Is this a problem with the Sudden Motion Sensor or the HDD?

I have a MacBook that I purchased in Septemberof this year, and for a while I have been having a problem with the HDD. I understand that there is a Sudden Motion Sensor that parks the hard disk when the computer is moved suddenly, but every hour or so I can hear the HDD make a single loud click for seemingly no reason at all. The computer can be sitting on my desk with no applications running and this will still happen. This is not really much of a problem other than the annoying noise, but if I am playing music or a video from the HDD it will skip when it does this. I have disabled the SMS for now to see if it will make a difference, I am very careful with my devices so I do not fear that I will cause any HDD damage without the SMS, but I am not sure if it is a problem with the HDD or the SMS. Could anyone shed some light on this for me?

Well turns out disabling the SMS did nothing so I'm going to just take it in and hope it can be fixed.

Similar Messages

Should I disable the sudden motion sensor after upgrading to an SSD

I put a 1TB Samsung 840 EVO in my MacBook Pro (9,1). Should I disable the sudden motion sensor? Does it do anything else other than park the hard disk (like something with the fans)?

You may want to read up on the SMS here:
Mac notebooks: About the Sudden Motion Sensor
Sounds like you can safely disable it if you wish since MacBooks which ship with an SSD drive seem to have it disabled.

Testing the sudden motion sensor

is there a way to check this is working?? im not sure mine is

eww... i noticed the site has a calibration app also, have you used this?
i am curious to know if everyone sees SMS problems because i just bought this MBP Saturday and the first time i picked it up to move my position it clicked repeatedly. i have an older dell that i have never had the technology activate unless i overly shook the laptop...
is it normal to have an over sensitive SMS? can the calibrate tool make it less touchy and not harm it?
thanks.

Sudden motion sensor not working with replacement harddisk?

I replaced the original harddisk of my Macbook pro (500 GB, 7.200 rpm, model no. HTS725050A9A362) with the retail version of the same harddisk (model no. HTS725050A9A364).
Now I'm missing the typical "click" when the sudden motion sensor parks the heads and I'm afraid it's not working - although "pmset -g" shows "sms 1".
Is there anything else I can check, e.g. enable head parking at harddisk-firmware level?
Thanks
Juls

For future reference, here are a couple of kb articles on the sudden motion sensor:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1935
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1934
As has been said, Apple's Sudden Motion Sensor is not actually built into the hard drive. In fact, some hard drives with their own version of a sudden motion sensor like Seagate's G-Force Protection actually will set up a conflict with Apple's Sudden Motion Sensor.
I installed the same WD in my Mac as you did, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I have been enjoying mine.

Sudden Motion Sensor working strange in Unibody!

I got a macbook pro 15 recently and i was trying out the applications on the Net. I tried smacbook which works with the sudden motion sensor of the hard disk...
Also i tried liquidMac app.. But what i realised is, they both didnt work for me well..
when i lay down macbook through left side, the liquid must go to left for example, but nothing happens, actually when i move laptop through forward or backward they are moving..
And when i run SeisMac to see the axis of Sudden motion sensor my result is like this
Y-axis positive is left up, right down (clockwise rotation)
X-axis positive is front up, rear down
(Actually it must be reverse)
And suggestions?? Can it be broken or sth?
OR is there any way to play with this directions?
Should i send the laptop to service?

Are you saying the SMS does not respond in the same direction that you move it... or that certain axis do not function at all? The SMS is designed to protect your hard drive and nothing more. While developers have come out with some applications that can use it, there is functional benefit to which axis activates by which motion. The idea is that it detects "any" motion and locks the drive head to prevent damage. Now, if an axis is not functioning at all, you may want to look into that.

