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OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD Problem

Field report with the new 360 firmware

Yesterday I received a new OWC 480GB Mercury Extreme Pro SSD, with the NEW 360 firmware. After installing it in my 2010 Macbook Pro. It's only been a day so far, but I'm relieved to report that I've tested and had no difficulties so far with:

--Going to sleep via closing the lid
--Going to sleep via the auto-timer
--Auto-hibernating when the battery is nearly drained
--Waking from any of the above situations.

My hardware configuration:
--2010 MacBook Pro (identifier 6,2), 2.4 GHz i5, Upgraded to 8GB RAM
--OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD, Firmware Revision 360A13F0
--Formatting: Mac OS Extended (Journaled), GUID Partition table, single partition

Software:
--Clean install of Snow Leopard, upgraded to 10.6.7
--No changes to default settings. Ie, no changes to SMS, pmset, etc etc
--No special sleep apps installed

So, at least for the MBP 6,2, it looks like it *is* possible to have success ordering the new drives, with the most up-to-date firmware applied, without any altering other OS settings (Energy Saver, SMS, sleep/hibernate modes).

Hope this is useful.
 
timyu said:
Yesterday I received a new OWC 480GB Mercury Extreme Pro SSD, with the NEW 360 firmware. After installing it in my 2010 Macbook Pro. It's only been a day so far, but I'm relieved to report that I've tested and had no difficulties so far with:

--Going to sleep via closing the lid
--Going to sleep via the auto-timer
--Auto-hibernating when the battery is nearly drained
--Waking from any of the above situations.

My hardware configuration:
--2010 MacBook Pro (identifier 6,2), 2.4 GHz i5, Upgraded to 8GB RAM
--OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD, Firmware Revision 360A13F0
--Formatting: Mac OS Extended (Journaled), GUID Partition table, single partition

Software:
--Clean install of Snow Leopard, upgraded to 10.6.7
--No changes to default settings. Ie, no changes to SMS, pmset, etc etc
--No special sleep apps installed

So, at least for the MBP 6,2, it looks like it *is* possible to have success ordering the new drives, with the most up-to-date firmware applied, without any altering other OS settings (Energy Saver, SMS, sleep/hibernate modes).

Hope this is useful.
Click to expand...

Hey tim,

I have the same set up as you and was wondering what made you get the OWC and not the intel. I am sure I want one of those to brands. :D

I just need some advice on what would suite my needs. I use a lot of lightroom and photoshop.
 
oojosheoo said:
Hey tim,

I have the same set up as you and was wondering what made you get the OWC and not the intel. I am sure I want one of those to brands. :D

I just need some advice on what would suite my needs. I use a lot of lightroom and photoshop.
Click to expand...

odd, is there a delay in posts appearing? hope this doesn't end up a doublepost.

Anyway -- I considered the Intels -- I had heard they don't exhibit the sleep/hibernation issues that others reported with OWC and OCZ SSDs -- but I needed a large drive (>320Gig) which ruled out them out at the time. Now of course they've announced the new 320 series with sizes up to 600GB, but I couldn't afford to wait for them to start shipping, much less wait for people to start testing them en masse and identify potential incompatibilities.

So I went with OWC for capacity + immediate availability... YMMV.
 
Blue Sun said:
EFFECTIVE QUICK FIX FOR SSD SLEEP ISSUE

Hi guys,

Not sure if anyone else has noticed this yet, but the program PleaseSleep essentially corrects the beachball problem when the computer comes out of automated sleep.

It forces the computer to sleep when the alotted time for sleep (the time set in 'Energy Saver') has been reached. So its actually like telling the computer to sleep manually, only you don't have to be there to make it happen.

Hope this fixes the problem for you, it has for me.

Cheers.
Click to expand...

Right, so I can buy an SSD for my 5,5 Macbook Pro now?
 
120G OWC SSD Available

I've decided to sell my 120G SSD. Bought in Dec, 2010. Has FW 310. No problems beyond those discussed here. PM if interested.
 
Blue Sun said:
EFFECTIVE QUICK FIX FOR SSD SLEEP ISSUE

Hi guys,

Not sure if anyone else has noticed this yet, but the program PleaseSleep essentially corrects the beachball problem when the computer comes out of automated sleep.

