Since bootup in EFI Firmaware update mode, for a good 7 minutes my fans are blazing away and the screen is blank (but not dark). Is this normal? I thought there was supposed to be a progress bar.

Macbook Pro 2.33GHz 2GB 160GB

I have the exact same computer and performed the update without a hitch.. Had the menu bar and everything went smoothly. I am the guy that actually prints out the instructions before performing a "firmaware" update. I know they can be kind of fussy to install correctly. All in all, after the download and the automatic restart to the EFI Firmware telling me the update was sintalled properly was about 4-5 minutes tops. I'd recommend just checking out the detailed instructions ahead of time and making sure you hold the power key down until the sleep LED flickers like crazy. Thats when I let go then heard the long tone (freaked my cat out) and then I got the menu bar.

First time posting and I apologize for the rambling... Hope this helps.

Bill

I was able to memorize the two step's to do after the MacBook shuts down [namely hold the power button down until you hear the tone, then wait for it to restart]. The update process took maybe 2 or 3 minutes and then rebooted automatically. Haven't rebooted into BootCamp, but Mac OS X 10.4.10 still seems happy.

I was sitting in the dark and didn't notice the black USB drive cable was hooked up. As I mentioned in the first comment my Macbook Pro was locked up for over an hour before I aborted (didn't know if it would reboot - it did). Second time worked fine (once I unplugged the USB drive)

So.. make sure you unplug any external drives before pressing the power button!

The Firmware upgrade went smoothly, but difficult to
see any improvements.

Under Windows applications still launch slowly when
a file is double-clicked in an Explorer window, and
login from sleep is still slow compared to most
Windows machines.

is this supposed to fix how my macbook pro would randomly shut down away from wall power?

Now my Macbook won't sleep. It freezes. Display stays on. Can't do anything.

My Macbook Black is less than 2 months old. 1G memory. I have made few changes. I installed this update per the instructions and it went as expected.