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(Late 2009) Mac Mini Freezing (OWC SSD Installed)

T

THENIZZZEIL

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 22, 2009
37
0
Cerritos, Ca
Hi all,

I have the 2.53ghz with 4gigz of Ram MacMini from Xmas 2009.

A few of you know that I had been trying out different SSD's before finally jumping on with OWC 60gig SSD. I've had it for about 2 months now and it works great except I've recently been having my computer freeze and the beach ball of death appears constantly when on Safari and sometimes iMovie. After shutting down the computer manually, sometimes booting up will leave me at the grey screen for minutes before i shut it down and wait maybe 30 mins before i fire it up again, which usually works 9/10 times.

I also noticed the beach ball delaying certain processes like loading Safari or a webpage. For example, I have my OWC External hooked up via FireWire800 with just my music and videos, however occasionally if im browsing thru websites or loading a program it'll cycle the external and have the beachball as if trying to load something before proceeding. It is more an annoyance than a problem.

I ran disk utility on all my drives as well as the Apple Hardware Test CD to see if maybe my Logic Board was the problem. I did the general test as well as the indepth test, both show negative signs of a problem.

Can anyone shed some light on what could be the problem?
Should I put the factory drive back in and take it to Apple to run their diagnostic test?
Could the SSD be failing? (I could RMA it, but didn't know if its an Apple issue vs OWC)

Thanks for those that reply!
 
of 60 gigz, about 50+ formatted, there is 25 gigz left, i only have osx with ilife 11, ps4, lightroom, office 2008. everythign else is from my externals.
 
Same problem, here is the solution.

THENIZZZEIL said:
Hi all,

I have the 2.53ghz with 4gigz of Ram MacMini from Xmas 2009.

A few of you know that I had been trying out different SSD's before finally jumping on with OWC 60gig SSD. I've had it for about 2 months now and it works great except I've recently been having my computer freeze and the beach ball of death appears constantly when on Safari and sometimes iMovie. After shutting down the computer manually, sometimes booting up will leave me at the grey screen for minutes before i shut it down and wait maybe 30 mins before i fire it up again, which usually works 9/10 times.

I also noticed the beach ball delaying certain processes like loading Safari or a webpage. For example, I have my OWC External hooked up via FireWire800 with just my music and videos, however occasionally if im browsing thru websites or loading a program it'll cycle the external and have the beachball as if trying to load something before proceeding. It is more an annoyance than a problem.

I ran disk utility on all my drives as well as the Apple Hardware Test CD to see if maybe my Logic Board was the problem. I did the general test as well as the indepth test, both show negative signs of a problem.

Can anyone shed some light on what could be the problem?
Should I put the factory drive back in and take it to Apple to run their diagnostic test?
Could the SSD be failing? (I could RMA it, but didn't know if its an Apple issue vs OWC)

Thanks for those that reply!
Click to expand...

If you can, do a verify/repair disk on the volume in question. You can get to that in Disk Utility. (Update: I see you did that already)

If the disk checks out, then back up your important data and do a clean install of the OS on the install disks you got with your Mini.

Once the OS is installed, run Software Update, but install one update at a time and restart, test for a few days and then install the next, test, install the next, etc.

I had the same problem with my MBP and the OWC 40GB SSD. This solution has worked for me. I have postponed the recent update to 10.6.4? until I can confirm my system is stable and then maybe I will make the jump after doing a disk image so I can revert back if needed.
 
thanks for the replies, I actually took my computer to apple (with the stock drive) and they did a battery of test or whatever and everything came out fine, I put back the SSD and the problems have been progressively getting worse.

I RMA'd it so i hope they'll send me a new one.

anyone have any light on the whole external drive cycling before certain actions?

thanks again
 
Hi! If you search SSd freeze after wake up OSX you find many problems like yours .I think it is a bug in garbage collector in 10.6.4 - 10.6.3.
This annoying problem is happening in both my Mac pro and mac Book pro. Not happening with normal HD
 
intels work . they don't brick plain and simple. yeah they are not the fastest but they work. how do i know I installed about 20 in mac minis and they are 20 and 0.

vertex score 1 and 1

patriot inferno score 2 and 1

corsair score 2 and 1
 
Freezing with OWC 40GB Mercury Extreme Pro...

Just my $.02...