It forces the computer to sleep when the alotted time for sleep (the time set in 'Energy Saver') has been reached. So its actually like telling the computer to sleep manually, only you don't have to be there to make it happen.

Hope this fixes the problem for you, it has for me.

Cheers.
Click to expand...

PleaseSleep works great on my Mac Pro !
Thanks a lot Blue Sun :))

Cheers.
 
johnnyturbouk said:
how does please sleep differ from smart-sleep

i have the latter, it does the job well, albeit a lil basic and featureless
Click to expand...

I use both. SmartSleep allows you avoid hibernation or have the machine enter hibernation only in certain circumstances (e.g., when battery is below 5% charge). I use it because I don't have a copy of Windows and therefore cannot apply the 360 firmware (which reportedly fixes the hibernation kernel panic issue). You can do most or all the things that SmartSleep does via terminal commands.

Please Sleep resolves the weird sleep indicator light & beachball/freeze issue seen with an Energy Saver preference sleep. Please Sleep gives the machine a command to sleep when the Energy Saver time out is reached (as if you were to do it manually from the Apple menu). According to OWC, this sleep issue is only permanently fixable if you send your SSD back to have some parameter reset. I believe that this issue affects other non-Sandforce SSDs and there is speculation that a Please Sleep-type fix may be incorporated into an update to OS X 10.6 and/or OS X 10.7.
 
I have FW 343 and I have it in my 2011 MBP (see sig). No issues with sleep or hibernation. Maybe the newer MBP with Intel motherboard (vs Nvidia) doesn't have the issue?
 
mobilehavoc said:
I have FW 343 and I have it in my 2011 MBP (see sig). No issues with sleep or hibernation. Maybe the newer MBP with Intel motherboard (vs Nvidia) doesn't have the issue?
Click to expand...
Nope, I was having issues with 343 and 360 in my '11 MacBook Pro.
 
2011 MacBook Pro does not go to sleep with SSD

Hi, I now have a OWC 240 GB Mercury Pro SSD in my 2011 15inch macbook pro and it runs very fast.
However, the macbook pro does not go to sleep anymore.
The only change I did to the cloned system was to disable hibernation mode (pmset hibernation 0) and to delete the sleepimage.
The system goes to sleep when I close the lid or click sleep, but it does not go after a fixed time. It just doesn't.

Any thoughts on that?
 
jijitrash said:
Hi, I now have a OWC 240 GB Mercury Pro SSD in my 2011 15inch macbook pro and it runs very fast.
However, the macbook pro does not go to sleep anymore.
The only change I did to the cloned system was to disable hibernation mode (pmset hibernation 0) and to delete the sleepimage.
The system goes to sleep when I close the lid or click sleep, but it does not go after a fixed time. It just doesn't.

Any thoughts on that?
Click to expand...

OK, it works now. I can't tell you what EXACTLY solved it, but here are the measures have taken:
-reset PMU
-delete /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.PowerManagement.plist
-deactivate Bluetooth

the energy saving settings are now back on factory default (incl. normal hibernation), and the drive seems to work for sleep from idle and manual sleep.
 
jijitrash said:
OK, it works now. I can't tell you what EXACTLY solved it, but here are the measures have taken:
-reset PMU
-delete /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.PowerManagement.plist
-deactivate Bluetooth

the energy saving settings are now back on factory default (incl. normal hibernation), and the drive seems to work for sleep from idle and manual sleep.
Click to expand...

Can you post your firmware version? I'm assuming its 360?

In any case, glad to hear it's working again. If the going-to-sleep bug comes back, I'd check to rule out a software issue. Run "pmset -g log >sleepErrorLog.txt" from the Terminal, and then open up the resulting sleepErrorLog.txt file in TextEdit and look for an entry starting with

* Domain: applicationresponse.slowresponse

For more details see this thread:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/776356/

I had this problem and tracked it down to an old version of Dropbox (the version began with 0.9... upgrading to the latest v1.0+ fixed it).

Good luck
 
Thanks Timyu!
Hm, the bug came back, and I don't know why. I did not restart the machine since then. No events in the console that show why sleep was prevented. On the earlier occasion I could see events that showed sleep prevention due to remote login. But everything was disabled.

