I have the stock 512GB SSD (and i7 and original RAM) but stuck at firmware 170.0.0.0.0.
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iMac 17,1 (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015) EFI firmware update failures
- Thread starter zorinlynx
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Also on original 500gb AHCI blade, seems that the people with a regular SATA drive do not have this issue. Should not need to take my Mac apart and put in a SATA drive to accomplish this though...
Anyone tried a clean MacOS install on an external drive? (i.e. USB or via Thunderbolt)
Anyone tried a clean MacOS install on an external drive? (i.e. USB or via Thunderbolt)
Yes on both USB & TB (spinning drive and ssd) with no luck. I have wiped and reinstalled the internal drive more times than I can remember so I'm convinced it is the hardware.
Well,
Called Apple today after hearing nothing back and was told there is no record of sending my information to Engineering. Yikes, that's one way to deal with an issue. The nice Senior Advisor is creating yet another ticket to send on to the Engineers. He did set a date and time to call me back Wed. So, the saga continues...
Called Apple today after hearing nothing back and was told there is no record of sending my information to Engineering. Yikes, that's one way to deal with an issue. The nice Senior Advisor is creating yet another ticket to send on to the Engineers. He did set a date and time to call me back Wed. So, the saga continues...
Update,
It's not good but I thought I would update you anyway. Apple called back today and told me that Engineering said my machine (iMac 17,1) "didn't need a firmware upgrade". I explained again that Internet Recovery does not work and so the firmware does need an upgrade. As we went through the litany of possible causes he fixated on the non-Apple memory, as a show stopper to getting Engineering to re-evaluate.
He put in another ticket and will call back Monday but I'm not hopeful at this point.
It's not good but I thought I would update you anyway. Apple called back today and told me that Engineering said my machine (iMac 17,1) "didn't need a firmware upgrade". I explained again that Internet Recovery does not work and so the firmware does need an upgrade. As we went through the litany of possible causes he fixated on the non-Apple memory, as a show stopper to getting Engineering to re-evaluate.
He put in another ticket and will call back Monday but I'm not hopeful at this point.
That's disappointing. Gone are the days of premium service from Apple. Why didn't they put some Apple memory in your iMac to prove that it is unrelated? They could have at least replaced the blade SSD to test the theory of a faulty partition, or maybe they did but just don't want to admit there's a problem...?
Telling me the machine doesn’t need a firmware upgrade but ignoring the IR issue again was lame. I could sense the Advisor’s tone change as he tried to convince me that somehow this might be memory related. The IR being broken is not a small thing since Apple has apparently stopped producing stand alone OS downloads.
if I knew that replacing the blade ssd would fix it - I would pay to do it. As it is, I have spent well north of 30 hours trying to fix the firmware issue.
if I knew that replacing the blade ssd would fix it - I would pay to do it. As it is, I have spent well north of 30 hours trying to fix the firmware issue.
That worked for me (See my post October 10th) but I'm not qualified to say it would work for anyone else...
I’ll probably end up doing that. Did you change out the drive yourself? Just curious, do you have Apple men or 3rd party?
Yes I did it myself. After physically reinstalling the drive, I used Apple RAM (following peoples comments here) to install the OS and then replaced it with my Crucial 32GB once I saw the FW had updated to 428. With the Crucial RAM still installed it has since moved up to FW 429.60.3.0.0 so I don't think the 3rd party RAM affects the FW updates. There is a lot that can go wrong accessing the blade SSD so only DIY if you are prepared to accept it might never work again (e.g. Broken screen, damaged motherboard/connectors etc) otherwise I'd get a professional to do it. Also if anyone is thinking of opening their iMac, get a can of compressed air to blow out the fan - Much needed after 5 years of dust.
Thanks for the info. One last question, what processor do you have? Mine is a 4ghz i7.
Hi!
I have a iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015, and My EFI version is 170.0.0.0.0
and it should be: 429.60.3.0.0 per the SlientKnight tool.
Im running MacOS is Big Sur 11.1.
Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac17,1
Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 4 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 8 MB
Hyper-Threading Technology: Enabled
Memory: 32 GB
System Firmware Version: 170.0.0.0.0
SMC Version (system): 2.34f3
When Playing Videos via Thunderbolt 2 to HDMI the connection drops around 25 minutes on the TV
HDMI connected monitor goes blank, and also sometimes I experience other problems with Photoshop and others .... and I suspect there may be a relationship with the EFI being the same as when I bought the iMac in 2015. I have since upgraded to different OS, (now Im running Big Sur) , and the EFI is still the old one.
I still have the original memory that came installed with the Imac, and I wonder if I should reinstall it, but if I do, how can I access the updates?
Thanks in advance!
I have a iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015, and My EFI version is 170.0.0.0.0
and it should be: 429.60.3.0.0 per the SlientKnight tool.
Im running MacOS is Big Sur 11.1.
Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac17,1
Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 4 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 8 MB
Hyper-Threading Technology: Enabled
Memory: 32 GB
System Firmware Version: 170.0.0.0.0
SMC Version (system): 2.34f3
When Playing Videos via Thunderbolt 2 to HDMI the connection drops around 25 minutes on the TV
HDMI connected monitor goes blank, and also sometimes I experience other problems with Photoshop and others .... and I suspect there may be a relationship with the EFI being the same as when I bought the iMac in 2015. I have since upgraded to different OS, (now Im running Big Sur) , and the EFI is still the old one.
