Upgrading 2013-2015 Macbook Pro SSD to M.2 NVMe

[gan2049]

Does anyone know if the 2015 MacBook Pro 11,4 (igpu model) with the upgraded 1tb 970 eve pro and the sintech adapter (rev b.) can use bootcamp. I've read somewhere that if you use the bootcamp assistant to partition drive, there will be problems with the format and the EFI of the drive. Thanks for all the help in advance!

 

[Inge83]

I understand that the Apple's firmware for their original drives may be the reason that other drives will have issues when installed in the Mac. However, it is within a reasonable possibility that there may be a compatible drive that would work with the Apple's firmware (such the as custom OWC drives). Like in ItsHal's case, he didn't update any firmware and if he is able to pull his MacBook from hibernation then this sounds like the case for me

In my opinion, it is not within a reasonable possibility that it will work, at least not unless Apple publishes a bootrom update that adds full NVMe support to the 2013/2014 MacBooks. A little exaggerated, I'd compare the idea to throwing a huge battery in the trunk of your car with a combustion engine and hoping that it will somehow become a hybrid.

From reviews on the net, it seems that the OWC drives experience even more issues than many other brands, including hibernation issues on older macs. The only advantage of those drives is that you don't need an adapter - everything else is the same as with other drives as well.

Also, Inge83, do you know how the situation is with 2015+ MacBooks/iMacs? Do they face similar issues, or others compared to the 2013/2014 models ? Do you know what adapter/drive works as a blade drive in e.g. iMac 27" 5k late 2015, without having to sacrifice sleep?

In 2015+ MacBooks, NVMe drives should work without issues, since these MacBooks natively support NVMe (of course only as long as they can be physically exchanged). I don't know exactly about the iMacs, but I'd guess this has been discussed here as well somewhere...

 

[OneCrazyDJ]

I own a mid 2014 Macbook Pro and these sleep issues are really starting to get to me. I tried everything, changed different pmset settings over and over again. It's like hit or miss. Usually going from battery powered to getting plugged in. It's always random. Looking for someone to flash bootrom. If there is someone in New York that can do this for me, i'm willing to pay. Been on this thread for a while now and been trying everything, this seems to be the only solution. Unfortunately I sold all my original SSD drives so the only thing is have is the 970 evo 2tb and the sintech adapter installed. Please message me or contact me if you have any solutions. Thank you.

 

[Audit13]

Like in ItsHal's case, he didn't update any firmware and if he is able to pull his MacBook from hibernation then this sounds like the case for me

ItsHal's MBP panics when waking from hibernation mode 25: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...sd-to-m-2-nvme.2034976/page-116#post-26965777

 

[dobrink]

ItsHal's MBP panics when waking from hibernation mode 25: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...sd-to-m-2-nvme.2034976/page-116#post-26965777

Dude, he is not mentioning any panic there, he hibernated his computer and tried waking it by clicking the spacebar, which didn't work so he shut down his system by holding the power button. My MacBook Pro wakes from hibernate only when I short-press the power button. That was why in the following post I encouraged him to try that.

I am not claiming that any miracle is suddenly gonna pop-up out of a topic long-discussed all over the world. You are apparently more knowledged than me in the area, as I am more interested in iMacs than in MBPs. However, the technology is, I suppose, similar.

IIn 2015+ MacBooks, NVMe drives should work without issues, since these MacBooks natively support NVMe (of course only as long as they can be physically exchanged). I don't know exactly about the iMacs, but I'd guess this has been discussed here as well somewhere...

The discrepancy in ItsHal's case, if any, may be from the following possibility which would, to some extend, explain why people with the same machines may get different results:

"All the Gen. 3 drives use AHCI technology, but many of the computers that shipped with Gen. 3 drives support NVMe SSDs as well, allowing for upgrades to later generation NVMe drives."

 

[aix2019]

First of all, thanks everyone for all the great info in this thread.

I am contemplating using a Matt card, but I am not entirely clear on details. I have a few question for those of you who have successfully done it:

1. Am I right thinking that this way is entirely reversible: if I screw up the EFI image, I can just unplug the card and go back to the EFI flash chip on the logic board?
2. Does reading and writing the flash chip on the Matt card require anything more than an SPI programmer (I have a TL866II Plus) and a SOIC-8 clamp? I.e. no additional power etc?
3. Lastly — and this is where I am completely lost — making a modified image requires first reading the original EFI image that's specific to my laptop (i.e. has the serial number etc). How is that accomplished with a Matt card?

 

[09872738]

(...) pmset settings over and over again. It's like hit or miss. (...)

How did you switch modes? I had similar issues - 'till I noticed the -a parameter, meaning: for both plugged in as well as running on battery.

running

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0 autopoweroff 0 standby 1

solved it.

 

[aix2019]

Re: The need for a J6100 SPI adapter

Maybe a dumb question, but looking at the schematics of my 15" late 2013 rMBP (A1398 — MacBookPro11,3 — 820-3662-03), it seems that the the SPI ROM (U6100) is a SOIC-8 chip.

