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MacBook Pro with i9 chip is throttled due to thermal issues, claims YouTuber

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Re: MacBook Pro with i9 chip is throttled due to thermal issues, claims YouTuber

#291

Post by rsynnott »

pentae wrote: post #277
wareotie wrote: post #244

I bought the MacBook Pro 2017 13" without touch bar with an i7. I pretty happy with it, but, the only thing that bothers me is it gets hot. Hot as hell. Skype sharing the screen and JetBrains CLion and you get a beautiful roaster.

FYI, I went through the same experience as you and returned it after discovering the non-touchbar model has one less fan. Apple clearly hates the customers who don't want to buy the touch bar model.

The non-touchbar laptop uses a lower-TDP part (15W vs 27W or something).

Re: MacBook Pro with i9 chip is throttled due to thermal issues, claims YouTuber

#292

Post by rsynnott »

walru wrote: post #26
olliej wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that was gpu manufacturer issue? I recall Nvidia specifically had a lot of issues across many oems.

It was likely a bit of both, but there's one thing that can't be denied, apple products are built for form over function.

Apple was by no means the only manufacturer to have trouble with those Nvidia parts; it was an industry-wide problem.

Re: MacBook Pro with i9 chip is throttled due to thermal issues, claims YouTuber

#293

Post by morganvachon »

tjoff wrote: post #250
paulmd wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a bare-die CPU or GPU is not fully covered, the uncovered portions will rapidly become hot and the chip may die (especially if the thermal sensors are covered and cannot detect this). This is different from modern desktop processors where there is an IHS to help spread the heat around - there is a very real danger to insufficient paste application on a bare die. In contrast, since modern thermal pastes are non-con…

> since modern thermal pastes are non-conductive, there is no real downside to an enthusiastic application of paste except for making a mess, so you want to default to putting too much on rather than having some dumb intern kill a PC with an insufficient application. There is virtually no effect on thermals. The effect on thermals are absolutely not insignificant. Thermal pastes are actually extremely bad at transfer…

> For example, the thermal conductivity of a high-grade thermal paste is 8.5 W/mK, and the heat conductivity of copper is 385 W/mK, or for aluminum 205 W/mK. You can see that the thermal compound is actually a poor heat conductor and that is exactly the reason why you only need a very thin layer of paste to fill the micro imperfections between the IHS and heatsink.

This has always been my rule of thumb whether it's metallic or non-metallic paste. I throw on a pair of vinyl gloves, squirt a dab on the heatsink (not the CPU), and spread an even layer with my finger. I go back and fill in low spots with a smaller dab, trying for an even surface. This way, it's thin enough that it doesn't squirt out the sides when it's installed, but it's a uniform spread that covers any gaps between the heatsink and the CPU surface. Also, by putting it on the heatsink instead of the CPU, I don't risk accidentally getting paste on the non-contact parts of the CPU.

I've also used the semi-solid thermal pads similar to what comes from the factory on most OEM heatsinks, but they are far less efficient than paste.

Re: MacBook Pro with i9 chip is throttled due to thermal issues, claims YouTuber

#294

Post by rsynnott »

lgvln wrote: post #22
rasz wrote: post #14

Macs dont even start running fans until you hit >80C.

I think the correct terminology is “don’t start running the fans at high(audible) speeds till >80C.

Depends on the model. The MacBook Escape (non-touchbar Pro) doesn't run fans at all at low temperatures. I actually thought it was broken when I first got it, but it's intentional behaviour.

Re: MacBook Pro with i9 chip is throttled due to thermal issues, claims YouTuber

#295

Post by sheeshkebab »

kalleboo wrote: post #236
StillBored wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think putting an ARM in a laptop will solve anything? If you want 5-8 year old x86 performance buy a HP envy and see how well your full blown desktop apps run. https://www.cnet.com/reviews/hp-envy-x2-snapdragon-835-revie...

