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Installed a SSD in MacBook Pro, OS X freezes and is unusable

LimeiBook86

LimeiBook86

macrumors G3
Original poster
May 4, 2002
8,003
54
Go Vegan
Hello everyone,

So yesterday on Newegg.com there was a pretty good deal for a 60GB OCZ SSD (link), so for $60 I thought I'd give it a try. This is my first SSD and I thought it would be fun to try one out.

I have a Late 2008 MacBook Pro (unibody) with a 2.66 Core 2 Duo processor and 8GB of DDR3 RAM (4GBx2). So I install the SSD and put in my home-made Lion DVD-R from the App Store download. After installation however things seem odd.

Instantly the machine starts beach balling. I finally get Safari to launch and it stumbles, doesn't even play the 1st time animation, I just hear sound before another beach ball. All this time Spotlight is indexing. I barely got to Software Update to hope that 10.7.1 fixes the issue.

I downloaded a Linux ISO to update the firmware, but it stated that the firmware was already up to date. (I had to run this on my PC desktop as the MacBook never booted to the CD correctly) Oddly enough it seems to be running okay while downloading the Software Update so far. I'll be sure to keep you updated but...

Do you think this thing could be defective? I tried copying files to it via Target Disk Mode and they seemed to copy okay and pretty quick. My friends confirmed that I partitioned the disk correctly and that nothing special was needed. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks! :D

-Steve

Update: Finally rebooted after the 10.7.1 update. Bootup took 1 minute and 45 seconds. I typed in my password and hit enter, I at least waited another minute. Still sitting here. I'm starting to think either my MacBook Pro is screwy or this drive is...
 
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I was able to replace the drive of my Mom's Core 2 Duo 2.0Ghz MacBook from 2007. The SSD works great on there, very quick. Only had 1GB of RAM and Lion was flying around pretty well. So I guess the MacBook Pro may be at fault somehow... :confused:

I even reverted the MBP to it's stock 4GB of RAM (2GBx2) and it still acts the same. Hmm...
 
It's not a bad drive... it's however way Lion or the MBP uses the drive. It's SATA III and OSX and you can probably blame Sandforce as well. Because if you were to install Windows 7 via Bootcamp, bootcamp works flawlessly. If you look at the thread I created, it has all the stuff I've done to troubleshoot the problem. Unfortunately, the only way you can fix it is to either return it and get a SATA II drive or put it in the Optical Drive bay (with an Optibay, replacing your Optical drive).

It works well with no problems for me now, no more stuttering and waiting for 3 minutes for the machine to boot up, then be extremely fast for a little bit, then freeze again. But it's not as fast as it used to be... though, I can live with this trade-off.
 
Well the drive has an installation of Lion 10.7.1 on it. This install runs horribly slow and hangs on the MBP '08, but when I put it into a 2007 White MacBook it ran fine. So I didn't even attempt to see how Windows runs. I guess the difference is the 2007 MacBook SATA is 1.5 gb/s and the 2008 MacBook Pro has a 3.0 gb/s interface?
 
LimeiBook86 said:
Well the drive has an installation of Lion 10.7.1 on it. This install runs horribly slow and hangs on the MBP '08, but when I put it into a 2007 White MacBook it ran fine. So I didn't even attempt to see how Windows runs. I believe both MacBook's SATA ports are both 1.5gbps.
Click to expand...

It's the same problem I had. Does your white MB use Lion or SL?

Well if it hangs on MBP as well... then it sort of points the finger more at the SSD firmware... are there any updates from OCZ for that specific drive?
 
As I stated above the drive has Lion 10.7.1 on it. I simply swapped the drive to either machine, so both MacBooks were running from the same OS install and the same drive. I put the drive in my PC and ran a Linux ISO with a firmware updater, but it stated the drive was up to date... :confused: TRIM support says "No" on both machines if that matters.
 
LimeiBook86 said:
As I stated above the drive has Lion 10.7.1 on it. I simply swapped the drive to either machine, so both MacBooks were running from the same OS install and the same drive. I put the drive in my PC and ran a Linux ISO with a firmware updater, but it stated the drive was up to date... :confused: TRIM support says "No" on both machines if that matters.
Click to expand...

