MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.7 Problems

MacModMachine said:
because im withing 14 days. its not a software problem....
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I think the point is you will get hit with a restocking fee. There's really nothing wrong with your machine. Apple stated that the 1.7 firmware update wouldn't support 3rd party drives and that's the issue you're having. You can't tell them that you're having issues getting 3rd party hard drives to work, Apple doesn't support that.
Once the original drive is put back there are no problems. If the genius sees no issues you will get hit with a restocking fee, unless you bought it at some third party retail store that takes anything back no questions asked.
 
HLdan said:
I think the point is you will get hit with a restocking fee. There's really nothing wrong with your machine. Apple stated that the 1.7 firmware update wouldn't support 3rd party drives and that's the issue you're having. You can't tell them that you're having issues getting 3rd party hard drives to work, Apple doesn't support that.
Once the original drive is put back there are no problems. If the genius sees no issues you will get hit with a restocking fee, unless you bought it at some third party retail store that takes anything back no questions asked.
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no, i wont.

i dont even have a applestore here, and apple has approved it to be sent back.

ill just get a macbook air.
 
dimension6 said:
I've been experimenting with smcFanControl, a utility which can set a minimum fan speed, over the past few days. Keeping the fan speed above 3000RPM (and the machine at 45 degrees C at idle) seems to have slightly mitigated, but not eliminated, the pausing issue. This result is purely anecdotal, as I'm too busy to do a proper analysis. Would you say the chipset temperature is that closely linked to the speed of the SATA bus, or is it just a poor EFI implementation?
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It can be, every laptop I have installed an SSD into the chipset has run hotter, i noted with motherboard testing on open bench the SB sata controllers got hotter, especially when running raid. Now the thing is this chipset does everything on these notebooks, so it will run hot all the time anyway.

What you guys need is 2 to 5 users with known beachballing issues to run the fans at full speed and see if the frequency subsides or the issue goes away. Also I hear that the amount of thermal paste used can be 10X more than needed on these machines, this infact will create a thermal barrier and the system will run hotter (the issue is i know you can not check)

If a few of you guys with the random issues set aside a day to test you may be surprised what you find.
Till you do some testing you will just sit hear waiting for Apple to say they found a fix....
 
Out of curiosity, has anyone tried to put a third party HD from a running/problem free 1.7 firmware MacBook pro into a non working 1.7? And for those who are experiencing issues with their oem drives, did you reinstall the os or just ran the HD with osx preinstalled from the factory?
 
ocztony said:
What you guys need is 2 to 5 users with known beachballing issues to run the fans at full speed and see if the frequency subsides or the issue goes away. Also I hear that the amount of thermal paste used can be 10X more than needed on these machines, this infact will create a thermal barrier and the system will run hotter (the issue is i know you can not check).
Click to expand...

I'm testing out a similar method as I work. As soon as I encounter the beachballing issue, I'm increasing the minimum fan speed slightly. Currently, the fan is at 3750RPM, and haven't had the issue yet (for about one hour). I'll post back with any more results.
 
...well, the system locked up twice for over 30 seconds while installing RHEL5 in VMWare. The fan speed is currently up to 4600RPM, which is loud enough to be distracting.
 
Another update; had serious freezing issues at 4600RPM, now at 5000RPM. It's now almost as loud as my Cisco 2651 router...
 
I did one more test. This time, I put the fan at 6200RPM (the maximum) and did some file transfer tests (copying roughly 3GB of data on the disk). The first copy went smoothly, but near the end of the second file copy test, the system severely paused twice. At 4000RPM, the system paused four times during two 3GB transfers. This test doesn't confirm the problem, but it does show that even putting the exhaust fan at maximum pauses do occur.

Sorry for all the posts.
 
Re: my frontrow video freezing problem. I found another frontrow thread where it was suggested to uncheck "put HD to sleep whenever possible" so I've done that and will report back with findings. Worth a try.
 
raid0 problems

I have an optibay like device that I got from newmodeus that I purchased for putting a ssd raid0 in my recently purchased refurb 17" umbp. The first 17" that apple sent me suffered from random sleep problems. I sent it back to them and the next one they sent me had the new firmware. The first laptop was running 1.6, the net one 1.7. The ssd's are g.skill 128's. They worked fine in raid0 mode under efi 1.6. In 1.7 the only drive that seems to function normally in the the optical bay is the stock hard drive. The ssd's I have function at 1/10th the speed. They seem to function ok in the hdd bay though. I am not able to install an os on the internal raid0 for I get frequent node structure errors. This kinda upsets me as I was enjoying the speed of the raid0 in my santa rosa macbook pro. If someone has a solution I would be stokked.