I still have the original memory that came installed with the Imac, and I wonder if I should reinstall it, but if I do, how can I access the updates?
Thanks in advance!
Your EFI has upgraded since you bought the iMac. 170 is circa Mohave. The only method to get an upgrade is to do a full OS install. As of late I think that is limited to using the App Store and reinstalling Big Sur. If you call Apple Support they will eventually tell you that you don't need an upgrade (my experience 3 times). The real problem you have, directly tied to the old firmware, is that Internet Recovery is broken.
My advice is to install the Apple memory call Apple Support and press them on the firmware issue. The only way this problem gets solved, is if enough owners push the issue.
If you boot with cmd -R, it boots into the El Capitan IR screen. So, if you want to install the OS, that’s what you get. More importantly, the tools like Disk Utility are of that vintage. The problem is the disk structure has changed since then (separate system, data volume & now a sealed system vol). There doesn’t seem to be a way to repair a volume.
As for the separate disk install - yes, that will work.
Waiting for my Apple memory to arrive and have a couple more questions, if you don't mind. Did you ever attempt the upgrade with just the Apple memory installed? Secondly, when you installed the SATA drive - did you need to buy a cable? I've read that machines with the blades don't have the other cables.
Thanks again, regmente! Now I finally understand the problem better. When I have a little time I will try to erase my hard drive completely and install Big Sur from scratch from an external drive.
I believe that in my case the EFI is the only thing that I have not updated. Can you please look at the screenshot that I hit below after checking with "silentKnight"?
Before doing the clean install, I suppose it will also be necessary to reinstall the RAM that came original with my iMAC?
My iMac is running smoothly at the moment, but I'm still going to contact Apple support to help them take responsibility for this problem. I find it unacceptable that a company like Apple does not solve this type of problem, but after having to throw away an iPhone and an iPad due to the impossibility of Apple helping me, nothing surprises me, for the worse I am in Spain and the services are even worse than in the rest of Europe and the USA.
Well tried the update with newly installed Apple memory and as expected still at 170.0.0.0.0 so moving on to the disk. I was looking at OWC's site and ran across and interesting note on their replacement blade SSD for the iMac's
"NOTE: Aura Pro X2 is not compatible with iMac17,1 (Late 2015).". I have read Apple has used a custom interface so it could be that but I'm betting that's a culprit. Anyway, I'll try a SATA SSD.
"NOTE: Aura Pro X2 is not compatible with iMac17,1 (Late 2015).". I have read Apple has used a custom interface so it could be that but I'm betting that's a culprit. Anyway, I'll try a SATA SSD.
The solution I've been using in the interim is to create a small partition on one of my permanently connected thunderbolt drives (I have an OWC thunderbay that I use for time machine, sundry data storage, etc). I then use the createinstallmedia command in terminal as if I were creating an external USB boot drive.
It looks like this:
It isn't a perfect solution, but it does provide the needed functionality to recover if the need arises by option booting. It also means I don't have to go looking for my USB drive that got accidentally vacuumed during the last spring clean.
The downside is that each time a point update comes out, I have to renew/update (I guess you could also just update once installed, but that would take longer). So it's not ideal, but it does the job and works well.
If my internal boot SSD malfunctioned and needed to be replaced, then I would take the opportunity to get it working as designed, but in the meantime, this is very simple. I hope that helps.
It looks like this:
It isn't a perfect solution, but it does provide the needed functionality to recover if the need arises by option booting. It also means I don't have to go looking for my USB drive that got accidentally vacuumed during the last spring clean.
The downside is that each time a point update comes out, I have to renew/update (I guess you could also just update once installed, but that would take longer). So it's not ideal, but it does the job and works well.If my internal boot SSD malfunctioned and needed to be replaced, then I would take the opportunity to get it working as designed, but in the meantime, this is very simple. I hope that helps.
Thanks,The solution I've been using in the interim is to create a small partition on one of my permanently connected thunderbolt drives (I have an OWC thunderbay that I use for time machine, sundry data storage, etc). I then use the createinstallmedia command in terminal as if I were creating an external USB boot drive.
It looks like this:
View attachment 1712433
It isn't a perfect solution, but it does provide the needed functionality to recover if the need arises by option booting. It also means I don't have to go looking for my USB drive that got accidentally vacuumed during the last spring clean.
If my internal boot SSD malfunctioned and needed to be replaced, then I would take the opportunity to get it working as designed, but in the meantime, this is very simple. I hope that helps.
I have many connected drives and a downloaded OS install. My purpose for bringing it up is that the problem with IR is firmware related so Apple's claim that this machine is running the right version is not true.
While searching for a SSD replacement I remembered a recommendation on this thread, for the Feather nvme turbo SSD. So the site says to look up your EMC# - mine is 2834, which isn't listed as compatible. I wrote them and they responded "Unfortunately the EMC 2384 has been removed from our compatibility due to instability issues with OS Catalina. Our R&D team is actually looking into a potential solution that may put the EMC 2384 back on our charts." I was so close.
Then I checked out OWC.
OWC's Aura Pro X2 is compatible with all iMac's except... you guessed it 17,1.
Has anyone else successfully replaced the blade in this iMac 17,1 with another third party model? If so, what?
Then I checked out OWC.
OWC's Aura Pro X2 is compatible with all iMac's except... you guessed it 17,1.
Has anyone else successfully replaced the blade in this iMac 17,1 with another third party model? If so, what?