Sudden Motion Sensor crash in MBP with SSD

Hi. I replaced my 2011 17" MBP's internal HD with one, then another SSD from OWC, going from 240 to 480.
As indicated in OWC's instructions, the Sudden Motion Sensor no longer applies and should be disabled with this command from the terminal:
$ sudo pmset -a sms 0
And using this command, we can see that the SMS is off:
$ sudo pmset -g
Active Profiles:
Battery Power                    -1
AC Power                    -1*
Currently in use:
womp                    1
halfdim          1
sms                    0
What happens all too often though is that my Mac issues an SMS crash while asleep if I am driving home and hit a bump in my car. Just Monday, I was driving with my Mac open and on, the car hit a bump and I got to watch the Gray Screen of Death as the Mac issued a kernel panic from the Sudden Motion Sensor.
But it's off.
FYI, I turned it off to try and stop this behaviour

Download an run memtest to check your RAM.
http://osxdaily.com/2011/05/03/memtest-mac-ram-test/
www.memtestosx.org/downloads/memtest422/Users_Guide.rtf
Don Montalvo was preventing the crashes by turning off SMS. However, replacing bad RAM was the ultimate solution.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3013824?start=0&tstart=0
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3013824?start=45&tstart=0

Sudden Motion sensor active in Boot Camp using Win7 with lid closed

My quesrtion to the community is:
W/ an i7 MBP,
faster 500Gb drive,
running Windows 7 via Boot Camp,
OS running,
Is the Sudden Motion Sensor operational when the lid is closed with Win7 running?

Download an run memtest to check your RAM.
http://osxdaily.com/2011/05/03/memtest-mac-ram-test/
www.memtestosx.org/downloads/memtest422/Users_Guide.rtf
Don Montalvo was preventing the crashes by turning off SMS. However, replacing bad RAM was the ultimate solution.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3013824?start=0&tstart=0
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3013824?start=45&tstart=0

Hard drive upgrade on 13" MBP sudden motion sensor compatibility

Hello,
I'm planning on upgrading the hard drive in my 13" MBP (aluminium unibody) and I've read a lot of posts regarding the sudden motion sensor conflicts with OS X 10.6.2. I'd like to know if the Western Digital 500GB Scorpio Blue here (http://www.dabs.com/products/western-digital-500gb-scorpio-blue-5400rpm-sata-300 -8mb-58P6.html) would suffer from the conflict (I'm not sure if "Shock Guard" = sudden motion sensor). I don't know if its a simple yes/no or whether its drive / mac specific.
If it would be a problem does anyone have a suggestion for a guaranteed compatible 500Gb hard drive (5400 rpm is fine)?
Any thoughts are much appreciated, thanks for your help!

Western Digital Lists their drive features as:
* IntelliSeek™ - IntelliSeek technology calculates optimum seek speeds to lower power consumption, noise and vibration.
* SecurePark™ - WD's SecurePark technology parks the recording heads off the disk surface during spin up, spin down and when the drive is off. This ensures the recording head never touches the disk surface resulting in improved long term reliability due to less head wear, and improved shock tolerance.
* ShockGuard™ - WD's ShockGuard technology protects the drive mechanics and platter surfaces from shocks during shipping and handling and in daily operation.
* Free-fall Sensor - As an added layer of protection, if the drive (or the system it's in) is dropped while in use, WD's free-fall sensor detects that the drive is falling and, in less than 200 milliseconds, parks the head off the disks to help prevent damage and data loss.
* WhisperDrive™ - WD's exclusive WhisperDrive technology combines state-of-the-art seeking algorithms that result in one of the quietest 2.5-inch drives on the market.
The Free Fall Sensor is the equivalent of the Sudden Motion Sensor. Looking at the specs for the drive you linked to... they list the following features:
Shock Guard, WhisperDrive, SecurePark
As they do not list Free Fall Sensor, I'm guessing this model does not have one so it should not conflict with the internal Sudden Motion Sensor in your MacBook.

Where is Sudden Motion Sensor data stored?

Background:
I replaced my superdrive with an optibay + ssd (OS is stored here) and I left the stock HD (home folder) in it's place.
Problem:
I guess I triggered the SMS the other day and now I can't access my HD (basically just hangs / takes forever to load anything) unless I disable SMS. Where would I clear the data / tell it that my HD is safe to use again. Restarted pram and reinstalled OS, but it didn't help.