I have been dealing with a constant crashing/freezing problem with an OWC 40GB Mercury Extreme Pro SSD in a late 2009 Macbook Pro 13inch laptop (MacOSX 10.6.5) for over 3 months now. I even had OWC RMA the drive and replace it with a new one and the same problems come right back.

Everything works great for about a week or so and then you start to get weird hangs, beachballs, etc. I thought it could be a HW issue (memory, logic board, etc) with the Macbook Pro but I have run several hw tests and I never find a problem. I swap in the original hard drive and everything starts working smoothly (but of course slower) again. So, it is definitely a SSD problem.

Just wanted to throw this out to ensure any of you out there having the same problem, you are not alone....

:(
 
I've sent my ssd to OWC and they said they are gonna check to see if its the drive or maybe the software..Ive been using my factory drive and no problems even with rigirous use... I'm not sure if its an OWC SSD issue or general...

hope everyone solves their issues, as i am waiting my verdict as well
 
Having the same problem here with a OWC SSD RE 100GB.
On a MacBook Pro 3,1 (2007, Cor 2 duo 2.4GHz GeForce 8600M GT
I tried again after upgrading to 10.6.5 but was doing the same.
So I reverted to a Caviar Blue 750GB that has no issues.

But I don't have these problems in the MacPro. All work fine there.

...
 
I had the same problem on a 2008 MacBook Pro...

Solved partially using 32bit kernel boot mode and kernel, it does not make any sense but it worked.

Before installing the SSD i used the 64bit kernel, now nearly everything is OK (i still have problems with iphoto '09 only).

Reading around other forums i found that someone installed the firmware update (http://eshop.macsales.com/Customized_Pages/Framework.cfm?page=sf_firmware.html) and solved totally the issues.

Installing the firmware update is a PITA though, you need a Windows machine, the SSD must be on an internal SATA port and must not be the boot disk....

next year OWC will release a updating tool for OsX
 
Freeze on wake from sleep 15" MBP OWC SSD

I've been having the same problems described by other users in this thread.

Received a new 120GB OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD this month for my mid-2009 15" MacBook Pro. It's screaming fast, but sometimes the machine hangs on wake from sleep. That is, it appears to wake up, but very quickly you see that almost nothing actually works (ie, click the Apple menu and it never drops down), and you have to hard power off the machine. After reboot, a look at Console.app shows no log messages of any kind written since the machine was first put to sleep. That is, no log messages were recorded when the machine woke up. I suspect that the drive is simply not responsive after wake from sleep.

I called OWC and they sent me another drive. Same exact results. The firmware is 340A13F0.

Googling seems to show people having hangs on wake in OSX with a variety of SSDs, so I'm not sure what to do. It's time-consuming to order different drives, install them, and set them up. I'm thinking about using SafeSleep to hibernate only, turning off the sudden motion sensor, un-checking "put hard disks to sleep" option... anybody have any success with any of these measures?
 
OWC SSD Firmware update....

ugru said:
I had the same problem on a 2008 MacBook Pro...

Solved partially using 32bit kernel boot mode and kernel, it does not make any sense but it worked.

Before installing the SSD i used the 64bit kernel, now nearly everything is OK (i still have problems with iphoto '09 only).

Reading around other forums i found that someone installed the firmware update (http://eshop.macsales.com/Customized_Pages/Framework.cfm?page=sf_firmware.html) and solved totally the issues.

Installing the firmware update is a PITA though, you need a Windows machine, the SSD must be on an internal SATA port and must not be the boot disk....

next year OWC will release a updating tool for OsX
Click to expand...

Just an update:

I went through the hassle of creating a bootcamp partition and installed the OWC Firmware (see link above) and so far the machine is a lot more responsive. Will do further testing and report back....
 
by using 32bit kernal do i lose any performance? My only concern is that i'd like it to be as fast/functional as possible..im not to tech savy on the 32bit vs 64bit deal so i was just curious..

is anyone having this problem with any other SSD? or is it an OWC situation?
 
stangrunner said:
Just an update:

I went through the hassle of creating a bootcamp partition and installed the OWC Firmware (see link above) and so far the machine is a lot more responsive. Will do further testing and report back....
Click to expand...

Can you tell me what's the new version of firmware ?
 
imm22 said:
Can you tell me what's the new version of firmware ?
Click to expand...