I am travelling right now and so can't easily take my laptop apart to examine it physically, but wouldn't it be possible to directly attach the flash chip to an SPI programmer using a SOIC-8 clip and program it in situ? (Thereby obviating the need for a single-purpose J6100 adapter.)

 

[Audit13]

Dude, he is not mentioning any panic there, he hibernated his computer and tried waking it by clicking the spacebar, which didn't work so he shut down his system by holding the power button. My MacBook Pro wakes from hibernate only when I short-press the power button. That was why in the following post I encouraged him to try that.

My early 2015 Air with an Intel 600p nvme drive and my friend's 2015 15" MBP with nvme drive wakes from hibernation mode 25 when we open the lid. We see the progress bar at the bottom and the log in screen comes up. We do not press any key.

 

[Oeboema]

Re: The need for a J6100 SPI adapter

Maybe a dumb question, but looking at the schematics of my 15" late 2013 rMBP (A1398 — MacBookPro11,3 — 820-3662-03), it seems that the the SPI ROM (U6100) is a SOIC-8 chip.

I am travelling right now and so can't easily take my laptop apart to examine it physically, but wouldn't it be possible to directly attach the flash chip to an SPI programmer using a SOIC-8 clip and program it in situ? (Thereby obviating the need for a single-purpose J6100 adapter.)

That would be possible, but requires the mainboard to be taken out, at least on an Air.

By the way, did you mean electrical schematics? Where have you found these?

 

[terraphantm]

Re: The need for a J6100 SPI adapter

Maybe a dumb question, but looking at the schematics of my 15" late 2013 rMBP (A1398 — MacBookPro11,3 — 820-3662-03), it seems that the the SPI ROM (U6100) is a SOIC-8 chip.

I am travelling right now and so can't easily take my laptop apart to examine it physically, but wouldn't it be possible to directly attach the flash chip to an SPI programmer using a SOIC-8 clip and program it in situ? (Thereby obviating the need for a single-purpose J6100 adapter.)

For the 15" it's fine. I've done it on my mid 2014 that way, which I believe has the same board.

I think other models either have a less accessible IC and/or use surface mount chips.

 

[Fred93]

Hi,
I upgraded my 2014 rMBP with a 256 GB Intel 760p SSD and everything worked fine with the help of a USB Stick. Now I wanted to install Win 10 1803 via Bootcamp (the original reason of my Upgrade). The installation went super smooth and also goes on after the first reboot of the installation until it encounters a problem (criticial process dies) and ends up in a bluescreen loop.

I dont think this helps:

When you see the error pop-up, "The Computer restarted unexpectedly....", please do the following;
1. press Shift + F10 keys.
2. launch "regedit".
3. find this directory, "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\Status\ChildCompletion"
4. once you can see "setup.exe" in the right section, double-click it and modify the value to 3.
5. close the regedit.
6. reboot

Anyone else encountered this problem and has an idea to solve?

 

[OneCrazyDJ]

How did you switch modes? I had similar issues - 'till I noticed the -a parameter, meaning: for both plugged in as well as running on battery.

running

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0 autopoweroff 0 standby 1

solved it.

i'll try that and see if it fixes anything. I upgraded my wife's 11" 2013 macbook air and she doesn't have any issues with certain pmset parameters. It's just me and this mid 2014 macbook pro. Kind of kicking myself in the ass for selling my 2012 macbook pro unibody before buying this. You know what sucks, my friend bought a 2015 macbook pro and i installed a 2tb SSD with the sintech adapter and he has no issues. I'm going to shoot myself soon because this is getting aggravating. Last time I went to grab my macbook, the fans were running full blast and no apple symbol lit up. So it's been stressful lately.

 

[09872738]

Good Luck! You might want to compare your pmset -g output with this:

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...sd-to-m-2-nvme.2034976/page-110#post-26919095

 

[sman789]

i'll try that and see if it fixes anything. I upgraded my wife's 11" 2013 macbook air and she doesn't have any issues with certain pmset parameters. It's just me and this mid 2014 macbook pro. Kind of kicking myself in the ass for selling my 2012 macbook pro unibody before buying this. You know what sucks, my friend bought a 2015 macbook pro and i installed a 2tb SSD with the sintech adapter and he has no issues. I'm going to shoot myself soon because this is getting aggravating. Last time I went to grab my macbook, the fans were running full blast and no apple symbol lit up. So it's been stressful lately.

Does sleep malfunction every time?
I have a Crucial P1 1TB in my 2014 and last night was the first time was the first time out 4 days with it where the machine woke up while closed.

I had bluetooth on and wake from sleep was enabled there. I've disable BT since I don't use it now. I've also disabled any energy saver feature that could turn on the device while closed.

I've also typed
pmset -g
in Terminal and saw

sleep 15 (sleep prevented by Google Chrome, Google Chrome)

so I'm going to disable weird chrome extensions and close it before sleeping. I'll report in later.

