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OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD Problem

I have an OWC 120GB SSD that's only a few days old.

Being so new, I don't have a very good track record to report on. I had noticed some spinning beacballs of death occurring, however. After initially reviewing the console logs, there were some errors and mention of iStat menus.

I uninstalled iStat menus and I'm waiting to see if that resolves the problem.

The spinning beachball of death symptom seems less extreme then what's being reported here. I'd only experience the spinning beach ball for 30 (maybe 60) seconds and then the system would come back to life. Being so new, I could attribute it to waking it up or not. I'll take a closer look tonight when I get home from work
 
Jezthomp said:
What version FW is your please Miller?

My MBP is the following and i'm having all sorts of issues, sometimes sweet other times just spinning ball after spinning ball...
Click to expand...

How do I go about checking the firmware? I can't check until I get home at 5pm EST unfortunately.

My MBP is 6,1 or 6,2... forget which.
 
My spec

Mine is a MacBook Pro 15" Core i5 2.4Ghz mid 2010.
8Gb ram. OWC SSD 240G firmware 343.

Still waiting for OWC's reply.
 
millerb7 said:
How do I go about checking the firmware? I can't check until I get home at 5pm EST unfortunately.

My MBP is 6,1 or 6,2... forget which.
Click to expand...

About This Mac > More Info > Serial-ATA

The FW is bottom right 3rd down 'Revision'

Mine is 340A13F0
 
Thanks.

If i do indeed have the wrong FW it might be worth the hassle or wiping re-installing and running bootcamp.

Even though i've never run bootcamp, is it the only way to update the firmware, what about vmware fusion or parrells?

I think its just a case of Macs dont like this type of SSD.

The crucial and default ones Apple supply seem to work fine, but this and the Vertex 2 have all sorts of problems.

OWC even gave me reassurances before i bought that it would be ok. :(
 
Jezthomp said:
Thanks.

If i do indeed have the wrong FW it might be worth the hassle or wiping re-installing and running bootcamp.

Even though i've never run bootcamp, is it the only way to update the firmware, what about vmware fusion or parrells?

I think its just a case of Macs dont like this type of SSD.

The crucial and default ones Apple supply seem to work fine, but this and the Vertex 2 have all sorts of problems.

OWC even gave me reassurances before i bought that it would be ok. :(
Click to expand...
Well I don't think it's fair to say it's all OCZ and OWC though.

I know folks with the OWC and vertex 2 with no issues at all for months and months now.... it seems really hit or miss with the issues.

Can't forget you only read about the issues. All the folks that are fine with them normally don't post up about it working correctly.
 
Same issues here on brand new OWC 60GB 343.

When I wake from sleep system is unresponsive and I have to do a hard reboot.

Let me know what the OWC rep says about the issue. I'll probably contact them soon myself.
 
Same issues here; new OWC 60GB, firmware 320xxx, MBP 4.1 .

I tried to update the firmware to 343... , after half a dozen crashes of my Windows 7 HDD by the OWC updater I gave up.

Good thing OWC SSDs are so Mac friendly, isn't it . ;)

My 60GB OCZ has the same problems, but at least I could upgrade the firmware easily .
 
Firmware:

343A13F0

I am actually having the issue myself. I had never let the computer actually "fall" asleep. If I put it to sleep by closing the lid, all is fine. It's just when it actually time-outs and goes to sleep that way.

Instead of my bugging the rep, please do let us know what he says!
 
So I set my MBP to never sleep on it's own... issue solved.... literally 99% of the time if I walk away I shut the lid anyways to protect it.. it's not a big issue for me.

I WOULD however like to see a resolution... the issue is I honestly don't think it's the SSD's... I mean if it was just OWC sure... but OCZ, Kingston, etc are all doing it.

Wonder the issue.
 
New OWC 120gb user here. I've been getting the frozen screen on wake as well. I can move the mouse but clicks or keyboard presses dont register whatsoever. It just like a picture of the screen with a moving mouse cursor alone, have to force reboot with the power switch.
 
denm316 said:
Wasn't aware of all that, good to know even though the answer isn't what I necessarily wanted to hear.

It's funny it never happened to my Rev. B Macbook Air which came installed with a 128GB SSD. That worked flawlessly. However the drive performance seems faster with OWC.
Click to expand...

This never happened with my Rev B MacBook Air with SSD, either, though my first Rev D had a similar wake-from-sleep issue. I didn't get the spinning beach ball, though. I just got a blank black screen (though the backlight turned on) that would sometimes (not always) inexplicably turn on at some point. Apple replaced the Rev D, and so far it's been OK.
 
millerb7 said:
So I set my MBP to never sleep on it's own... issue solved.... literally 99% of the time if I walk away I shut the lid anyways to protect it.. it's not a big issue for me.
Click to expand...

No joy for me, any sleep is freezing my MBP (early 2008) on wake-up. Hibernate is off, btw..

I WOULD however like to see a resolution... the issue is I honestly don't think it's the SSD's... I mean if it was just OWC sure... but OCZ, Kingston, etc are all doing it.

Wonder the issue.
Click to expand...

Sandforce controller / firmware ?
 
barmann said:
No joy for me, any sleep is freezing my MBP (early 2008) on wake-up. Hibernate is off, btw..



Sandforce controller / firmware ?
Click to expand...