Thanks for the responses. Yes, as JoeyR stated, I replaced my superdrive with an SSD and the hard drive is in it's original place so I wanted to re-enable the sudden motion sensor. Thank you for clarifying how the SMS works. I wasn't sure if there was a state that was saved somewhere.
Well the original issue was that my OS would boot (SSD), but I couldn't get into my login (HD). I have a temporary user on the SSD so I was able to use that to troubleshoot. I swapped my HD with another one and it worked (STOCK HD). Then I tried putting the HD into an external closure and that worked as well. I had a feeling it was the connector, but I did not have spare parts to test this theory. I would swap the HDs back and forth and sometimes it would work and sometimes it wouldn't. It was a hit or miss situation. It worked when I disabled the SMS, but when I enabled / disabled it again it didn't work. Ran diagnostics on the HDs, both drives seem fine and in perfect condition. Tried to format the hard drivers and do various combinations of swapping drives and in the end the problem still persisted so it had to be a connector issue. I brought it into repair and they replaced the SATA cable for me and all is good now.
Thanks for the help.

Sudden Motion Sensor (Mobile Motion Module)

Okay folks, it's my turn to ask a question this time.
I worried about upgrading my hard drive, fearing that the Sudden Motion Sensor was built-in to Apple's OEM installed drives. I researched on the web prior to doing the upgrade (myself, by the way) and all sources pointed to the Sudden Motion Sensor being a "software"--for lack of a better term--feature that was independent of the hard drive, and regardless of what hard drive you have installed.
I trusted that information, and now that I have installed, successfully, a new 160GB Seagate 5400.3 hard drive?
My Sudden Motion Sensor doesn't work. It doesn't show up in the System Profiler like it used to, and it won't work with VirtueDesktop where there was feature that allowed me to switch desktops by "flipping" the PowerBook (not violently). And the best tester of all was the program, Seismac. It simulates earthquake movement readings, and any type of reading using the motion sensor.
I just opened up the application, and it says there is a problem detecting the Sudden Motion Sensor feature and will not run.
My PowerBook is the 1.67GHz/1.5GHz model A1106.
Thanks for any suggestions, and help. (I put everything back together correctly, I believe, after the installation of the hard drive).

I don't remember where I read it, but I read that if you put in a hard drive--like the one you mentioned, but that can't work in our PowerBooks or any for that matter--that has its own built-in Sudden Motion Sensor type technology, it will conflict with Apple's "software"-based technology.
I wonder if Seagate's 160GB 5400.3 drive has it? I haven't read proving this.
Plus, since my last posting, it shows up, goes away, shows up, goes away. One day two weeks ago, the Sudden Motion Sensor showed up as being enabled in Apple System Profiler. Excitedly, I ran Seismac. It started up, but then?
FROZE. And the entire machine locked up as well. (PC?).
Now don't get me wrong, anyone reading this. This Seagate drive is fabulous. It is the conflict with Sudden Motion Sensor that I'm trying to decipher!
So again, anyone out there with similar findings, be it a similar Seagate drive, or any other hard drive upgrade, let us know your findings. =)

