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Upgrading Mac Studio storage

I have a question for those of you that recently got refunded by way of chargebacks. When you report that you have been refunded, has your bank or card company also closed the case fully, or is it still an open case?

I'm asking because I see that my order status was moved to "Refunded" on the Polysoft website, but just today my card company reported an update that the dispute is still open because Polysoft has not responded to the investigation. I still "have my money back" in the sense that the balance is provisionally refunded to you by the card company while the investigation is still open, but I'm not considering this one done until the case is closed out, which looks like it could take up to another month.

Is anyone else in this position, or did your bank or CC close the case before you reported here that you were refunded?
 
My refund is also temporary, but this is the normal process of a chargeback. Now PS has one month I believe to answer back and if he doesn’t do anything, the chargeback is confirmed. Considering he has like five months orders still pending, chargeback will be confirmed
 
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I bought a 8TB SSD kit from FANGYUAN AliExpress and received it to Australia in about 9 days and have installed it successfully in my brand new Mac Studio M4 Max. I have been told that i have 60 days to get Apple care but as its over 30 days i have to bring the Mac Studio into an Apple Store for them to check it before i can buy AppleCare. Should i be worried? Will they check that i have installed an aftermarket SSD? Will it break warranty?
 
hugomac said:
I bought a 8TB SSD kit from FANGYUAN AliExpress and received it to Australia in about 9 days and have installed it successfully in my brand new Mac Studio M4 Max. I have been told that i have 60 days to get Apple care but as its over 30 days i have to bring the Mac Studio into an Apple Store for them to check it before i can buy AppleCare. Should i be worried? Will they check that i have installed an aftermarket SSD? Will it break warranty?
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So your Mac Studio is a new purchase within the last 60 days? You should be able to access the AppleCare+ purchase procedure within System Settings > General > AppleCare & Warranty. This will remotely run a diagnostic and then proceed to payment etc, not need to have the Apple Store technician physically touch your machine.

That said, I too am unsure if the fact that the SSD is changed to 8TB is then visible to the diagnostic. I am guessing it should, if it does check storage status.
 
For those who were asking, I also got the M4 8TB drive from Fangyuan on AliExpress.

Funnily enough, it seems to be higher priced at first if you're within the EU, however once you go to the payment steps it reduces the amount quite significantly.

Delivery took a little bit but at least they shipped almost immediately and the little cards are safely packaged.

Installing them was a breeze where I just followed the iFixit guide for replacing the cards, once you get the bottom screws loosened you're basically golden. That's the only part where I wasted some time until I got pliers to gain leverage.

Putting the machine in DFU was straightforward, same with restoring. Only downside is that it's now running Tahoe and it's an ugly piece of garbage system.

Anyways, I'm VERY happy I went away from PolySoft and just ordered from AliExpress, considering that I even paid almost 150 EUR less than before.

Here's a reminder that YOU MUST HAVE A SECOND MAC FOR RESTORING. The entire hardware swap might work, but you can't restore the machine if you don't have a second Mac. Just in case you weren't aware.​

 
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No I don’t think it will work as you have to plug the 2 Mac’s via USB-C which is a different protocol than the old USBA
Anyway just borrow a friend MacBook or go to a repair shop and ask if you can use their MacBook
 
Hi to all.
After more than 15 days stuck in customs, they finally delivered my AliExpress package this morning. I followed the iFixIt guide to disassemble everything (the T10 screws to unscrew the bottom cover of the Mac are extremely hard, I had to use an electric screwdriver...). To avoid making mistakes, does anyone have a link to a guide to understand how to exactly position the two modules (one is marked Main and the other Next) and above all the correct procedure for DFU Mode (which ports to connect the USB-C cable to both the Mac Studio and the MacBook M1). I wanted to know if it would be possible to have Sequoia, which is the OS I currently have installed, and not Taohe, in the event of a restore. Thanks to anyone who can help me.
 
Glawen Clattuck said:
Hi to all.
After more than 15 days stuck in customs, they finally delivered my AliExpress package this morning. I followed the iFixIt guide to disassemble everything (the T10 screws to unscrew the bottom cover of the Mac are extremely hard, I had to use an electric screwdriver...). To avoid making mistakes, does anyone have a link to a guide to understand how to exactly position the two modules (one is marked Main and the other Next) and above all the correct procedure for DFU Mode (which ports to connect the USB-C cable to both the Mac Studio and the MacBook M1). I wanted to know if it would be possible to have Sequoia, which is the OS I currently have installed, and not Taohe, in the event of a restore. Thanks to anyone who can help me.
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Rotate the Studio so the slots are on your near side and the back ports are on the far side, at this moment the bottom left slot is the "main". This slot is also the same slot where the initial single card for the 512GB/1TB/2TB models is.

The only port that the DFU restore will work on is the TB port that is closest to the Ethernet port, that is the right most of the back 4 ports.