That's what I'm leaning toward... it seems intermittent and NOT related to just OWC. So far the ONLY SSD's I've heard having the issue are sandforce controlled though, which is leading me to think some OSX/sandforce issue with the way things are waking up from sleep.

Anybody talking to a rep on this? I might call today and see what I can get out of them.
 
Went ahead and contacted OWC... I'm awaiting the live chat session as I type this.

I'll keep you all posted on what they say.
 
millerb7 said:
Went ahead and contacted OWC... I'm awaiting the live chat session as I type this.

I'll keep you all posted on what they say.
Click to expand...

That will be good. One of the other threads had mentioned a new firmware to fix this issue, but the wacky part of it, is that its a windows only updater. Even though OWC is a mac focused company:confused:
 
Here is a transcript of the convo we had....

Andy Loy: [7:03:56 AM] Welcome to our real-time support chat. How can I help you today?

Blake Miller: [7:03:56 AM] My OWC 120GB SSD Mercury Extreme Pro is freezing upon waking from sleep with OSX 10.6.5.

Andy Loy: [7:04:19 AM] The following Terminal script should fix that....

Blake Miller: [7:04:40 AM] I was also wondering if I had the newest firmware, starting with 343.....?

Andy Loy: [7:04:50 AM] Yes you do.

Blake Miller: [7:04:53 AM] Okay great.

-------------------------------------------------

Andy Loy: [7:08:40 AM] You need to open the Terminal, in the Utilities Folder.
Copy and paste the following into the Terminal window:
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0

Press the Return key and type in your password, you will not see anything being typed. Press the return key again, quit Terminal, and restart your computer.

--------------------------------------------------

Blake Miller: [7:09:27 AM] Okay. Will my computer still be able to go to sleep as normal? Sleep when I shut the lid and sleep after idling for so long? Awaking without issues?

Andy Loy: [7:09:47 AM] This should fix that.

Blake Miller: [7:10:29 AM] Is there any fixes coming in future firmware updates? Also is there a planned OSX firmware update tool in the works? As you guys seems to revolve around Mac.

Andy Loy: [7:10:57 AM] We are working on both, but not ETA as of yet.

Blake Miller: [7:11:51 AM] Just to clarify, how would I reset my hibernate back to normal if I so desired in the future? I'm curious the effects that sudo command will have on my computer itself. Effect anything else?

Andy Loy: [7:12:59 AM] Same command, but change the 0 to a 3.
[7:14:39 AM] It will have no effect except that the computer will no longer save its RAM contents to the hard drive before sleeping/hibernating. If the battery should die then any unsaved work will be lost.

Blake Miller: [7:15:29 AM] Okay, that seems fair. Thank you for your help and I will let you know if the fix works.
[7:15:43 AM] Hope to see a OSX firmware update tool live soon! Thanks again!

Andy Loy: [7:16:14 AM] You're welcome.
Click to expand...

Hopefully this fix will work. I can't try for a few more hours until I'm home. If anybody else gets a go at it, PLEASE post up and let us know.

Also know that the 343.... firmware is the most up to date firmware as he said.

I tried to ask as many questions as I would think some of you would have asked, I tried to play 100% clueless so I could get every answer to any possible questions I could think of. I hope this helps us all with the sleep issue.

REMEMBER... LET US KNOW!
 
I'll test that out tonight, I just changed it to 3 to enable hibernation mode which is another "quick" fix, though its not very quick since it dumps ram into the sleep image.
 
KPOM said:
This never happened with my Rev B MacBook Air with SSD, either, though my first Rev D had a similar wake-from-sleep issue. I didn't get the spinning beach ball, though. I just got a blank black screen (though the backlight turned on) that would sometimes (not always) inexplicably turn on at some point. Apple replaced the Rev D, and so far it's been OK.
Click to expand...

To clarify, the new Rev D has been OK, except once or twice every two weeks it kernel panics after waking from sleep. Safari is listed as the app that crashed, but I also notice that I have been running Parallels Desktop in the session before the panic. Needless to say, it's annoying, but since it's so intermittent I haven't booked a new Genius appointment. Yesterday I reset the SMC and PRAM and will see if that works.
 
millerb7 said:
Here is a transcript of the convo we had....

REMEMBER... LET US KNOW!
Click to expand...

Setting hibernate to 0 is the age old fix, only it's not working for everyone - as I said, no luck for me.

Also SMS is off, lidwake and sleep set to 0, smartsleep installed and set to sleep only (same as hibernate off), no iStat, yadayada, the works .

Now I installed insomniax, to hopefully disable sleep altogether.
Not that great on a laptop, but beats freezes .
If I get this pos software to load at start, that is.

I'm back to the Vertex 2, but the same happens with my OWC SSD as boot drive .

My conclusion is there are lots of Macs that don't work properly with (Sandforce based) SSDs.
SSD support is marginal in OSX to begin with, but this isn't funny any more .
 
barmann said:
My conclusion is there are lots of Macs that don't work properly with (Sandforce based) SSDs.
SSD support is marginal in OSX to begin with, but this isn't funny any more .
Click to expand...

Yes, these issues with SSD are starting to get a bit ridiculous, particularly considering that Apple is adopting SSD faster than many PC manufacturers. Windows 7 has better support for SSDs than OS X right now. Considering that even Vista was awful for SSDs (since it defaults to activating defragmenting), Microsoft made great strides with Windows 7 and hopefully OS X 10.7 follows suit.
 
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