My firmware is 360A13F0

Now I am trying to find this bug....again
 
jijitrash said:
Thanks Timyu!
Hm, the bug came back, and I don't know why. I did not restart the machine since then. No events in the console that show why sleep was prevented. On the earlier occasion I could see events that showed sleep prevention due to remote login. But everything was disabled.

My firmware is 360A13F0

Now I am trying to find this bug....again
Click to expand...

My only thoughts are:

Try enabling guest accounts, logging in as guest, and testing again. If the bug goes away, you know it's software or system configuration. If it persists, it could still be OS related (requiring clean install) or hardware.
Then try booting off a DVD or external drive to rule out it being OS related.

Main point being, I think it's worth testing to be absolutely sure it's hardware before spending too much time and energy. There have been reports of trouble going to sleep that are completely independent of SSDs. I myself had this problem with my 2010 MacBook pro several months ago, before I installed my SSD.
 
Last edited:
jijitrash said:
Thanks Timyu!
Hm, the bug came back, and I don't know why. I did not restart the machine since then. No events in the console that show why sleep was prevented. On the earlier occasion I could see events that showed sleep prevention due to remote login. But everything was disabled.

My firmware is 360A13F0

Now I am trying to find this bug....again
Click to expand...

Have you tried PleaseSleep yet?

It may correct the problem you're having, worth a shot at least.
 
i have MBP 17" high res 8gb ram
120 gb ssd by owc f/w 360 -
fresh osx install+data migration
trim enabler hack
110 GB formated as GUID partion, HFS+, rest is unformatted
i have smart-sleep installed
i have set hibernation=0, and deleted the hibernate image as rarely leave macbook on battery

no sleep problems at all:
closing lid/apple logo-sleep/auto timed sleep work 100% without issue


boot up time 7-9.5 secs
apps load immediately
277 mb/s read; 262 write... very impressed with owc ssd
speed is breath taking and no slowing down

looking to upgrade t the vertex 3 soon tho

ps have written 100/120 gb
 
MacbookPro6,1
120GB Mercury Extreme Pro

Upgraded f/w to 360. Forced hibernate to happen all the time "sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 1". Closed the lid to verify. Sleep indicator went out within 20 seconds. Opened lid, pressed power button to wake - 20 seconds later desktop is usable.

Looks like f/w 360 correctly addresses hibernate issues for 6,1 at least.
 
Skybar said:
Anyone? I'm deadly curious :eek:
Click to expand...

I think the theory is the SSD wear leveling will use that space to replace cells in the used partition that are end of life. I believe most SSD now are not using all the available space anyway for this same reason, so leaving extra space unpartitioned is unnecessary.
 
Weaselboy said:
I think the theory is the SSD wear leveling will use that space to replace cells in the used partition that are end of life. I believe most SSD now are not using all the available space anyway for this same reason, so leaving extra space unpartitioned is unnecessary.
Click to expand...
+1. That's why a drive is sold as a 240GB drive is "really" a 256GB drive; that extra 16 is used for overprovisioning.
 
Blue Sun said:
Have you tried PleaseSleep yet?

It may correct the problem you're having, worth a shot at least.
Click to expand...

So, the Mercury Pro Extreme 240GB works like a charm in my 2011 15 inch macbook pro. I was in error when I said it doesn't go to sleep after idle. It does go, it just takes a couple of minutes longer than the settings say (but only for some users on the machine, so it is a software issue).

No problems whatsoever. Also hibernation works with default settings.
 
Skybar said:
Anyone? I'm deadly curious :eek:
Click to expand...

well i never plan on using 100% of the drive, and some of the chappies over on the ocz forums recommended leaving this amount for addition OP; wear leveling as weasel boy stated.. yes probably overkill.. with owc already proving 7% for OP + very aggressive GC

also mentioned this to tech support on live chat client with OWC and they thought it sounded like a good idea

the 10GB unformatted is probably as useful as a boat in dessert..
but its not hurting the drive..

ill try dig up the link which explains this on the ocz forums... its 0427am here so brains beginning to shut down
 
I have just installed the OWC 240GB (360) drive in Macbook pro 2010 (6,2) and i have had the sleep problem.

I now have Please sleep and Smart sleep installed and they both work well together, you can make a small edit to the application so they dont even show up on the dock, its not the best fix but if its a decision on having a few apps running or no SSD i would run 10 extra apps to keep this speed.
 
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