Apple's A11 benchmarks twice as fast as the Snapdragon 835. And if Apple was going to put an ARM in a laptop, they would surely design a chip specific to that use case with even higher performance than one that has to go into a passively-cooled smartphone. (not saying I'm convinced an Apple ARM would actually outperform the x86 but that waving around Snapdragon machine doesn't prove your point)

I don’t want an iPad for my laptop (I love my iPad but it’s utterly unfit for anything but browsing around)

Re: MacBook Pro with i9 chip is throttled due to thermal issues, claims YouTuber

#296

Post by isostatic »

saagarjha wrote: post #167
earenndil wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 100C Are you sure?? That sounds a bit...hot. Do you mean 100F?

The insides of computers can frequently reach that range.

My thinkpad shuts down with a CPU temperature of about 100-105. It's currently idling (98% idle according to top) at 80C, with the CPU clocked down to 1199MHz. The chip is an i5 CPU M 560 @ 2.67GHz

The fan is broken, so it can reach shutdown temperature even when I have the "powersave" governer set (which I normally do)

Re: MacBook Pro with i9 chip is throttled due to thermal issues, claims YouTuber

#297

Post by agumonkey »

tjoff wrote: post #250
paulmd wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a bare-die CPU or GPU is not fully covered, the uncovered portions will rapidly become hot and the chip may die (especially if the thermal sensors are covered and cannot detect this). This is different from modern desktop processors where there is an IHS to help spread the heat around - there is a very real danger to insufficient paste application on a bare die. In contrast, since modern thermal pastes are non-con…

> since modern thermal pastes are non-conductive, there is no real downside to an enthusiastic application of paste except for making a mess, so you want to default to putting too much on rather than having some dumb intern kill a PC with an insufficient application. There is virtually no effect on thermals. The effect on thermals are absolutely not insignificant. Thermal pastes are actually extremely bad at transfer…

so IIUC thermal paste is only 'better' than air gaps :)

anyone ever friction soldered a heatsink to an IHS ?

Re: MacBook Pro with i9 chip is throttled due to thermal issues, claims YouTuber

#298

Post by nerdponx »

arthurfm wrote: post #169
lebrad wrote: post #19

Dave Lee's youtube video is a withering takedown, presented dispassionately. His argument is such a slam dunk that the article concludes with stunned disbelief, speculating that maybe there's "something wrong with the MacBook Pro with Core i9 chip that Lee received". Yes there's something wrong with it, that was the exact point of his video. Do people really think he just got a lemon?

Quinn Nelson (a.k.a. Snazzy Labs) recently did a couple of videos where he replaced the stock thermal paste on a 2017 MacBook Pro with a liquid metal thermal paste [1] and then 3 months later with a standard thermal paste [2]. With the liquid metal paste the CPU temps dropped 10°C, ran 200MHz faster and the MacBook Pro didn't thermal throttle. The standard thermal paste also saw a 7-10% improvement in thermals compar…

Replacing the thermal paste on my old Lenovo was a night and day improvement. It wouldn't surprise me if that was the issue here.

Re: MacBook Pro with i9 chip is throttled due to thermal issues, claims YouTuber

#299

Post by ben-schaaf »

izacus wrote: post #181

Every MacBook Pro I've ever owned locked it self down to low frequency after running a CPU intensive task for a minute or so. I thought that was common knowledge? There's NO laptops out there that wouldn't do that (and NO mobile devices either). This is why desktop workstations are still so much faster even though they carry same frequency chips.

I've only ever had issues with 5yo+ laptops, and that's due to thermal paste degredation. I wouldn't pay for a laptop if it thermal throttles. I'll forgive the passive cooling on my phone for not keeping up with the CPU, but if the fans on a laptop are running full power and the chip thermal throttles why should I even consider buying it?

Keep in mind, there's a difference between thermal throttling and low boost clocks on multi-core workloads.

Re: MacBook Pro with i9 chip is throttled due to thermal issues, claims YouTuber

#300

Post by isostatic »

StapleHorse wrote: post #207
tjpnz wrote: post #114

The biggest shock for me with these laptops came when I tried to do some light gaming. I'm not talking about recent titles either, my 2017 MBP gets bought to the brink by KSP at minimum settings with no mods. I understand that I would be quite rightly criticised for trying to run something like Fortnite but we're talking about a game here with roots in 2013. The hardware they put inside the later models has no hope i…

KSP is CPU constrained and IIRC uses only one thread beacause of Unity 3d. Try lesr boosters :)

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