Sudden Motion Sensor (Mobile Motion Module) Part 2

OOPS...
I was trying out a suggestion to manually enable the Sudden Motion Sensor, and instead of typing in the command "pmset -g" I accidentally typed in "pmset =g" and came up with the following:
Usage: pmset [-b | -c | -u | -a] <action> <minutes> [<action> <minutes>...]
pmset -g [disk | cap | live | sched | ups | batt
-c adjust settings used while connected to a charger
-b adjust settings used when running off a battery
-u adjust settings used while running off a UPS
-a (default) adjust settings for both
<action> is one of: displaysleep, sleep, disksleep (minutes argument)
or: reduce, dps, womp, ring, autorestart, powerbutton, halfdim,
lidwake, acwake, lessbright (with a 1 or 0 argument)
or for UPS only: haltlevel (with a percentage argument)
haltafter, haltremain (with a minutes argument)
eg. pmset -c dim 5 sleep 15 spindown 10 autorestart 1 womp 1
pmset schedule [cancel] <type> <date/time> [owner]
pmset repeat cancel
pmset repeat <type> <days of week> <time>
<type> is one of: sleep, wake, poweron, shutdown, wakeorpoweron
<date/time> is in "MM/dd/yy HH:mm:ss" format
<time> is in "HH:mm:ss" format
<days of week> is a subset of MTWRFSU
[owner] optionally describes the event creator
Have I messed up my machine (I rarely use Terminal!), and do I have to do anything to fix this? Rather, what can I do to fix this?
I haven't logged out of Terminal yet nor have I found any problems yet, but I'm worried...
Message was edited by: Pismo 900
Note that that "http" above is not what Terminal reported, but because of the key characters and how the Apple Discussions forums can format things, it turned into a link.

I was about to help out in my own posting!! (I knew that thread was familiar).
I have since reformatted the drive and erased everything as I will be selling that 1.5GHz model having since bought a 1.67GHz Double-Layer SD one.
I didn't find any problems after doing that bit of experimenting.
However, never did find out why the SMS was malfunctioning, and whether it was due to the drive having its own SMS-type feature installed, conflicting with the Apple SMS, or whether installing the new drive caused some damage (or another conflict), or if the Apple OEM hard drives really do have a firmware or something that marries it to the logic board.
Thanks for your help.

Sudden Motion Sensor panics

I have been having intermittent kernel panics and finally took the MacBook into the Apple Store.
The Genius took a look at the panic.log and informed me that my Western Digital drive and/or my Sudden Motion Sensor were the cause.
Here is the panic log for one of my crashes:
Wed Oct 4 16:58:42 2006
panic(cpu 0 caller 0x00878D87): ERROR: no valid tag was found!
Backtrace, Format - Frame : Return Address (4 potential args on stack)
0x25083cb8 : 0x128d1f (0x3c9540 0x25083cdc 0x131df4 0x0)
0x25083cf8 : 0x878d87 (0x881d40 0x1 0x25083d38 0x399b050)
0x25083d18 : 0x879813 (0x399b000 0x39af000 0x25083d78 0x1a157e)
0x25083d78 : 0x879eca (0x399b000 0x8e35dbb6 0x25083dc8 0x13d4c8)
0x25083dd8 : 0x87de20 (0x399b000 0x39af000 0x1 0x87de5e)
0x25083e48 : 0x910924 (0x399b100 0x3c86180 0x0 0x0)
0x25083e88 : 0x89df22 (0x3a70e00 0x3c89be0 0x25083ed8 0x0)
0x25083f08 : 0x398a1f (0x3c04900 0x3c68500 0x1 0x3828b70)
0x25083f58 : 0x397bf1 (0x3c68500 0x135ec3 0x0 0x3828b70)
0x25083f88 : 0x397927 (0x38307c0 0x25083fd4 0x134d5e 0x135ec3)
0x25083fc8 : 0x19a74c (0x38307c0 0x0 0x19d0b5 0x38247a0) Backtrace terminated-invalid frame pointer 0x0
Kernel loadable modules in backtrace (with dependencies):
com.apple.driver.SMCMotionSensor(2.0.1d1)@0x90f000
dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleSMC(1.0.2d3)@0x89a000
com.apple.driver.AppleSMC(1.0.2d3)@0x89a000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily(1.2.0)@0x61c000
com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIBlockStorage(1.0.3)@0x877000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOStorageFamily(1.5.1)@0x5ea000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIFamily(1.0.2)@0x7c8000
Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 8.8.1: Mon Sep 25 19:42:00 PDT 2006; root:xnu-792.13.8.obj~1/RELEASE_I386
Other World Computing has sold a ton of these drives and has never run into this. The Apple Store kindly swapped in another drive and, after getting the MacBook good and hot (something that seems to trigger the panics), we whacked it around and were unable to replicate it.
They determined that it is the drive.
Does this make sense? Has anyone heard of such a problem? The drive shows no other symptoms.