So far, (knock on wood) it has not crashed or locked up once. I did experience one "hung" reboot where the screen goes black, you hear the chime, and then nothing. I then held down the power switch and forced it down, waited 5 seconds and hit it once more and it booted up successfully.

Boot times have improved a lot, from a previous minute or so to less than 15 seconds now. So, I guess I can call the firmware update a success. I will report if I see more issues though.

Good Luck.

Specs:

OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD:

Capacity: 40.02 GB (40,018,599,936 bytes)
Model: OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD
Revision: 343A13F0
 
stangrunner said:
So far, (knock on wood) it has not crashed or locked up once. I did experience one "hung" reboot where the screen goes black, you hear the chime, and then nothing. I then held down the power switch and forced it down, waited 5 seconds and hit it once more and it booted up successfully.

Boot times have improved a lot, from a previous minute or so to less than 15 seconds now. So, I guess I can call the firmware update a success. I will report if I see more issues though.

Good Luck.

Specs:

OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD:

Capacity: 40.02 GB (40,018,599,936 bytes)
Model: OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD
Revision: 343A13F0
Click to expand...

My drive arrived yesterday and the firmware that come with it is revision: 340A13F0

The problem is since I have the data double I have to install windows via external usb port. And for some reason I can't pass the first step of windows 7 install process (that black screen with a progress bar)
...
 
imm22 said:
My drive arrived yesterday and the firmware that come with it is revision: 340A13F0

The problem is since I have the data double I have to install windows via external usb port. And for some reason I can't pass the first step of windows 7 install process (that black screen with a progress bar)
...
Click to expand...

Hmm....that is a problem. My Macbook Pro 13inch still has the DVD drive. I assume when you said you attempted to install via USB, you were using a Apple (or similar) CD/DVD drive to do the install.

Another option (though a lot of work) would be to temporarily remove the data doubler and re-install the dvd drive and do the Windows install and subsequent SSD firmware update and then put everything back.
 
stangrunner said:
Another option (though a lot of work) would be to temporarily remove the data doubler and re-install the dvd drive and do the Windows install and subsequent SSD firmware update and then put everything back.
Click to expand...

That's what I've done. The ssd is already updated

Capacidade: 120,03 GB (120*034*123*776 bytes)
Modelo: OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD
Revisão: 343A13F0

I'm configuring the system, what about the freezes? In my case they are gone.
 
Last edited:
imm22 said:
That's what I've done. The ssd is already updated

Capacidade: 120,03 GB (120*034*123*776 bytes)
Modelo: OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD
Revisão: 343A13F0

I'm configuring the system, what about the freezes? In my case they are gone.
Click to expand...

Mind giving me a run down on how to do the firmware update? I'm ordering one of these tonight and might have to do the firmware update. I have windows XP currently loaded on bootcamp on my current hdd in the machine. How do I go about installing the SSD but still using that hdd's xp partition to do the firmware update?
 
imm22 said:
That's what I've done. The ssd is already updated

Capacidade: 120,03 GB (120*034*123*776 bytes)
Modelo: OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD
Revisão: 343A13F0

I'm configuring the system, what about the freezes? In my case they are gone.
Click to expand...

Glad to hear you got the SSD updated and the freezes have been resolved. So far for me, it is still smooth sailing. So much that, I went ahead and removed the Bootcamp partition and reclaimed the disk space.
 
millerb7 said:
Mind giving me a run down on how to do the firmware update? I'm ordering one of these tonight and might have to do the firmware update. I have windows XP currently loaded on bootcamp on my current hdd in the machine. How do I go about installing the SSD but still using that hdd's xp partition to do the firmware update?
Click to expand...

Actually, the firmware upgrade is pretty straight forward. This link has both the firmware download and the instructions on how to apply it.

In your case, I would use a cloning program such as Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper and clone your existing hard drive (including both partitions) to the SSD and then swap out the hard drive and install the SSD and boot into Windows. Apply the SSD firmware per instructions and then boot back into Mac OSX.

Good Luck.
 
I have had this happen once with my A-DATA S599 SSD in my mid-2010 MBP. Running the 64-bit kernel. It's a little annoying but fairly rare.
 
So OWC replied with this.

"Hi Neil:

As of today, we have found that the drive will not take FW flash. Drive failure, and we are sending this unit back to Avant and replace drive for you. "

this has been a long turnaround..boo, i hope it doesnt happen again.
 
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