Oh oh I'm sorry that was a major mis-thought there haha. My bad! lol I'm so tired...

And since it's Sandforce, it has it's own Garbage collection via the firmware. It replaces the need for TRIM, and enabling TRIM will just slow down the OS. TRIM is only necessary for SSD's without their own TRIM/GC. So it's okay if there is no TRIM support in the System Profiler... in fact, you can't even enable it without a hack (because Apple only enables it for their stock SSD's).

Really there is absolutely nothing you can do to fix this unless you return the SSD or put it in the Optical Bay. You can try exchanging it for another drive, but I did that and had the same issues. 9/10, it's not a faulty SSD, and an exchange will be a waste of time. You might consider getting a SATA II drive.. because if you DO put it in the Optical drive, you basically paid for an expensive SATA II SSD.
 
Okay well that's good to know. Now I just wonder why my Unibody late '08 MBP is acting so weird with the drive. I of course would love this to work without issue, but it's being a big pain. :(

Sorry I forgot to mention earlier that it is indeed a Unibody model.

-Steven
 
LimeiBook86 said:
Okay well that's good to know. Now I just wonder why my Unibody late '08 MBP is acting so weird with the drive. I of course would love this to work without issue, but it's being a big pain. :(
Click to expand...

TRUST ME, I feel your pain... I wasted an UNREAL amount of time trying to diagnose the issue. In total, I probably spent 5 days straight if added together, trying to diagnose the issue. Including the hours I spent on the phone with multiple Apple advisors, Genius Bar appointments, self-diagnosing, taking Mac apart, swapping, unscrewing, screwing, swapping, re-swapping, checking, clearing caches, rebuilding, verifying, scanning.... not to mention having to ship the drive back to the Manufacturer, getting a new one shipped back, creating threads, emails back and forth between Manufacturer and Apple, talking to colleagues.... the list goes on and on. Not to mention the 10 dollar shipping fee RMA, the 280 bucks I spent on the SSD, the tools I had to buy to swap drives, the madness....

But who knows. Maybe yours is different... I cannot guarantee this because you don't have the same drive I do. BUT, I can give you a very close guess, very educated, that it is the same problem :cool: Unfortunately :(
 
It's not a SATA3 issue as his MacBook only has SATA2 ports...


I have a Vertex 3, 120GB, in my mid 2010 13" (7,1) and it's a beast with ZER0 issues, n0ne. It flies, like night and day compared to a HDD (even when it's in a Bette specced machine, the SSD destroys it). I'm running 10.6.8 and it's perfect, FAST and no beach balls or lagging or anything; I did install 10.7.2 for a few hours before I deleted it, but for the couple of hours I didn't have any SSD issues (I still hated OS X Vista though :mad:).
 
DWBurke811 said:
It's not a SATA3 issue as his MacBook only has SATA2 ports...


I have a Vertex 3, 120GB, in my mid 2010 13" (7,1) and it's a beast with ZER0 issues, n0ne. It flies, like night and day compared to a HDD (even when it's in a Bette specced machine, the SSD destroys it). I'm running 10.6.8 and it's perfect, FAST and no beach balls or lagging or anything; I did install 10.7.2 for a few hours before I deleted it, but for the couple of hours I didn't have any SSD issues (I still hated OS X Vista though :mad:).
Click to expand...

A SATA III drive will still run on a SATA II port, but at reduced speed.
 
And (most) all of the problems people are having with SATA3 drives is caused by them running at 6Gbps, hook at SATA3 drive up to a SATA2 port and you won't have any of the issues you would if the same drive was hooked up to a SATA3 port.


I'm running a Vertex 3 (that apparently 100% of users find unusable) in my 7,1, linked up at 3Gbps as I have SATA2 ports, and I'm having no issues with it at all, NO lagging, NO beach balls, NO inconstant speeds...

The only issue I have is that I want a second OCZ in my OptiBay running RAID0 :eek:
 
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