Lion is running like a champ -- after the MBP boots. The boot process itself takes between 15-20 minutes. I have to sit and stare at the white Apple screen with the spinning circle under it for that entire time.

Any idea what is causing this? I've tried verifying and repairing permissions, verifying and repairing the disk itself, verifying the S.M.A.R.T. status in Onyx. Everything says the drive is perfectly fine, and it's certainly performing fine. My machine just takes forever to boot up.

Anyone know how to rectify this?

Have you reset PRAM?

[Orlandoech.com]

Check my SSD Tweaking guide for optimal performance tweaks. But be sure to check the Start-up Disk in System Prefs.

Ensure the SSD Firmware is up-to-date, Also try http://chameleon.alessandroboschini.it/index.php over TrimEnabler as its much better with more options.

[Tenashus1]

Originally Posted by Orlandoech.com

Check my SSD Tweaking guide for optimal performance tweaks. But be sure to check the Start-up Disk in System Prefs.

Ensure the SSD Firmware is up-to-date, Also try http://chameleon.alessandroboschini.it/index.php over TrimEnabler as its much better with more options.

I've tried myself to get onto the Chameleon web page, but the computer justs sits and connects. I can't get to the website.

[NMF]

Originally Posted by Tenashus1

Have you reset PRAM?

Yes, I believe so. I tried all the different keystrokes to hold down during start up (that I found on other websites). I don't remember exactly which one PRAM was, but I tried a variety.

Originally Posted by Orlandoech.com

Check my SSD Tweaking guide for optimal performance tweaks. But be sure to check the Start-up Disk in System Prefs.

Ensure the SSD Firmware is up-to-date, Also try http://chameleon.alessandroboschini.it/index.php over TrimEnabler as its much better with more options.

Will I understand the options though? I don't know much about SSD maintenance or what it means -- I just know that I needed to enable TRIM. To be honest I'm starting to really regret not paying the Apple Tax for one of their official SSD's. I hate tinkering and tweaking. I just want my stuff to work...

[SandboxGeneral]

Originally Posted by Tenashus1

I've tried myself to get onto the Chameleon web page, but the computer justs sits and connects. I can't get to the website.

You must have some type of DNS resolution problem. I am able to get to it.

You can try to use the Google DNS, 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. Or you could set a persistent route to the site IP 46.252.158.52.

[Orlandoech.com]

Originally Posted by Tenashus1

I've tried myself to get onto the Chameleon web page, but the computer justs sits and connects. I can't get to the website.

lol that happened to me too, use an online proxy, its your ISP.

[NMF]

I broke down and just took it to the Apple Store, two hard drives and all. Ha! The tech just took it into the back. I wonder how this will go?

[Tenashus1]

Originally Posted by NMF

I broke down and just took it to the Apple Store, two hard drives and all. Ha! The tech just took it into the back. I wonder how this will go?

Curious.

[NMF]

Originally Posted by Tenashus1

Curious.

After he came back he admitted he was just checking to see if I had ****ed up the installation (I hadn't). I asked about the warranty and he said that even though the optical drive technically isn't supposed to be user-serviceable, because I didn't mess anything up during the removal process my warranty was fine. He said to make sure to hold on to it though, because if Apple ever has to swap out the logic board or something they are required to restore the machine back to stock configuration (with the exception of the RAM and primary hard drive since those are considered user-serviceable), and if I don't have the original optical drive I'd have to pay for a new one.

Unfortunately he couldn't help me with my boot problem. He said that as a retail technician he is only allowed to use specific utilities that are provided to him by Apple, and the utilities specific to SSD's won't even run unless the drive is Apple-branded. I told him that the Samsung 830 is practically the same thing Apple uses, and though he acknowledged that that was the case, he said the utilities still gave him the red flags when he tried to run the tests.

So, lesson learned. Take your double-drive MBP's to the Apple Store without fear (as long as you didn't bork the installation), just don't expect the techs to be able to help with them very much.

[Orlandoech.com]

Originally Posted by NMF

So, lesson learned. Take your double-drive MBP's to the Apple Store without fear (as long as you didn't bork the installation), just don't expect the techs to be able to help with them very much.

It has NOTHING to do with the fact you didnt "mess" or "break" anything while removing an un-serviceable part. It has to do with the "genius" being reasonable and not a dick.

[SandboxGeneral]

Originally Posted by NMF

After he came back he admitted he was just checking to see if I had ****ed up the installation (I hadn't). I asked about the warranty and he said that even though the optical drive technically isn't supposed to be user-serviceable, because I didn't mess anything up during the removal process my warranty was fine. He said to make sure to hold on to it though, because if Apple ever has to swap out the logic board or something they are required to restore the machine back to stock configuration (with the exception of the RAM and primary hard drive since those are considered user-serviceable), and if I don't have the original optical drive I'd have to pay for a new one.

Unfortunately he couldn't help me with my boot problem. He said that as a retail technician he is only allowed to use specific utilities that are provided to him by Apple, and the utilities specific to SSD's won't even run unless the drive is Apple-branded. I told him that the Samsung 830 is practically the same thing Apple uses, and though he acknowledged that that was the case, he said the utilities still gave him the red flags when he tried to run the tests.

