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MacBook 16“ 2019 VRM Mod – Life Changing

make_mac_fast 5y ago
I think a lot of devs using MacBook Pros are probably struggling with their laptops being sluggish without realizing what the real problem is. The cause is the VRM overheating for which there is no temperature sensor information available. You will only see a bunch of your processes jumping up to 100%+, and clock speeds being reduced to < 1GHz. Here are some tips to diagnose: sudo watch -d -t -n1 thermal levels If CPU or GPU > 100 then you are being throttled. You can observe graphs of wattage, frequency, temp in Intel Power Gadget to confirm. sudo powermetrics --samplers smc |grep -i "CPU die temperature" If you CPU temperature is < 100C, then its not CPU throttling, its the VRM overheating.
C-x_C-f 5y ago
Ever since the M1's came out I've been wondering whether it's possible that the abysmal thermal performance of previous Macbooks was partly intentional (to make M1's feel even more of a game-changer). If amateurs can come up with fixes like this, I'm sure that the engineers at Apple could have easily found a better solution well before the point of diminishing returns.
- make_mac_fast 5y ago
  > I'm sure that the engineers at Apple could have easily found a better solution I think they are pushing the limits of how much heat you can generate in such a thin laptop and not have it burn your lap. With the mod its already too hot to go on your lap so they probably ruled this out. It would probably require a full re-design to add a heat-pipe over re-organized VRMs. Not something they want to invest in with M1 coming along so maybe intentional there. I think it's also a misconception that big companies with huge amounts of cash can do anything if they want to. The fact that they have a logic board that has been reliable over so many years would create a massive incentive to only change small things at a time. Just look at the cluster fuck caused by just changing the keyboard.

I think a lot of devs using MacBook Pros are probably struggling with their laptops being sluggish without realizing what the real problem is. The cause is the VRM overheating for which there is no temperature sensor information available. You will only see a bunch of your processes jumping up to 100%+, and clock speeds being reduced to < 1GHz. Here are some tips to diagnose: sudo watch -d -t -n1 thermal levels If CPU or GPU > 100 then you are being throttled. You can observe graphs of wattage, frequency, temp in Intel Power Gadget to confirm. sudo powermetrics --samplers smc |grep -i "CPU die temperature" If you CPU temperature is < 100C, then its not CPU throttling, its the VRM overheating.

C-x_C-f 5y ago

Ever since the M1's came out I've been wondering whether it's possible that the abysmal thermal performance of previous Macbooks was partly intentional (to make M1's feel even more of a game-changer). If amateurs can come up with fixes like this, I'm sure that the engineers at Apple could have easily found a better solution well before the point of diminishing returns.

make_mac_fast 5y ago
> I'm sure that the engineers at Apple could have easily found a better solution I think they are pushing the limits of how much heat you can generate in such a thin laptop and not have it burn your lap. With the mod its already too hot to go on your lap so they probably ruled this out. It would probably require a full re-design to add a heat-pipe over re-organized VRMs. Not something they want to invest in with M1 coming along so maybe intentional there. I think it's also a misconception that big companies with huge amounts of cash can do anything if they want to. The fact that they have a logic board that has been reliable over so many years would create a massive incentive to only change small things at a time. Just look at the cluster fuck caused by just changing the keyboard.