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MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.7 Problems

This is my first post here, so I guess I'm not to be trusted too far either.

However, if I wanted to spread a Virus or some other sort of malware, I would incorporate it in some sort of pirated software, not exactly a firmware downgrade. Seems way too obscure and difficult to me to justify the effort, compared to other methods. Which, applying Occam's Razor, makes that approach highly unlikely.

Having said that, I registered here to say thanks to the guys who have saved me from having to go to the Apple Store, travelling quite far for a lengthy appointment with unknown result.

The file posted here does actually downgrade the EFI firmware to 1.6 (after applying it i am now being prompted by the software update utility to upgrade to 1.7) and my beachball issues seem to be gone as far as I can tell right now.

I was affected by it without even changing the stock hard drive before.
I'll keep testing and will get back to you in a few days on whether it solved the problems we've been experiencing.

Cheers,
Stephan


EDIT: MacBook Pro 13" 2.53GHz Snow Leopard
 
macinsanity said:
No offense to trevgit or anyone else but someone has to say it. You guys are very brave taking a file from someone who joined on Sep 1 and installing it. You might just be installing a new Mac trojan on your machine.
Click to expand...

No offense taken. If it is a trojan horse, an Apple Genius gave it to me. I joined to share my experience. I unfortunately cannot get this to work on my Mid 2009 15inch MBP. I followed the steps to put it on the USB drive, I've reburned the cd the Apple Genius gave me. It just reboots immediately with no action taken. I don't know if the firmware on my machine is somehow damaged. I have an appointment Friday afternoon at the Genius bar at a different Apple store because I was getting the runaround at the first one I tried.
Does anyone know of any utilities that can check the firmware that I currently have (1.7) to see if it is damaged? I have a feeling they might suggest a logic board replacement if they can't get it working.

***Nevermind, I got it working. I had to reset my SMC. I tried again and it booted off of the USB stick, downgraded the firmware, and is up and running again. It is running Boot ROM Version: MBP53.00AC.B00 which is the version that supports 1.5 Gigabit only. Now to try my 3rd party drive!
 
Worked for me!

Well, I decided to risk it. Followed the instructions, but my system instantly rebooted when I tried to book off of USB stick. Re did everything again. This time it worked, got the grey screen with the status bar. Came back up and booted almost twice as fast as before! System profiler is showing I am back at 1.5 Gigabit. Software update wanted to update me back to 1.7 EFI.

So, I am one happy camper. BTW, I would get random beachballs and slow booting, and I am running on the factory 500 GB Hitachi in the latest Gen 2.8 GHz 15" with 8 GB of Ram. Tomorrow I will give it a workout, but I think all is well again!
 
From a guy in the Apple support forums regarding this firmware issue:
(link)

I have dealt with Apple Specialists for about 8 weeks on this issue. After that Apple engineering came back with the unhelpful result of Apple only shipping SATA I drives hence not fully supporting SATA 2. While enabled by the EFI 1.7 update, The controller does not fully support SATA 2 standards hence the issues we are all seeing.

I had then a call from a not so friendly Apple Specialist telling me that "This is the end of the rope in terms of a solution to my problem" and that I can not expect Apple to fix this as they never sold any SATA 2 drives.

Needless to say that I am speechless and disgusted at this result as:
1) My 2008 MBP supported SATA 2 flawlessly
2) How can a manufacturer get away with not properly supporting a Industry standard ???
3) There is not even an option to buy an Apple SSD drive after the initial purchase of the MBP.
Click to expand...
 
macinsanity said:
Then they could both be the same trojan. Your logic is flawed. Just because a file sits for a few weeks doesn't mean its safe. If you downloaded both files off the internet, and not from Apple or a reputable source, then they both have the same risk.



Are you sure about that? If you boot from a disk, that disk can do what it wants. You are at its mercy. Here maybe this will help convince you.

Social Engineering Using USB Drives



The nastiest trojans do exactly what you want them to do. They go undetected until someone steals information. Its not going to flash up and say, "I'm in your computer stealing your credit cards."

Look, I hope this is legit and it works for all of you, but you have to be cognizant of the risks. This is similar to how the other trojans are installed on a mac, through people being naive and installing.
Click to expand...

I haven't heard of trojans that are in the EFI itself, please post some links explaining how they can store themselves in the EFI.
 
I am still getting lockups with downgrading to 1.6 EFI.

Just playing music in iTunes locks it up. Going to update back to 1.7 EFI and see what happens.

I am also giving Apple a call back today. This sucks being I just bought this MacBook Pro 2 weeks ago.
 
ugp said:
I am still getting lockups with downgrading to 1.6 EFI.

Just playing music in iTunes locks it up. Going to update back to 1.7 EFI and see what happens.