So, lesson learned. Take your double-drive MBP's to the Apple Store without fear (as long as you didn't bork the installation), just don't expect the techs to be able to help with them very much.

Sounds like you a rather reasonable Genius to look at it. Too bad he couldn't help though.

[NMF]

Originally Posted by Orlandoech.com

It has NOTHING to do with the fact you didnt "mess" or "break" anything while removing an un-serviceable part. It has to do with the "genius" being reasonable and not a dick.

Ah, well lucky me then, heh. I did call AppleCare before going in though, and the senior advisor I ended up speaking with told me the same thing. He said my warranty should be fine as long as I didn't break anything. He did recommend that I put the optical drive back in before taking it to the store though.

Anyway, I cloned the SSD onto the stock 750GB 5400RPM HDD that originally came with this MBP using CarbonCopyCloner. I then swapped the SSD with the newly cloned HDD. It booted in 1 minute 50 seconds.

So... I guess that means the SSD itself is going bad then? The thing is that it's only 6 months old and works super fast after the 15 minute boot sequence. This is just weird. What a headache.

Also holy ****, using an HDD as the primary drive sucks! Wow. So slow and loud. It's like using a MacBook from the Spanish Inquisition.

[NMF]

So... no one has any ideas? I thought this would be easy to fix...

Also:

Originally Posted by Orlandoech.com

Ensure the SSD Firmware is up-to-date

How exactly do I go about that from a Mac?

[Orlandoech.com]

Originally Posted by NMF

So... no one has any ideas? I thought this would be easy to fix...

Also:



How exactly do I go about that from a Mac?

Check my signature for SSD Benchmarks, I think I have info in there on how to update firmware, but you will need to do it via Windows/bootcamp.

[NMF]

Originally Posted by Orlandoech.com

Check my signature for SSD Benchmarks, I think I have info in there on how to update firmware, but you will need to do it via Windows/bootcamp.

Damn. I use Parallels for my infrequent Windows needs. No interest in boot camp.

Hmm.

[Orlandoech.com]

Originally Posted by NMF

Damn. I use Parallels for my infrequent Windows needs. No interest in boot camp.

Hmm.

Have a PC at all? FYI, it CANNOT be done via External Interface e.g.; USB, FW, TB, ETC.

[NMF]

No PC. It seems like such a waste to install a boot camp partition just to update some firmware. I think I'm just gonna RMA the drive to Samsung. It has a 5 year warranty after all.

I just hate that I have to install OS X again and start over again. There should be an easy fix for this. The SSD is fine. Meh.

Let this be a lesson to those of you on the fence: just pay the Apple Tax for their own SSD's when you buy your machine. It's not worth dealing with the headache when something invariably goes wrong, and no on else knows how to help you.

[Orlandoech.com]

Originally Posted by NMF

No PC. It seems like such a waste to install a boot camp partition just to update some firmware. I think I'm just gonna RMA the drive to Samsung. It has a 5 year warranty after all.

I just hate that I have to install OS X again and start over again. There should be an easy fix for this. The SSD is fine. Meh.

Let this be a lesson to those of you on the fence: just pay the Apple Tax for their own SSD's when you buy your machine. It's not worth dealing with the headache when something invariably goes wrong, and no on else knows how to help you.

Well OCZ has a MAc update utility and it doesnt require and new OS install. Samsung I think is working on a Mac update utility.

[NMF]

Well I seem to have "fixed" the issue by reformatting via Lion Diskmaker. I was too lazy to go through the entire set up process again (since I just did it last week), so I wussed out and did a restore from Time Machine back up.

IT WORKS PERFECTLY

Back to 11 second boots. Hopefully it sticks this time...

[Swiss-G]

Originally Posted by NMF

No PC. It seems like such a waste to install a boot camp partition just to update some firmware. I think I'm just gonna RMA the drive to Samsung. It has a 5 year warranty after all.

I just hate that I have to install OS X again and start over again. There should be an easy fix for this. The SSD is fine. Meh.

Let this be a lesson to those of you on the fence: just pay the Apple Tax for their own SSD's when you buy your machine. It's not worth dealing with the headache when something invariably goes wrong, and no on else knows how to help you.

The final firmware release for the 830 is CXM03B1Q.

You can download a bootable ISO from here:

http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...downloads.html

[NMF]

Originally Posted by Swiss-G

The final firmware release for the 830 is CXM03B1Q.

You can download a bootable ISO from here:

http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...downloads.html

If I could kiss you through the Internet, I would.

..although according to System Report, my SSD already has "Revision: CXM03B1Q."

How could that be?

[Swiss-G]

Originally Posted by NMF

If I could kiss you through the Internet, I would.

..although according to System Report, my SSD already has "Revision: CXM03B1Q."

How could that be?

The firmware update was released in January 2012. When did you buy the drive?

[NMF]

Originally Posted by Swiss-G

The firmware update was released in January 2012. When did you buy the drive?

Ah, July. I guess I've had the latest firmware all along then.