Got this from Macintouch.com that says that, yes, indeed the Western Digital drives have built in shock protection that is interfering with the Sudden Motion Sensor:
Upgrading
Cyrus Bhedwar
"We swapped in a spare Seagate they had at the Apple Store and tried that. No KPs, but this isn't a definitive test as it doesn't always KP on rapid movement. Called OWC, and they had no reports of such an issue so sent me an RMA. Today I installed the new drive. The MacBook KPs when a decent motion is applied."
I recently read somewhere (sorry, no reference) that the WD has its own motion protection that interferes with the MB SMS. I have the Seagate Momentus 120 GB (1 week) and have not had any probs.
Jim Cowing
Regarding James Ehrler's post on Kernel Panics and Western Digital 120 drives in a macbook - I can confirm. We have a 2.0GHz macbook with a WD120 that KP's on sudden (fairly harsh) motion. Didn't even notice this until I read the post and tried it.
MacInTouch Reader
You're not the only one who's encountered this:
MacBook/Pro Owners Beware
A light bulb then went off? we started to associate the panics with movement. Then it hit us like 3 tons of bowling balls, the Scorpio has built-in shock protection. The ShockGuard technology that WD employs is interfering with the Macs own head parking technology. We placed another call into Other World and returned the second Scorpio in exchange for the slightly more expensive Seagate Momentus (which does not have built-in shock protection). After installing the Momentus and cloning over the now tired image, we haven?t had a single kernal panic.
All that said, if you have a MacBook or MacBook Pro, DO NOT upgrade to the WD Scorpio line of hard drives. They are definitely fine drives, just not fine for MacBook/Pro owners.
Here is the link to the Macspecialist post on this issue:
http://www.macspecialist.org/content/articles/macbookpro_ownersbeware/

Sudden motion sensor dissapears

Hi,
I have an issue with the sudden motion sensor on my computer.With the latest mac os x 10.4.10 the sensor always appears in the system profiler on warn starts (ie, when I reboot) but never on cold starts when I turn on the computer). I've tried with the original mac os disk that came with the PB with version 10.4.0 and the sensor always appears. I've tried with a retail mac os 10.4.6 mac os x installation disk and the sensor only appears with warm starts. I've updates 10.4.0 to 10.4.10 and I have the same problem, this upgrade done from system update and with the combo updater.
the only consequence is that widgets like Level don't work. Starting the computer takes like 1 second more and in the system.log log I get the error:
Oct 8 00:29:31 localhost kernel[0]: IOI2CController::clientReadI2C cmd key:1017, B:1, A:b0 S:25, L:1, M:3 status:0xe00002ed
Oct 8 00:29:31 localhost kernel[0]: -IOI2CController::clientReadI2C status = 0xe00002ed
Oct 8 00:29:31 localhost kernel[0]: AMS::readBytes ERROR: failed to read from I2C
Oct 8 00:29:31 localhost kernel[0]: AMS::shockIntHandler ERROR: failed to read the byte
Oct 8 00:29:31 localhost kernel[0]: IOI2CController::clientWriteI2C cmd key:1019, B:1, A:b0 S:25, L:1, M:2 status:0xe00002ed
Oct 8 00:29:31 localhost kernel[0]: -IOI2CController::clientWriteI2C status = 0xe00002ed
Oct 8 00:29:31 localhost kernel[0]: AMS::writeBytes ERROR: failed to write to I2C
Oct 8 00:29:31 localhost kernel[0]: AMS::clearInterrupt ERROR: failed to write the bytes, retval = 0xe00002ed
Oct 8 00:29:31 localhost kernel[0]: AMS::shockIntHandler ERROR: failed to clear the interrupt, retval = 0xe00002ed
Oct 8 00:29:31 localhost kernel[0]: IOI2CController::clientReadI2C cmd key:101b, B:1, A:b0 S:0, L:1, M:3 status:0xe00002ed
Oct 8 00:29:31 localhost kernel[0]: -IOI2CController::clientReadI2C status = 0xe00002ed
Oct 8 00:29:31 localhost kernel[0]: AMS::readBytes ERROR: failed to read from I2C
Oct 8 00:29:31 localhost kernel[0]: AMS::checkResult ERROR: failed to read the bytes
Oct 8 00:29:31 localhost kernel[0]: AMS::writeCommand ERROR: failed to check the result code
Oct 8 00:29:31 localhost kernel[0]: AMS::startApp ERROR: failed to send kStartAppComm
Oct 8 00:29:31 localhost kernel[0]: AMS::start ERROR: startApp failed
Apple has this kb article http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300781 but doesn't help much and this forum has reports from other people but with older versions of tiger and that got fix with version 10.4.3.
I've aldo used the AMSTracker program to report data from the sensor without problems (would that indicate the sensor works ok?)
Can anybody help me solve this error?
TIA
Message was edited by: PerseP
Message was edited by: PerseP

