MBP Startup issues following SSD Replacement

[ssk4212]

Hey all,

Not sure if this is the appropriate post location, but you all have been helpful before. I recently pulled a hail marry to speed up my ever dieing early 2011 MBP 13". I bought a Kingston SSDnow v300 hoping to speed up the MBP. After installing the drive I got a flashing screen, in sequential order: white, red, green, blue, grey, dark grey, 4 grey sections horizontally, and then many grey sections vertically.

I jumped to the forums and someone said they solved it by resetting your SDRAM. Did that, then the screen was black upon turning on and flickered every so often only across the top. I then proceeded to replace the new SSD with the original HDD. Upon restart, the screen followed the same color flashing order, yet at a higher brightness.

Does anyone know how I can solve this problem? Or is it time to bust this pain in the *** over my knee?

- Joe

 

[ssk4212]

Semi-Solved

Detached and reattached display connector. The computer booted up fine. Only complaint now is my write and read speed at ~130 and ~175 respectively.

Tried Steps to increase speed:
1. Reset SMC
2. Installed Trim Enabler: standard reboot without increase. Rebooted under "cmd r" or single user i believe it was called to trim the SSD also without an increase in speed.
3. Firmware is up to date

Anyone know how to increase my SSD speeds with a Early 2011 MBP 13"?

 

[thewap]

Detached and reattached display connector. The computer booted up fine. Only complaint now is my write and read speed at ~130 and ~175 respectively.

Tried Steps to increase speed:
1. Reset SMC
2. Installed Trim Enabler: standard reboot without increase. Rebooted under "cmd r" or single user i believe it was called to trim the SSD also without an increase in speed.
3. Firmware is up to date

Anyone know how to increase my SSD speeds with a Early 2011 MBP 13"?

Not sure what the problem is, but did you format the drive before installing it, and what OS are you running? If Yosemite that might conflict with trim enabler.

 

[ssk4212]

Not sure what the problem is, but did you format the drive before installing it, and what OS are you running? If Yosemite that might conflict with trim enabler.

Formatted it to the Mac Journal or whatever it's called. The trim_enabler does conflict with yosemite. However, I disabled Trim. Still sitting at about 100 write and 150 read. The the only three other problems I could think of were:

1. Firmware incompatibility
2. Faulty SATA cable (had replaced a few months ago by an apple certified repair store). In addition to if the guy used a SATA II cable instead of a SATA III.
3. Faulty logic board

- Joe

 

[yjchua95]

Detached and reattached display connector. The computer booted up fine. Only complaint now is my write and read speed at ~130 and ~175 respectively.

Tried Steps to increase speed:
1. Reset SMC
2. Installed Trim Enabler: standard reboot without increase. Rebooted under "cmd r" or single user i believe it was called to trim the SSD also without an increase in speed.
3. Firmware is up to date

Anyone know how to increase my SSD speeds with a Early 2011 MBP 13"?

Kingston conned you and a lot of other customers. They switched suppliers for their flash chips and controller to an inferior one.

I'd say return the SSD and get a better one like Crucial or Samsung.

Here's the ripoff Kingston did: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7763/an-update-to-kingston-ssdnow-v300-a-switch-to-slower-micron-nand

 

[thewap]

⬆︎ this..

Doesn't sound like the logic board, probably the SSD.

 

[ssk4212]

⬆︎ this..

Doesn't sound like the logic board, probably the SSD.

So I switched the benchmark software from Black Magic to AJA Systems Test. The numbers seems match the product labeling much better. Which makes sense because I was not noticing any slowness to the system and couldn't image it being 2-4 x faster, based on the Black Magic results.

 

[yjchua95]

So I switched the benchmark software from Black Magic to AJA Systems Test. The numbers seems match the product labeling much better. Which makes sense because I was not noticing any slowness to the system and couldn't image it being 2-4 x faster, based on the Black Magic results.

AJA and ATTO don't really reflect a drive's proper performance. In fact, Kingston uses ATTO to mislead customers on a drive's performance.

CrystalDiskMark and Blackmagic provide the best ones.

 

[ssk4212]

AJA and ATTO don't really reflect a drive's proper performance. In fact, Kingston uses ATTO to mislead customers on a drive's performance.

CrystalDiskMark and Blackmagic provide the best ones.

Interesting... What do you suggest I do? Return the SSD and purchase a more reputable brand?

I couldn't find an OS X version of CrystalDiskMark. However, I ran my own test with a large folder file copy. The folder contains only powerpoint, word, excel (both Apple and MS Office formatted versions), and pdfs.

The results were HORRENDOUS! 45 MB/s!

 

[yjchua95]

Interesting... What do you suggest I do? Return the SSD and purchase a more reputable brand?

I couldn't find an OS X version of CrystalDiskMark. However, I ran my own test with a large folder file copy. The folder contains only powerpoint, word, excel (both Apple and MS Office formatted versions), and pdfs.

The results were HORRENDOUS! 45 MB/s!

Yes. Buy from a more reputable brand like crucial or Samsung.

I recommend the 840 Evo or the MX100.

 

[ssk4212]

Yes. Buy from a more reputable brand like crucial or Samsung.

I recommend the 840 Evo or the MX100.

Thats almost exactly what i did 850 Pro.

I also figured out why that drive was so slow. Check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGG_E4_zDso&list=LLTAvNCPYmMCdtpRnfBR3MHQ&index=1

 

[yjchua95]

Thats almost exactly what i did 850 Pro.

I also figured out why that drive was so slow. Check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGG_E4_zDso&list=LLTAvNCPYmMCdtpRnfBR3MHQ&index=1

That was exactly what I posted in an earlier post with this link: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7763/an-update-to-kingston-ssdnow-v300-a-switch-to-slower-micron-nand

Basically Kingston ripped customers off.

 

[ssk4212]

That was exactly what I posted in an earlier post with this link: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7763/an-update-to-kingston-ssdnow-v300-a-switch-to-slower-micron-nand

Basically Kingston ripped customers off.

Touché, thanks for the help!