Momentus XT, Momentus, Momentus Thin, MobileMax, and other notebook drives

[STX_NB]

Looks like the SD24 firmware upgrade fixed most of the new Momentus XT bugs but a few of you are still experiencing some beeps, BSOD and a few other items in certain systems.  We are remiss in thanking you for your adamant persistence in finding a solution and it’s because of your posts that we were able to identify and fix many of the issues.  We’d like to continue to get the rest of the items solved for you as well.   As I mentioned, it looks like there are two main bugs left: the beep or chirping noise and in certain systems, the Blue Screen of Death.  I still smaller number few hangs/locked systems as well and I noticed many of you are looking for the release notes for SD24 – let me see what I can do for you on that.   I’d like to ask that if you have these issues or others, please respond to this post with  your symptoms, system configuration and any other useful usage information that might help our engineers troubleshoot.  If you’d like to speak to us directly, please send me a private message with your telephone number.  Additionally, we may ask to have your drive sent to us directly to us, if that happens we’ll send you another drive directly from Seagate but we may want to speak to you first to gather more information.  I know you have been extremely patient and helpful, you deserve answers and more communication.  I’ll be looking for your responses daily - please look for mine. 

[dasein_geist]

Hardrive: Momentus XT 2.5 500GB drive (Model # ST95005620AS)
Firmware: SD23 & SD24
Partitions: 2 (Primary and BootCamp)
Computer: MacBook Pro (Model 5,1) - Late 2008 (Unibody) & MacBook (Model MacBook5,1) - Late 2008 (Unibody)
Operating System(s): Mac OSX 10.6.6 and Windows 7 (BootCamp)

Troubleshooting steps already taken:

1) Latest firmware on drive and computer systems

2) Booted into "Safe Mode" to rule out software or extensions setting that may interfere with Energy Saver settings.

3) Adjusted settings in Energy Saver preferences

4) Tried fine-tuning these setting with "pmset" adjustments

5) Tried overriding "pmset" with "hdapm," with no change in functioning.

Issue:

With the Momentus XT (SD24) installed, MacBook (Pro)s [I have tried both a MacBook and a MacBook Pro) will not automatically sleep, nor will the drive spindown, regardless of the settings in "Engery Saver" preferences (i.e. the Momentus XT completely ignores "Energy Saver" settings).

With any other dirve I put in, sleep and spindown functions as expected. Additionally, If I manuall select "Sleep" from the Apple Menu, or close the lid, the computer will sleep and the drive will spindown as expected. Finally , If I boot into Windows, via BootCamp. sleep and spindown functions as expected. Other than the sleep issue, I have not experienced any unexpected noises or kernel panics/B.S.O.D. issues (in OSX or Windows 7).

dasein_geist

[STX_NB]

Excellent, excellent information!  Give me a few days to run this by our teams.  I'll let you know what I find out.

J

[matias_x]

this is the beep some of us are having - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkBNc-WEAeo

SD24

Macbook pro 2008

Snow Leopard 10.6.5

hard disk put to sleep disabled

motion sensor disabled

power saving settings turned to never

This is my second momentus drive and it does the exact same double beep above as before.

[GCL_80]

I have a ST95005620AS installed in a desktop computer using an ASUS P6T motherboard running Windows 7 Pro 64-bit. The drive originally came with firmware SD23. After installation I had system lockups and heavy drive access which caused applications to "studder" and freeze. The drive would "beep" every 5 minutes or so. I do not recall any BSOD. After the update to SD24, all my issues have been resolved except for the beeping. Although the beeping has been reduced. I updated the Intel chipset drivers and Intel Rapid Storage Technology drivers and that has helped reduced the beeping even more. Now it only beeps every 30-40 minutes or so. There is no set pattern to the beeping. The drive will pass all the SeaTools tests.

[fenderbean]

Bought my 2 last weekend from best buy and put them in my gateway fx 7805U notebook

T9600 Processor 2.8ghz

4gigs of RAM

Nvidia 9800M GTS 1gig

Logitech G5 mouse

upgraded screen for higher resolution of 1920x1200

Logitech Bluetooth keyboard

and a creative extreme audio X-Fi  slot card

Drives are Raid 0

No problem but the Beeps

[matguard]

Hardrive: Momentus XT 2.5 500GB drive (Model # ST95005620AS)
Firmware: SD24
Partitions: 1 OS X, Journaled
Computer: MacBook Pro (Model 7,1) - April 2010 (Unibody)
Operating System(s): Mac OSX 10.6.6 and Windows 7 (Virtual - VMWare)

Troubleshooting steps already taken:

1) Latest firmware on drive and computer systems

2) Killed all user process to rule out interupting processess.

3) Reset PRAM

4) Reset EFI

3) Adjusted settings in Energy Saver preferences

4) Set custom "pmset" settings.  Only one that works is sleepnow.

Issue:

With the Momentus XT (SD24) installed, MacBook Pro will not automatically sleep, nor will the drive spindown.  Screen will sleep, but HDD will not.  I have tried both plugged in and on battery.  I can manually sleep with keystrokes or screen closure. Cloned drive to old "stock" drive and MacBook Slept fine.  Reinstalled Momentus XT and still no sleep.

[TeManNZ]

  Model Name: MacBook Pro

  Model Identifier: MacBookPro4,1

  Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo

  Processor Speed: 2.6 GHz

  Number Of Processors: 1

  Total Number Of Cores: 2

  L2 Cache: 6 MB

  Memory: 4 GB

  Bus Speed: 800 MHz

  Boot ROM Version: MBP41.00C1.B03

  SMC Version (system): 1.28f3

Model: ST95005620AS                            

  Revision: SD24  

I am having the same issue of not sleeping automatically.

Key stroke sleep is perfect.

The drive is working so much quicker, is quieter and is not cycling on and off.

The laptop is noticeably cooler in normal use now.

Thank you Seagate for getting our issues resolved.

[STX_NB]

Ahhhh yes, sounds just like mine in my own laptop.  The good news is that it's most likely the voice coil motor singnalling that he is moving.  In a disk drive this happens all the time but you don't normally hear it. The Momentus XT is "singing" his movement.  I'm sure this sound is a bit concerning to you so let's see if our technical team can quiet this little guy up for us.  Thanks for the sound byte on YT.   j

[matguard]

The "beep" or singing is of less concern, personally, then the not sleeping.  Without automatically sleeping, and ignoring my energy preferences, the  my laptop battery died overnight.  With the stock hard drive, the machine could sleep for days.  Now, it cannot sleep for 15 hours.  I am concerned about energy consumption, battery life (consuming more cycles on a non-user replacable battery), drive life (constant spinning), and drive damage (assuming the drive is parked and sleeping and moving my laptop).  If something is getting fixed, I would prefer the sleep issue.

My hypothesis, which is based only on observation and monitoring drive activity, is that the SSD portion of the drive is performing its algorithm and moving data back and forth thus reporting that the drive is active even though there is no user input.  Therefore, when sleep instructions are sent, they are ignored by the controller.

Just a theory though…