Live data from Hacker News

Untitled topic

news.ycombinator.com

141–150 of 206 posts

Re: undefined

#141
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My MBP 16" can‘t run my LG Ultrafine 5K (sold by Apple) without fan noise. Recently I also figured out that "automatic switching of graphic mode" (enabled by default) causes noticeable input lag. If I type text, the last typed character sometimes doesn’t show until another character is typed or I have to wait up to 5 seconds(!). Turning off "automatic graphic mode switching" stopped the input lag completely, but the…

Similar feeling when I learned that my M1 Macbook doesn't support two external displays...

You can add more external displays with a displaylink hub: https://www.reviewgeek.com/75284/everything-you-need-to-run-...

Re: undefined

#142
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar feeling when I learned that my M1 Macbook doesn't support two external displays...

You can add more external displays with a displaylink hub: https://www.reviewgeek.com/75284/everything-you-need-to-run-...

Displaylink is not a real monitor. It is a workaround. It is using a video stream to get the output. So video or gaming is not goting to work well.

Re: undefined

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's just not physically possible to make a machine that combines high end power hungry hardware, adequate cooling for that hardware, and a compact form factor. My 16” Intel MBP has this issue. My 13” M1 MBP does not.

Yeah this comment became outdated with the M1. Nothing from VMs to cross-compiling large toolchains has caused throttling in a fanless laptop. And that's while driving a 6k monitor and charging at full wattage.

That is all nice sure, but cant use more than 1 monitor though...

Re: undefined

#144
post #3

My 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro (2.3ghz i9/64gb ram) becomes unusable with 2 of the LG 5k monitors plugged in (one on each side). Worst MacBook I have ever owned.

To be perfectly fair with you though; I have a Dell Precision with a Xeon CPU (E3-1505m v6) and an nVidia GPU (k1200m) and it can’t output _one_ 5K display.

I think it’s possible your expectations are a bit optimistic here.

Re: undefined

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's just not physically possible to make a machine that combines high end power hungry hardware, adequate cooling for that hardware, and a compact form factor. My 16” Intel MBP has this issue. My 13” M1 MBP does not.

Yeah this comment became outdated with the M1. Nothing from VMs to cross-compiling large toolchains has caused throttling in a fanless laptop. And that's while driving a 6k monitor and charging at full wattage.

A question about the M1: can you actually run an x86 VM under Rosetta? A large part of my job involves driving VMs for expensive hardware loaded with dev tools. I thought the answer was "no", which has put me off getting an M1, but just wanted to check.

Re: undefined

#147
post #129

These things usually fix performance issues for me: - Open your macbook and clean out the dust. I do it yearly. It always helps. - Keep macOS and apps (e.g. browser) up-to-date. coreaudiod high cpu was fixed for me in 11.6. - Review login items, delete what you don't need. - Reboot, with the occasional nvram, pram reset - Review activity monitor, find apps that have background processes and delete the ones you don't…

> Open your macbook and clean out the dust. I do it yearly. It always helps. I thought you couldn't do this without special skills/tools nowadays (models from the past 4 to 5 years).

No "special skills" are required. My 2018 MacBook Pro has 6 Pentalobe screws and the bottom cover pops off allowing you to access everything. You can purchase Pentalobe screwdrivers easily on the internet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentalobe_screw

Re: undefined

#148

I tried this and it doesn't work. Turns out my MacBook was throttling to 30% due to overheating. This happens more frequently if you drive the GPU with an external monitor. Unfortunately the OS does nothing to notify you of overheating and throttling, which is an insanely stupid oversight by apple. I only found out because I noticed that the computer ran fine while running the AC, so I installed an app through Brew c…

Unfortunately this is a very common problem with basically all modern high-end laptops that have a macbook-like form factor (e.g. not bulky gaming laptops with lots of cooling & ventilation). It's just not physically possible to make a machine that combines high end power hungry hardware, adequate cooling for that hardware, and a compact form factor. It's very sad that this is such a widespread problem and that there…

Unfortunately this is a very common problem with basically all modern high-end laptops that have a macbook-like form factor (e.g. not bulky gaming laptops with lots of cooling & ventilation).

The M1 MacBooks are the outliers here. They go to toe on many benchmarks with e.g. the Ryzen 3700X and even beats it in some areas such as single-thread performance or through dedicated hardware (e.g. matrix multiplication). And the M1 can be passively cooled. After many generations of Intel MacBooks, the M1 MacBook was a revelation.

I am curious though whether they can maintain this in newer models, which are supposed to have 6 (or perhaps even more) high-performance cores. We'll see.

It's just not physically possible to make a machine that combines high end power hungry hardware, adequate cooling for that hardware, and a compact form factor. [...] a gaming laptop if

I feel like towers are under-appreciated these days. A lot of people I see with these overpowered laptops use it plugged into a screen anyway. Why not buy a tower with a Ryzen 5900X or 5950X? It will blow away your laptop CPU and with a high-performance tower cooler, it will stay cool and won't make a lot of noise. Same for GPUs. Every time I hear about people buying a laptop with an NVIDIA GPU to do machine learning... Just buy a tower and SSH into the machine. Your life will be so much more pleasant.

Re: undefined

#149
post #105

I tried this and it doesn't work. Turns out my MacBook was throttling to 30% due to overheating. This happens more frequently if you drive the GPU with an external monitor. Unfortunately the OS does nothing to notify you of overheating and throttling, which is an insanely stupid oversight by apple. I only found out because I noticed that the computer ran fine while running the AC, so I installed an app through Brew c…

My MBP 16" can‘t run my LG Ultrafine 5K (sold by Apple) without fan noise. Recently I also figured out that "automatic switching of graphic mode" (enabled by default) causes noticeable input lag. If I type text, the last typed character sometimes doesn’t show until another character is typed or I have to wait up to 5 seconds(!). Turning off "automatic graphic mode switching" stopped the input lag completely, but the…

But when using an external screen, you have mains power nearby, I suppose.

Re: undefined

#150

Just wished I had better control on AMD GPU being used whenever I plug in a display for my MBP16, just ramps up the fan for no reason while my Air is just sipping away on the same display with iGPU..

Unlike Windows based machines, MacBooks always use the AMD GPU when an external monitor is plugged in. I forget the exact reasoning, but it is the way Apple designed these machines.

In 2016 when they were redesigned I don't believe the intel IGPU could drive 4k @ 60hz, and Apple also wanted compatibility with the LG 5K display they partnered with. The best solution was to just force all external displays to be routed thru the AMD GPU.

Post reply on HN