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Building a macOS app to know when my Mac is thermal throttling

stanislas.blog

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Re: Building a macOS app to know when my Mac is thermal throttling

#2

Post by Neywiny »

Seems like good work. From what I've heard developing on MacOS has not gotten easier over the years. I do question the point, though. I suppose there's merit in knowing if your configuration causes thermal throttling, but what are you able to do about it? There's no fan profile to tweak or anything. Can you undervolt them?

Re: Building a macOS app to know when my Mac is thermal throttling

#3

Post by amelius »

Neywiny wrote: post #2

Seems like good work. From what I've heard developing on MacOS has not gotten easier over the years. I do question the point, though. I suppose there's merit in knowing if your configuration causes thermal throttling, but what are you able to do about it? There's no fan profile to tweak or anything. Can you undervolt them?

You can move to a colder place or turn the room temperature down.

Re: Building a macOS app to know when my Mac is thermal throttling

#4

Post by angristan »

Neywiny wrote: post #2

Seems like good work. From what I've heard developing on MacOS has not gotten easier over the years. I do question the point, though. I suppose there's merit in knowing if your configuration causes thermal throttling, but what are you able to do about it? There's no fan profile to tweak or anything. Can you undervolt them?

> but what are you able to do about it?

On Macbooks with fans, I started tuning my fan curve with iStat Menus (https://bjango.com/help/istatmenus7/fans/#custom-fan-curve) because I noticed the default curve was lagging behind and thermal throttling kicked in before the fan even reach max speed.

For Apple Silicon specifically, I recently discovered that there is a "high power mode" (https://support.apple.com/en-us/101613) that allows the fans to run at higher speed. So I don't use the custom fan curves anymore, it helped me a lot (but it does get quite noisy on a 14" M4 Max)

For a Macbook Air, not much you can do besides closing stuff, or elevating the macbook and pointing a fan at it or things like that... but yeah it's a bit desperate!

Re: Building a macOS app to know when my Mac is thermal throttling

#6

Post by nottorp »

amelius wrote: post #3
Neywiny wrote: post #2

Seems like good work. From what I've heard developing on MacOS has not gotten easier over the years. I do question the point, though. I suppose there's merit in knowing if your configuration causes thermal throttling, but what are you able to do about it? There's no fan profile to tweak or anything. Can you undervolt them?

You can move to a colder place or turn the room temperature down.

In the northern hemisphere you can just open a window at this time of the year.

Remember to put your coat and hat on!

Re: Building a macOS app to know when my Mac is thermal throttling

#7

Post by jtbayly »

Neywiny wrote: post #2

Seems like good work. From what I've heard developing on MacOS has not gotten easier over the years. I do question the point, though. I suppose there's merit in knowing if your configuration causes thermal throttling, but what are you able to do about it? There's no fan profile to tweak or anything. Can you undervolt them?

I wanted this app to exist. Now it does!

I sometimes face thermal throttling because a process has gone wacko, and all I have to do is kill it. But first I have to notice it.

I rarely notice until half my battery is gone!

Re: Building a macOS app to know when my Mac is thermal throttling

#8

Post by Neywiny »

jtbayly wrote: post #7
Neywiny wrote: post #2

Seems like good work. From what I've heard developing on MacOS has not gotten easier over the years. I do question the point, though. I suppose there's merit in knowing if your configuration causes thermal throttling, but what are you able to do about it? There's no fan profile to tweak or anything. Can you undervolt them?

I wanted this app to exist. Now it does! I sometimes face thermal throttling because a process has gone wacko, and all I have to do is kill it. But first I have to notice it. I rarely notice until half my battery is gone!

You know what, fair point. I know because my fans go haywire (except that one time my fans decided to just not work until I ran some incantations. The joys of Linux). If you're passively cooled, you get no feedback on CPU load. Makes sense.
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