A direct restore will always download the latest supported OS via Apple Configurator. However you can first download a Sequoia ipsw, feed it to Configurator, it will use that. Or in my case I wanted no nonsense, I did a direct restore to Tahoe first, confirmed the Studio can be booted up, then immediately do a alt-boot Sequoia installer to downgrade instead because I am very familiar with that procedure already.
 

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Thanks for the quick response. Unfortunately, I can't proceed. Following the iFixIt guide step by step, I disconnected the only two connectors indicated: the power supply and, on the opposite side, the power supply signal cable. When I went to reconnect them, I noticed that the power signal cable didn't have a connector on the side of the round plate; it was soldered directly in, so I pulled it out... Now I have to contact Apple about the repair. What a shame.
 
Glawen Clattuck said:
Thanks for the quick response. Unfortunately, I can't proceed. Following the iFixIt guide step by step, I disconnected the only two connectors indicated: the power supply and, on the opposite side, the power supply signal cable. When I went to reconnect them, I noticed that the power signal cable didn't have a connector on the side of the round plate; it was soldered directly in, so I pulled it out... Now I have to contact Apple about the repair. What a shame.
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This sounds familiar - is it what’s shown here at 5 mins?

If so, you can reconnect the module.
 
Unfortunately, what the YouTuber is talking about is the other one, the power cable. The one that came loose on mine is the power signal cable, which is much smaller. Thanks for the help anyway.
 
Glawen Clattuck said:
Unfortunately, what the YouTuber is talking about is the other one, the power cable. The one that came loose on mine is the power signal cable, which is much smaller. Thanks for the help anyway.
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For that cable, I broke off one of its walls of the plastic socket, but it was not damaged to the point of the whole thing coming off to see the soldering. So I could at least super glue it back carefully. If you have the pins off the soldering then yeah it probably needs repair.
 
Chancha said:
For that cable, I broke off one of its walls of the plastic socket, but it was not damaged to the point of the whole thing coming off to see the soldering. So I could at least super glue it back carefully. If you have the pins off the soldering then yeah it probably needs repair.
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The only thing I managed to do was remove the male end of the cable from the female end. As you can see from the photo, it's detached from the motherboard.
 

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I've been lurking this thread for a while.
A few weeks ago I gave up hope on the Polysoft and ordered the FANGYUAN, which didn't work. It was getting NAND errors.
In the process of getting refunded for that, but I just randomly got communication this morning from Polysoft and I got a tracking # a few mins ago.


1764621753855.png


Just wanted to contribute some to the thread. I'll update this post or reply again when the package starts moving.
 
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Den-Fi said:
I've been lurking this thread for a while.
A few weeks ago I gave up hope on the Polysoft and ordered the FANGYUAN, which didn't work. It was getting NAND errors.
In the process of getting refunded for that, but I just randomly got communication this morning from Polysoft and I got a tracking # a few mins ago.


View attachment 2584106

Just wanted to contribute some to the thread. I'll update this post or reply again when the package starts moving.
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Thats great news
 
Glawen Clattuck said:
The only thing I managed to do was remove the male end of the cable from the female end. As you can see from the photo, it's detached from the motherboard.
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Wow. This is what happened with mine, and I thought I had it bad...

This specific plastic part is simply not well thought out on Apple's part, the plastic casing and the metal connections are all way too filmsy to hold that cable in place. My Studio was an early-ish purchase, so perhaps after 3 years+ of usage the plastic has become brittle as well. In your case it is the opposite, the metal pins are way too thin, both you and I probably yanked the cable sideways too much instead of pulling 90 degree outward.

Anyway this need re-soldering, but looks easy enough (to people who are used to soldering).
 

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etorix said:
That's actually Thunderbolt, so with the right cable/adapter there's a chance that an old Mac could do it.
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IIRC, the cable does not need to be Thunderbolt, it can even be a USB2 charging cable. I am 100% sure because when the M1 MacBook Air was new, and a Big Sur update "bricked" my Mac, I had to do DFU restore which was very new for Mac at the time, the Apple support doc even specifically says to use the charging cable that came with the MacBook Air (which is USB2). I guess of course it runs at much slower speed though, for transferring the macOS image. Then this time for the Studio, I used an ORICO USB4 20Gbps cable, which is similar to Thunderbolt just not certified I think?

I have heard success stories by people doing DFU restore with old Macs running OpenCore Legacy patcher, and then even Hackintosh. It seems the requirement is just the host Mac must be running a macOS version newer than the version that the target Mac is restored to.
 
Chancha said:
This is what happened with mine, and I thought I had it bad.
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This is exactly why I have avoided any thoughts on my personally upgrading my studio. I've built my own PCs for decades, but working with these little delicate connectors are well beyond my comfort level.

Chancha said:
Anyway this need re-soldering, but looks easy enough (to people who are used to soldering).
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Its great that you can fix this yourself, I would hate to try this on my own. I've not done any soldering since high school, so I'd be afraid to perform the surgery.
 
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