Thanks
 
dimension6 said:
I did one more test. This time, I put the fan at 6200RPM (the maximum) and did some file transfer tests (copying roughly 3GB of data on the disk). The first copy went smoothly, but near the end of the second file copy test, the system severely paused twice. At 4000RPM, the system paused four times during two 3GB transfers. This test doesn't confirm the problem, but it does show that even putting the exhaust fan at maximum pauses do occur.

Sorry for all the posts.
Click to expand...
do you have the application installed that shows the CPU and chipset/GPU temperatures in real time?
 
From post at apple discussions

Re: Firmware update and SATA II hard drive
Posted: Jul 7, 2009 1:52 AM in response to: OliverF
Click to reply to this topic Reply email Email

After one more hour on the phone with different levels of Product Specialists the following statements were made:
o The issue is known
o Engineering is working on a bootrom update
o ETA is unknown

o Alternate interim solution is to go to repair center and replace the "Logic Board"
o If only Logic Boards with 1.7 are available, the repair center can order logic boards with factory bootrom version "MBP53.00AC.B00" from their supply channels

Message was edited by: OliverF

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2054387&start=240&tstart=0
 
0176bff2.jpg


Here's mine.
Popped in intel ssd, updated firmware patch. and....
Suppose it(picture) says it all.

And hi Macrumors. :)
My first post here.

Hope apple fixes this.
 
ocztony said:
do you have the application installed that shows the CPU and chipset/GPU temperatures in real time?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, I didn't have a program which gives such detailed information. Perhaps somebody else could try stress testing while monitoring the temps? I'm back to my VAIO Z (with 2x128GB RAIDed Samsung SSDs), which, after 4 days of using the stuttering MacBook, feels great. The MacBook will be up for sale soon.
 
Get istat pro to monitor your temps
It can read off the GPU diode and a few others placed on the enclosure base
 
Apple Urgh!!!!!!!

According to the engineering team, there is no way to roll back the firmware. So I asked the product specialist "what the **** am I supposed to do now?!".

I emailed him as many links to this problem as I could find, he was going to read them all and get back to the team to try and rectify the issue. The more public this issue is, the larger of a chance it has of being fixed! It's almost been a month now, and Apple still feeds me that crap that third party drives are not supported. I KNOW IT WORKS. IT DID WORK BEFORE THE FREAKING UPDATE.
 
Against better judgement I just installed a 500 gb Hitachi in my 13 MBP (I bought it before reading this thread). No beach balls yet and transfer rates just as speedy as the original drive.
 
No OEM option?

I'm just curious why there is no OEM option on the survey created in doodle?
I think it would be me interesting to see or show Apple how many people have the stock drive are being affected by their firmware update.
 
Cloud9 said:
I have an optibay like device that I got from newmodeus that I purchased for putting a ssd raid0 in my recently purchased refurb 17" umbp. The first 17" that apple sent me suffered from random sleep problems. I sent it back to them and the next one they sent me had the new firmware. The first laptop was running 1.6, the net one 1.7. The ssd's are g.skill 128's. They worked fine in raid0 mode under efi 1.6. In 1.7 the only drive that seems to function normally in the the optical bay is the stock hard drive. The ssd's I have function at 1/10th the speed. They seem to function ok in the hdd bay though. I am not able to install an os on the internal raid0 for I get frequent node structure errors. This kinda upsets me as I was enjoying the speed of the raid0 in my santa rosa macbook pro. If someone has a solution I would be stokked.

Thanks
Click to expand...



is your SMS enabled ?

also make sure to repair your premissions right after the install.
 
Had a thought about these firmware updates that goes wrong. Could it be Apple's firmware update program that is the bad guy here?
 
I thought it would have been posted here already but I was called by an Apple support technician and he walked me thru doing a few things while my Seagate 500gb 5400 hard drive was in my new 13" MBP.

I'm not all sure what we did [since I'm new to mac's] but I do remember him resetting something called SMC, or something like that. Plus several other things like PRAM and we also, removed some things from the library of iTunes.

There was a post somewhere here where other users have done the same thing without any beach balls or freezing. I've been using my Seagate drive for about 2 weeks now and as soon as I put it in I started getting beach balls. I used it for 3 days like that and I put in a Apple call back support ticket, which they called me back on Sunday. After the Apple tech walked me thru several things mentioned above, I haven't have ANY beach balls and the my laptop runs very well, like I think it would.
 
Hopefully the problems stays gone but there have been reports that this is a temporary fix and the stutters comes back after a time.
 
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