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

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

#91

Post by j45 »

wincy wrote: post #80
scottlamb wrote: post #63

> I know it’s thermal throttling because I can see in iStat Menus that my CPU usage is 100% while the power usage in watts goes down. There's another possibility. If your battery is low and you've mistakenly plugged it into a low-power USB-C source (phone charger), you will also see 100% CPU usage, low power usage, and terrible performance. Probably not the author's problem, but it's been mine more than once! It migh…

I have an M1 MacBook Air and do a once weekly virtual D&D session with some friends. I hook it up to my 4K monitor, and I assumed it had to do with that. It kept becoming a slideshow (unless I put an ice pack under it!) and I realized it’s because the battery life is so good it’s the only time of the week I charge the thing, so charging the battery was making the poor laptop a hot mess that was thermal throttling lik…

Try cabinet fans under it, will be life changing.

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

#92

Post by thedougd »

lbourdages wrote: post #77
tombert wrote: post #58

I had the 2019 Macbook Pro i9, so I think a function to determine thermal throttling could be written very simply: function isThermalThrottling() { return true; } Seriously, I loved that computer for the most part but I was a little annoyed that I paid a lot of money for the i9 CPU just to get worse performance than the i7.

I had that laptop and it is the worst computer I have ever owned. As soon as you booted the fans would start spinning. There were sometimes kernel panics when plugging or unplugging Thunderbolt devices. I have an M1 Max MBP now and it has been absolutely perfect.

Same! Still have it as a side machine.

My favorite and most painful issue was a bug in USB charging. Sometimes it would fail to charge from my monitor (USB-C) yet it would believe it’s connected. The battery would eventually run to zero and the machine would shutoff without warning. No low battery warning would be shown because it believed it was charging however it was not. Resolved with my M3.

Also fun with that generation is that you can’t plug in a dead laptop and start using it right away. Takes about ten minutes of charging before you can power it on.

Also fun, it would not establish power delivery with my monitor in this state. I’d have to plug it in with a regular charger to bootstrap it. Also resolved with my M3.

Now that it’s aged, the super capacitor for the clock no longer holds charge and the time is usually wrong on cold boot. I wish that was serviceable.

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

#93

Post by tombert »

lbourdages wrote: post #77
tombert wrote: post #58

I had the 2019 Macbook Pro i9, so I think a function to determine thermal throttling could be written very simply: function isThermalThrottling() { return true; } Seriously, I loved that computer for the most part but I was a little annoyed that I paid a lot of money for the i9 CPU just to get worse performance than the i7.

I had that laptop and it is the worst computer I have ever owned. As soon as you booted the fans would start spinning. There were sometimes kernel panics when plugging or unplugging Thunderbolt devices. I have an M1 Max MBP now and it has been absolutely perfect.

The laptop it was replacing was a terrible Asus computer that literally started falling apart and delaminating after about six months. It felt like it would break a bit more every time I touched it. Asus themselves was wholly unwilling to do anything about it, and they acted like I had been juggling with the damn thing when all it ever did was live on my desk or next to my bed.

It was the third Asus computer I had owned that broke way earlier than it had any right to, and I swore a blood oath that I will not buy another Asus product.

Point is, considering how terrible that laptop was, “annoying thermal throttling” was still a considerable upgrade, so I loved it in spite of it.

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

#94

Post by Coeur »

scarecrowbob wrote: post #82
motoboi wrote: post #79

Hypothesis: it’s not the CPU, it’s the USB controller saturating the thermal mass. So instead of the CPU or GPU going bonkers, the body gets too hot and they lose thermal dissipation capacity for the normal usage and then overheat and then throttle. They go 100% on the graphs because the throttling reduces frequencies and then load becomes too heavy. Experiment other adapters and monitors.

Switching which side I charge my 2019 mbp i9 effectively solved my throttling issues, so your premise might be correct as I understand it.

That's interesting, could you tell me more? Like which side and port (front/back) was throttling, which side and port was not? Were you using a power supply to charge or was the mbp connected to a display? Did it only throttle during charging or also during while fully charged? Thanks!

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

#95

Post by tombert »

thedougd wrote: post #92
lbourdages wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had that laptop and it is the worst computer I have ever owned. As soon as you booted the fans would start spinning. There were sometimes kernel panics when plugging or unplugging Thunderbolt devices. I have an M1 Max MBP now and it has been absolutely perfect.

Same! Still have it as a side machine. My favorite and most painful issue was a bug in USB charging. Sometimes it would fail to charge from my monitor (USB-C) yet it would believe it’s connected. The battery would eventually run to zero and the machine would shutoff without warning. No low battery warning would be shown because it believed it was charging however it was not. Resolved with my M3. Also fun with that ge…

I had heard of the super capacity issue, and while mine had not shown any symptoms of that I decided to sell it before it did.

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

#97

Post by ozim »

tombert wrote: post #58

I had the 2019 Macbook Pro i9, so I think a function to determine thermal throttling could be written very simply: function isThermalThrottling() { return true; } Seriously, I loved that computer for the most part but I was a little annoyed that I paid a lot of money for the i9 CPU just to get worse performance than the i7.

I think it was just any laptop with i9 just bad CPU for a laptop.

I had dell and swapped it as soon as was possible to i7.

I think they just made those only because they knew there will be enough people thinking “bigger better CPU == better laptop” - and yeah seems like I am not the only one that got caught with that. But I also trusted that someone there did any testing…

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

#99

Post by newsclues »

the_black_hand wrote: post #30

My 2017 macbook is basically brick. Crazy how just opening chrome sets off fans like a jet engine. How much cpu can checking gmail really use? Foolish me is considering buying a new macbook this year. I have no choice because Apple and Microsoft will do everything in their power to ship the shittiest personal computing products every year.

New thermal paste/pad might help

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

#100

Post by Aurornis »

tombert wrote: post #58

I had the 2019 Macbook Pro i9, so I think a function to determine thermal throttling could be written very simply: function isThermalThrottling() { return true; } Seriously, I loved that computer for the most part but I was a little annoyed that I paid a lot of money for the i9 CPU just to get worse performance than the i7.

The thermal solution for the last generation of Intel MacBook Pros was very bad.

When the Apple Silicon models were released, everybody attributed the lower fan noise improvements entirely to the new chip, but the newer chassis had a much better thermal solution too.

I could run my M1 MacBook Pro at similar power draws to my Intel MacBook Pro and the M1 would be very quiet while the Intel sounded like a hair dryer.

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