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30-60 second random lock-ups

P

pandaen

macrumors member
Original poster
May 11, 2008
30
0
Hi everyone
I am experiencing that my Mac randomly locks up for like 30-60 seconds, apparently varies a lot in length, and this is really starting to kill me!
I read a lot about this on the net, but none of the fixes i have read about seems to work at all.

My setup is:
MacBook Pro (Coconut says age 13 month), so must be the late 2008/early 2009 model.
2 GB stock RAM exchanged with 4 GB kingston.
Stock HDD exchanged with 500 GB WD disc.
Snow Leopard with all updates.

Tried fixes:
Uninstalled DIVX
Repaired permissions
Reformat

None of above had any effect.

As far as I can tell from reading on the net, the problem may have something to do with 1.7 EFI firmware update?!?!

Please help!
 
My first suspect would be bad fonts. Have you used FontBook to scan your font folders for bad fonts? Anything that does not come up in green I would promptly replace/remove. If anything is bad in the /System/Library/Fonts folder then you need to replace those with known-good versions, as having things missing there is a recipe for problems.
 
Above didn't work.
Checked all fonts, all ok.
Also tried reverting to EFI 1.6, but i just get a circle with a line through it when trying to do it from USB.
 
pandaen said:
It's not a hardware issue. Tons of people have experienced this with aftermarket HDD's. So yes, it's kinda hardware issue as it's probably connected with my WD HDD, but there must be a fix.
Click to expand...

So it is probably a hardware issue, despite you saying it is not. You didn't mention the aftermarket HDD in the first post. There may not be a fix. What model did you install? What information did you find in other discussions? Since its "kinda hardware issue" why don't you run the Hardware Test to rule out the stock hardware?

Have you check the logs to see what might be happening?
 
calderone said:
So it is probably a hardware issue, despite you saying it is not. You didn't mention the aftermarket HDD in the first post. There may not be a fix. What model did you install? What information did you find in other discussions? Since its "kinda hardware issue" why don't you run the Hardware Test to rule out the stock hardware?

Have you check the logs to see what might be happening?
Click to expand...
As mentioned in first post, the HDD is a Western Digital 500GB.
The information I found regarded that the EFI 1.7 firmware disabled supporting of aftermarket HDD's by limiting them from 3.0 to 1.5, and thus making the HDD do weird stuff.
I just can't seem to revert to EFI 1.6 on my machine, the guides provided does not work.
 
calderone said:
So it is probably a hardware issue, despite you saying it is not. You didn't mention the aftermarket HDD in the first post. There may not be a fix. What model did you install? What information did you find in other discussions? Since its "kinda hardware issue" why don't you run the Hardware Test to rule out the stock hardware?

Have you check the logs to see what might be happening?
Click to expand...

Where can i see the logs?
 
pandaen said:
As mentioned in first post, the HDD is a Western Digital 500GB.
The information I found regarded that the EFI 1.7 firmware disabled supporting of aftermarket HDD's by limiting them from 3.0 to 1.5, and thus making the HDD do weird stuff.
I just can't seem to revert to EFI 1.6 on my machine, the guides provided does not work.
Click to expand...

I don't believe it's an EFI issue. In fact, the limiting of the SATA interface to 1.5 was a bug that was corrected in the EFI update.

From what I remember, the issue you're seeing is caused by the hard drive's built-in power management conflicting with the operating system's power management.

You'll need to find a way to disable the hard drive's power management. This may involve booting into Windows (or moving the drive to a Windows PC) in order to run the manufacturer's drive configuration utility.
 
displaced said:
I don't believe it's an EFI issue. In fact, the limiting of the SATA interface to 1.5 was a bug that was corrected in the EFI update.

From what I remember, the issue you're seeing is caused by the hard drive's built-in power management conflicting with the operating system's power management.

You'll need to find a way to disable the hard drive's power management. This may involve booting into Windows (or moving the drive to a Windows PC) in order to run the manufacturer's drive configuration utility.
Click to expand...
I have windows installed on bootcamp on my Mac.
What kind of drive confugration utility do you mean i should use?
 
You need to check this thread... https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/729883/.
It is very long, and in conclusion, the easiest way to work around this problem is not clear, some things work for some users and not for others. I tried a WD Scorpio Blue 500GB HD in my MacBook Pro, same problem as you have, problem resolved with the installation of a Seagate 7200rpm ST9500420AS (no onboard sudden motion sensor type) HD. There are other HDs that will probably work and changing the HD is a beast without the proper tools, easy with them. Unfortunately finding a HD that will work is hit and miss. (can always use the ones that don't work in cheap USB cases for backup :D)
Good Luck
 
davidlv said:
You need to check this thread... https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/729883/.
It is very long, and in conclusion, the easiest way to work around this problem is not clear, some things work for some users and not for others. I tried a WD Scorpio Blue 500GB HD in my MacBook Pro, same problem as you have, problem resolved with the installation of a Seagate 7200rpm ST9500420AS (no onboard sudden motion sensor type) HD. There are other HDs that will probably work and changing the HD is a beast without the proper tools, easy with them. Unfortunately finding a HD that will work is hit and miss. (can always use the ones that don't work in cheap USB cases for backup :D)
Good Luck
Click to expand...
Oh so it in fact has something to do with the EFI?
But theres just no luck for me in reverting to 1.6, it just wont do it :(

I almost just put the 500 gb in my machine, so it would suck if i have to replace it with my old hdd again

Will reverting to leopard eventually work?
 
Did you do an update, or clean install of SL?

I'd recommend click to flash for starters, and then making sure you've got a decent amount of spare HD space also. There are multiple threads on lock-ups - worth searching in the subforums.
 
t0mat0 said:
Did you do an update, or clean install of SL?

I'd recommend click to flash for starters, and then making sure you've got a decent amount of spare HD space also. There are multiple threads on lock-ups - worth searching in the subforums.
Click to expand...

I've got tons of HD space. Like 300 gigs free.
I searched a million forums now, and tried a million solutions too, but nothing seems to do the trick for me. I think reverting to EFI 1.6 will, but I can't seem to suceed in doing so.

I did a clean install.
 
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