 

[OneCrazyDJ]

Does sleep malfunction every time?
I have a Crucial P1 1TB in my 2014 and last night was the first time was the first time out 4 days with it where the machine woke up while closed.

I had bluetooth on and wake from sleep was enabled there. I've disable BT since I don't use it now. I've also disabled any energy saver feature that could turn on the device while closed.

I've also typed
pmset -g
in Terminal and saw

so I'm going to disable weird chrome extensions and close it before sleeping. I'll report in later.

Seems like

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0 autopoweroff 0 standby 1 works for now. It's only been a day or 2. I'll post back in a few days to tell you if it's still working.

 

[09872738]

Glad to hear. Depending on your standbydelay settings (default I believe 3 hours) you should be good after a day.

If it doesn't crash after 2 you very likely solved the issue

 

[BBsan]

Re: The need for a J6100 SPI adapter

Maybe a dumb question, but looking at the schematics of my 15" late 2013 rMBP (A1398 — MacBookPro11,3 — 820-3662-03), it seems that the the SPI ROM (U6100) is a SOIC-8 chip.

I am travelling right now and so can't easily take my laptop apart to examine it physically, but wouldn't it be possible to directly attach the flash chip to an SPI programmer using a SOIC-8 clip and program it in situ? (Thereby obviating the need for a single-purpose J6100 adapter.)

Could you point out how you found out about the SOIC8 chip? I‘d like to check my 13“rMBP 2014 to see if I can avoid buying the expensive J6100 adaptor

 

[Alpenjodel]

right after replacing my internal SSD (now ADATA SX8200 1TB and the Sintech -C adapter) reinstalling Mojave, and restoring the backup, I used "sudo pmset standby 0". No sleep/wake problems since, neither on battery or on AC. Running for about 5 days now. Macbook Pro 13" Late 2013.

 

[PeterJP]

Am I right thinking that this way is entirely reversible: if I screw up the EFI image, I can just unplug the card and go back to the EFI flash chip on the logic board?

That's right. The Matt card has its own SOIC-8 ROM chip. You flash that instead of your mac's ROM. When you plug the Matt card into the diagnostics port, your mac will use the Matt card's ROM. When you unplug it, the mac uses its own on-board ROM.

Does reading and writing the flash chip on the Matt card require anything more than an SPI programmer (I have a TL866II Plus) and a SOIC-8 clamp? I.e. no additional power etc?

Not that I'm aware of. I was looking into flashing with a Raspberry Pi. It's possible that the Raspberry can provide the power to the Matt card.

Lastly — and this is where I am completely lost — making a modified image requires first reading the original EFI image that's specific to my laptop (i.e. has the serial number etc). How is that accomplished with a Matt card?

You can extract the currently active boot ROM from your mac's on-board chip using the ROM tools from dosdude1. The first post on this page has a link. This is a software-only procedure, no hardware required.

(about the J6100 SPI adapter)
wouldn't it be possible to directly attach the flash chip to an SPI programmer using a SOIC-8 clip and program it in situ? (Thereby obviating the need for a single-purpose J6100 adapter.)

You can do that if space allows it, but you lose the benefits of using a Matt card I am definitely going for a Matt card because I don't want to brick my machine.

 

[dobrink]

Guys, can you please clarify (for those lazy enough to go through 100 discussion pages) what chips and cards you are discussing? What purpose do they fulfill, where to get them from and how much costs are involved ?

 

[09872738]

Basically discussing the use of Adapters, most notably the Sintech NGFF M.2 2289 PCIe Card enabling the use of standard M.2 NVME SSDs (e.g. Samsung Evo 970) in said Macbooks.

 

[avdo]

So if I've got this right, a Matt card is even useful for a 2015 15" where the user doesn't possess an original Apple SSD therefore can't update his/her bootrom when the opportunity arises due to a 3rd party drive installed?

 

[gtorresini]

Yes, after every usage. I have no idea what it is, but I think windows is messing with some registers that a simple power cycle doesn't clean. And because of that, I avoid using bootcamp whenever I can. I only boot it for games now and when I want any other feature, I use Virtual Box.

So, this stopped working. And so, I did a clean MacOS install, redoing the partition table and deleting bootcamp in the process, all by internet recovery. So far, everything is working perfectly. My intention this time is not to install bootcamp at all and rely solely on wine and Virtual Box. I'll see how that goes.

 

[avdo]

Does anyone know if the 2015 MacBook Pro 11,4 (igpu model) with the upgraded 1tb 970 eve pro and the sintech adapter (rev b.) can use bootcamp. I've read somewhere that if you use the bootcamp assistant to partition drive, there will be problems with the format and the EFI of the drive. Thanks for all the help in advance!

I have an 11,5 and I'm using Win10 on bootcamp with 1tb EVO 970.

Not 100% sure but iirc I used bootcamp assistant to partition the drive which worked fine but it failed when trying to install the OS. Just installed Win10 manually instead, no dramas.