Are you a fan of corporate conspiracy theories? If so, listen up, because I've got a great one for you. On Friday, reports started surfacing that suggested the EFI Firmware Update 1.5 was behind a "blank screen" issue that was rendering MacBook Pros inoperable. As usual, Apple hasn't acknowledged the problem, and the EFI 1.5 firmware hasn't been (officially) confirmed as the cause. Rather coincidentally, though, Apple released the MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.5.1 yesterday in place of the 1.5 firmware.

We're not entirely sure if the 1.5.1 update fixes the specific bug. The description of the firmware update is particularly terse, saying only that the new firmware "fixes several issues to improve the stability" of MacBook Pros. I suppose blank screens and wake-from-sleep issues do count as stability problems, though, and the fact that the 1.5 firmware is nowhere to be found suggests that something got fixed.

The version numbers for the 1.5 and 1.5.1 firmwares are the same. This, plus the timing of the release, leads me to guess is that the 1.5.1 update does indeed fix whatever issue (perhaps an installation issue) that was causing the problem for some people. Now, does anyone feel like taking one for the team, trying out the new firmware, and letting us know if it breaks anything?

Update (yes, already): We've received several reader reports that this update does fix the blank screen issue for them.