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Wednesday, August 19, 2009, 06:05 pm
Apple releases MacBook Pro hard drive firmware update
A new firmware fix for some MacBook Pro hard drives aims to stop random noises, perhaps bringing relief to some who have been plagued by clicking and beeping internal drives.Hard Drive Firmware Update 2.0 was released Wednesday for some 7200rpm drives. It is intended for June 2009 model MacBook Pro systems. The 3.71MB update requires Mac OS X 10.5.7 and will update the drive firmware to 0007APM2. It can be downloaded direct from Apple.
Apple says the update "reduces certain infrequent noises" made by the drives. Last week, the Mac maker officially acknowledged noisy hard drives that have been plaguing some MacBook Pro owners for months. Prior to the public confirmation, some AppleCare representatives had told individual customers that the company was working on a fix.
The issue became impossible not to acknowledge after a thread hundreds of posts long over at the Apple Support forums developed. In that discussion, countless users have complained that their 7,200RPM hard drives will randomly click and beep, and some have experienced slower access times. The issue appears to have grown since it was first reported in January.
Some have speculated the issue may have arisen from Seagate Momentus 7200.4 G-Force hard drives. Specifically, the problem is believed to have occurred from the drive's protection system, which may be incompatible with Mac hardware. In addition, the G-Force technology is not needed on the MacBook Pro, which has pre-existing anti-shock protection.
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Previous Comments View All
10.6.7? Are we warping to the future now for updates? Thats not out yet sir.
I've got a 2 week old 17" uMBP and I already have 0007APM2 firmware. I tried software update and was told that my computer is up to date. I then went to the direct download and grabbed the DMG. After mounting it and double clicking on the package, it told me that I don't need the update.
But my machine still beachballs and the drive does a quiet pinging. a couple times an hour.
Sheldon
Hmm.....reduces noises. Doesn't say jack about eliminating it. It's not fixed until it's gone for good. Band-Aid.
My MBP was one of thousands, apparently, that refused to wake up and behaved like the hard disk was dying. I finally changed the sleep mode to 0, which seems to have fixed that problem to an extent... now, instead of going into safe sleep, it just switches off altogether and I hit the return key after an overnight sleep and it just restarts on me.
I did all the recommended stuff like resetting P&VRAM and PSM and it wasn't until I found a great article on changing the sleep mode to 0 from 3 in terminal that I got any joy at all.
Now I wait for Snow Leopard in the hope this issue will be fixed.
THAT SAID....... it's still better than ever contemplating the purchase of a (gulp) windows PC... Hurry up and fix this APPLE!
Quote:
Originally Posted by svesan03 
My MBP was one of thousands, apparently, that refused to wake up and behaved like the hard disk was dying. I finally changed the sleep mode to 0, which seems to have fixed that problem to an extent... now, instead of going into safe sleep, it just switches off altogether and I hit the return key after an overnight sleep and it just restarts on me.
I did all the recommended stuff like resetting P&VRAM and PSM and it wasn't until I found a great article on changing the sleep mode to 0 from 3 in terminal that I got any joy at all.
Now I wait for Snow Leopard in the hope this issue will be fixed.
THAT SAID....... it's still better than ever contemplating the purchase of a (gulp) windows PC... Hurry up and fix this APPLE!
My MBP was one of thousands, apparently, that refused to wake up and behaved like the hard disk was dying. I finally changed the sleep mode to 0, which seems to have fixed that problem to an extent... now, instead of going into safe sleep, it just switches off altogether and I hit the return key after an overnight sleep and it just restarts on me.
I did all the recommended stuff like resetting P&VRAM and PSM and it wasn't until I found a great article on changing the sleep mode to 0 from 3 in terminal that I got any joy at all.
Now I wait for Snow Leopard in the hope this issue will be fixed.
THAT SAID....... it's still better than ever contemplating the purchase of a (gulp) windows PC... Hurry up and fix this APPLE!
Do you have iStat installed? I used to have that problem on both my MBP and MB. Once I removed iState from the Dashboard the problem seems to have disappeared (more than few months now). Good luck.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
Apple says the update "reduces certain infrequent noises" made by the drives. Last week, the Mac maker officially acknowledged noisy hard drives that have been plaguing some MacBook Pro owners for months. Prior to the public confirmation, some AppleCare representatives had told individual customers that the company was working on a fix.
Apple says the update "reduces certain infrequent noises" made by the drives. Last week, the Mac maker officially acknowledged noisy hard drives that have been plaguing some MacBook Pro owners for months. Prior to the public confirmation, some AppleCare representatives had told individual customers that the company was working on a fix.
Infrequent my .... It happen(s|ed) many times an hour for me. Mostly when Mail.app and Safari are doing things.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
... The 3.71MB update requires Mac OS X 10.5.7 ...
... The 3.71MB update requires Mac OS X 10.5.7 ...
10.5.7 or later?
I'm running 10.5.8 .
Quote:
Originally Posted by svesan03
My MBP was one of thousands, apparently, that refused to wake up and behaved like the hard disk was dying. I finally changed the sleep mode to 0, which seems to have fixed that problem to an extent... now, instead of going into safe sleep, it just switches off altogether and I hit the return key after an overnight sleep and it just restarts on me.
I did all the recommended stuff like resetting P&VRAM and PSM and it wasn't until I found a great article on changing the sleep mode to 0 from 3 in terminal that I got any joy at all.
Now I wait for Snow Leopard in the hope this issue will be fixed.
THAT SAID....... it's still better than ever contemplating the purchase of a (gulp) windows PC... Hurry up and fix this APPLE!
My MBP was one of thousands, apparently, that refused to wake up and behaved like the hard disk was dying. I finally changed the sleep mode to 0, which seems to have fixed that problem to an extent... now, instead of going into safe sleep, it just switches off altogether and I hit the return key after an overnight sleep and it just restarts on me.
I did all the recommended stuff like resetting P&VRAM and PSM and it wasn't until I found a great article on changing the sleep mode to 0 from 3 in terminal that I got any joy at all.
Now I wait for Snow Leopard in the hope this issue will be fixed.
THAT SAID....... it's still better than ever contemplating the purchase of a (gulp) windows PC... Hurry up and fix this APPLE!
you can have a pc and run ubuntu which is great...there's no reason to install garbage on a perfectly good computer
Uh, oh. It only fixes the 'infrequent noises'. The frequent ones are staying. :-)
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Mac OS X 10.5.7 i guess and not Mac OS X 10.6.7