Update:
mac os x 10.4.0 to 10.4.7 to 10.4.8 to 10.4.9 to 10.4.10 works always.
mac os x 10.4.0 to 10.4.10 via combo update works only with hot starts.
In the post http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=228309 they've found that in versions 10.4.0, 10.4.1 and 10.4.2 of mac os x the the motion sensors appears properly in the system profile but with update 10.4.3 Apple seems to break this until they've released version 10.4.7 which fixes it again.

Second Hard Drive, Sudden Motion Sensor

Back in the fall I put a SSD in my 2007 MacBook Pro. It's working perfectly. I found the "OptiBay" product, which basically replaces your optical drive with an adapter for another hard drive. I haven't received it yet, but when I do I plan on installing it with a traditional hard drive. My question regards the sudden motion sensor (SMS). I disabled it because it's not needed for the SSD, but I was planning on re-enabling it for my secondary that I will be installing. I'm still going to boot off the SSD, though. Is there a way, or terminal code, to assign the SMS to a certain disk? I'm assuming it will just disable the root drive in the event of "sudden motion," but would this affect a secondary drive?
I'd love for there to be an option to change the identifier, from disk0s2 to disk0s3, but I have a feeling it isn't possible or would be infinitely more difficult... thanks.

Most drives are available with the equivalent of an internal SMS. You just have to check the specs. Drive manufacturers often offer two versions of their drives... one with and one without a SMS. If you get a drive with the SMS built in, you can just leave the MacBook's internal one disabled.
Here is an example of one of the most popular drives:
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/laptops/momentus/momentus5400.6g/
Seagate's SMS technology is referred to as G-Force. Note the product number: 5400.6_g. The "g" denotes the drive has a "G-Force" sensor.

Sudden Motion Sensor not working after upgrade to WD5000BEKT HDD

Hi everyone, I just upgraded the hard drive on my Macbook Pro (2010) and I am very pleased with the performance of this 7200rpm drive, I have seen reads around 105MB/s and a pretty good boot time at 23s. But I used to be able to hear the hard drive stop when I moved the computer around before due to the Sudden Motion Sensor technology and since I have the new hard drive in it doesn't seem to work anymore. I have tried switching SMS off and on and it didn't change anything, also the drive is a Western Digital Scorpio Black without Free Fall sensor (I took that version on purpose so it wouldn't conflict with the SMS). Do you have any ideas on how to make it work again? Because I really like this feature on my Mac (I have dropped a laptop before so just in case it happens again). Thanks a lot for your help.
Scott

For future reference, here are a couple of kb articles on the sudden motion sensor:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1935
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1934
As has been said, Apple's Sudden Motion Sensor is not actually built into the hard drive. In fact, some hard drives with their own version of a sudden motion sensor like Seagate's G-Force Protection actually will set up a conflict with Apple's Sudden Motion Sensor.
I installed the same WD in my Mac as you did, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I have been enjoying mine.

Is this a problem with the Sudden Motion Sensor or the HDD?

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