I am also giving Apple a call back today. This sucks being I just bought this MacBook Pro 2 weeks ago.
Click to expand...

if this is the case, the obvious problem is now hardware related, if the issue happened in 1.7 and in 1.6 (EFI) then i would think you need to have either logicboard or hard drive swapped, or both as i am in the midst of doing, otw to the apple store soon.
 
Panzo said:
if this is the case, the obvious problem is now hardware related, if the issue happened in 1.7 and in 1.6 (EFI) then i would think you need to have either logicboard or hard drive swapped, or both as i am in the midst of doing, otw to the apple store soon.
Click to expand...

I have requested a replacement from Amazon and I will have a new one on Tuesday and just mail the old one back. It seems as if either the controller is bad or the HDD is... I wanna say its the controller.
 
17" uMBP?

So it seems 13" and 15" uMBP users now have a way to run 3rd party HDD and SSD drives by downgrading to EFI 1.6. SATA will run at 1.5 instead of 3.0, but at least the beachballs are gone.

But what about the 17" uMBP models? I understand from reading all these threads that some people are reporting beachball issues with the 17" model too. I'm trying to figure out if those issues are related to 3rd party HDD and SSD drives or something else.

I want to go get a 17" uMBP soon, but like to be assured that I can put my 160GB Intel Gen2 SSD in it with no beachball issues.

Thanks much!
 
macinla said:
So it seems 13" and 15" uMBP users now have a way to run 3rd party HDD and SSD drives by downgrading to EFI 1.6. SATA will run at 1.5 instead of 3.0, but at least the beachballs are gone.

But what about the 17" uMBP models? I understand from reading all these threads that some people are reporting beachball issues with the 17" model too. I'm trying to figure out if those issues are related to 3rd party HDD and SSD drives or something else.

I want to go get a 17" uMBP soon, but like to be assured that I can put my 160GB Intel Gen2 SSD in it with no beachball issues.

Thanks much!
Click to expand...

My 17" is stock and it's giving me grief. It's going back tomorrow. I'm done with this range, the MBP is fundamentally flawed.

Just can't decide what to get in it's place....MBA, iMac, a PC :eek:
 
macinla said:
So it seems 13" and 15" uMBP users now have a way to run 3rd party HDD and SSD drives by downgrading to EFI 1.6. SATA will run at 1.5 instead of 3.0, but at least the beachballs are gone.

But what about the 17" uMBP models? I understand from reading all these threads that some people are reporting beachball issues with the 17" model too. I'm trying to figure out if those issues are related to 3rd party HDD and SSD drives or something else.
Click to expand...

I'm really hoping the 17" models are also affected... that would really press the need for a proper fix for all of us.
 
Looks like I need a bit of help here getting the dmg file onto my usb stick. I have formatted the drive as OSX Extended Journaled and have not mounted the image. I drag/dropped the dmg into the source box and the usb into the destination box and clicked on restore but get the following:

Image Error:

Could not find any scan information. The source image needs to be imagescanned before it can be restored.

What am I doing wrong?
 
Panzo said:
Make sure the "Erase destination" Checkbox is not checked.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply, Panzo although that was not the solution. I did find out that I had to click on the image file in the list on the left and then click on Image in the menu and then on Scan Image for Restore. After that, everything went smoothly.
 
SMacDuff said:
Looks like I need a bit of help here getting the dmg file onto my usb stick. I have formatted the drive as OSX Extended Journaled and have not mounted the image. I drag/dropped the dmg into the source box and the usb into the destination box and clicked on restore but get the following:

Image Error:

Could not find any scan information. The source image needs to be imagescanned before it can be restored.

What am I doing wrong?
Click to expand...

3889490403_c699b0af71_o.png


I'm sure the pic paints a million words.

After that select the .dmg you downloaded.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
p3ncil
 
Thanks for the restore tool. I have now downgraded my firmware and will report if there is any issues.

Just another thought, i have been burning some dvds and they have been going really slowly and a few have failed. Because the super drive also uses SATA im wondering if that may have also been causing the problems. I'll see how it goes now with the new firmware.
 
Thank you, Thank you, Thank You....

Ever since the EFI 1.7 firmware release, I have been unable to use my WD 500GB hard drive. Multiple attempts to get Apple to help resulted in no success.

I tried the firmware downgrade suggested here and EVERYTHING NOW WORKS PERFECTLY.. The downgrade to EFI 1.6 was flawless, my WD 500GB hard drive works again, and all is well.

Thanks again, and umm to Apple, if you ever happen to be reading this thread, THANKS FOR NOTHING...
 
I think my computer might come with the EFI 1.7 update.

Just wondering if I can use the intel X-25 SSD if I have that update.
 
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