8 ms·

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 exter

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 called "Hot" which tells you temperature and throttling percentage, and confirmed that this was indeed problem. This happens when the room is over 80 degrees Fahrenheit, even when the CPU is at 3% utilization. Can't find root cause, or if this is even considered abnormal, but the laptop is defective in my opinion.

JohnKacz 5y ago
https://github.com/macmade/Hot https://github.com/macmade/Hot
sys_64738 5y ago
Thanks for the heads up for Hot.app!
the_pwner224 5y ago
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 is so little public awareness about it - most of the machines like your macbook are indeed defective. The only solution unfortunately is to do some more research & read reviews which cover throttling & thermal management before you buy your next laptop to make sure you're not buying something that is defective. On my previous Dell XPS laptop the CPU and GPU shared one heatpipe & heatsink. It could handle 100% CPU with an external monitor, but the GPU was much more power hungry and placing any significant load on the GPU made the CPU throttle significantly. Each manufacturer & product has different thermal management solutions and you need to do research before buying to see if a laptop will work for you. You'll also want to see whether external displays are always driven by the discrete GPU instead of the integrated GPU on the CPU - even if not being heavily used, just turning on the discrete GPU creates a fair bit of heat. Or just buy a gaming laptop if you can accept with the added size & heft - they're often cheaper for equivalent CPU/GPU than the 'premium' laptops like MacBook, XPS, but sometimes don't get the newest features (Thunderbolt, USB-C charging, etc.) as early. One of my friends had a gaming laptop with the same specs as my XPS and when under load his laptop would blow out enormous amounts of hot air from its big vents, whereas the XPS clearly had a much lower heat removal capacity.
- walrus01 5y ago
  At one point in time I went whole-hog on a 17 inch gaming laptop that I treated as basically a folding desktop, it's this absolutely garantuan ASUS thing where the entire rear of it is one huge heatsink unit for the CPU and GPU. If you intentionally consider it from the design perspective of something that will only be relocated once every few weeks or months, and is certainly a lot lighter than a mini-ITX desktop PC and traditional monitor, it can be a good solution. Sadly, the touchpad on it is nowhere near as well refined as the apple version. I can comfortably leave that thing spending 8-12 hours to encode a HEVC/H265 codec 4K video without worrying about it melting down.
  - vvanders 5y ago
    Even "gaming" laptops have come a decent ways in size/form factor. I picked up a Zephyrus G15 a bit ago and it's pretty portable while having the ability to sink a good amount of wattage.
    - walrus01 5y ago
      yeah I just checked and the modern version of my 17 inch laptop monster, which is about 8.1 pounds, is down to 5.95 pounds in a 17 inch version with an intel 11800 something mobile CPU, and geforce 3070 in it. Probably still has a huge external power brick.
      - evilduck 5y ago
        I have a 13" M1 MBA and a 16" Legion gaming laptop. They're both good computers for their own purposes but the 230 watt power supply for the Legion is almost as heavy as the MBA (2.2 vs 2.8 pounds). Carrying the computer and the charger together my Lenovo is more than 3x heavier than the MBA. Gaming laptops are just more-portable desktops to me. I would slip the M1 in a backpack without a second thought. It can even share a charger with my phone. Bringing a gaming laptop anywhere would need to be well justified.
        5y ago
bombcar 5y ago
To monitor throttling, you may run: pmset -g thermlog
8note 5y ago
It seems like a good marketing ploy to me. The default behaviour for an apple owner is to buy a new one when it's not running as well as theyd like
SavantIdiot 5y ago
Have you tried using 'powermetrics'? sudo powermetrics --samplers smc |grep -i "GPU die temperature" sudo powermetrics --samplers smc |grep -i "CPU die temperature" It's proactive, but at least it is a useful tool.
vaughan 5y ago
> root cause There is a bug for 5500M GPU that causes 18W sustained power draw with one external monitor. It should normally be 5W or so. The throttling is due to your VRM chips overheating. There is no temp sensor for this exposed to the user. The VRM chips have no cooling. The high GPU watt draw pushes the temps of the VRMs above their thermal limits with no cooling. The solution is to put thermal pads on your VRMs to dissipate the heat to the backplate. Completely resolved my issue. Disabling TurboBoost can also help. Running fans at max speed at all times too because Mac is slow to ramp them up when load increases. Apparently the 5600M doesn’t have this issue and the 5500M bug is fixed in Monterey. But the thermal pad mod is still amazing. Apple couldn’t do it stock, because there are regulations about hot a backplate can get related to risk of burns.
- colordrops 5y ago
  These are very good leads, thanks. Already ordered the parts to try it out.
- dnhz 5y ago
  Hmm so 5300m also has no issues?
- temp 5y ago
  >and the 5500M bug is fixed in Monterey Hm, I still seem to get the same behavior (using the very latest Monterey beta) I'm using the 2019 MBP 16 w/ the 5500M GPU
  - vaughan 5y ago
    Damn, I heard it was fixed, then another beta unfixed it - maybe they found some issue with the fix. Fingers crossed on this one I guess.
- tdy_err 5y ago
  A write-up of this mod: https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookpro/comments/gs6bal/2019_mbp_16_vrm_cooling_mod https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookpro/comments/gs6bal/2019_mbp...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
WA 5y ago
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 battery duration is down from like 10 hours to 3 or something. A disappointing thing for a €3,300 device.
- lelandfe 5y ago
  Similar feeling when I learned that my M1 Macbook doesn't support two external displays...
  - joconde 5y ago
    I like that they clearly admitted to it, so I know what I'm buying. Other products usually pretend to support anything and let me discover the issues after purchase (like an XPS 15 with a GPU that couldn't actually run games the GPU supported, because of insane thermal throttling).
  - KarlKemp 5y ago
    I'm using it on one of the Pro XDR displays, and it's quite impressive for the cheapest notebook to drive this monster of a pixel-wielding behemoth with zero issues or complaints... (2732*2048 + 2560*1600 + 6016*3384 = 30,000,000 pixels, although I'm not sure if the iPad receives a pixel signal, or renders its own content) So it doesn't seem to be a lack of graphics power that causes this limitation. (Incidentally, the XDR and current-gen iPad pro displays are the first where I get the illusion, when watching high-res video, that there's an actual window in the display and I am looking at a real scene behind it)
  - Joeri 5y ago
    You can add more external displays with a displaylink hub: https://www.reviewgeek.com/75284/everything-you-need-to-run-multiple-monitors-from-your-m1-macbook/ https://www.reviewgeek.com/75284/everything-you-need-to-run-...
mdoms 5y ago
I don't even use an external monitor with my work MBP despite having one available to me. If just completely destroys the computer's capabilities.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

JohnKacz 5y ago

https://github.com/macmade/Hot https://github.com/macmade/Hot

sys_64738 5y ago

Thanks for the heads up for Hot.app!

the_pwner224 5y ago

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 is so little public awareness about it - most of the machines like your macbook are indeed defective. The only solution unfortunately is to do some more research & read reviews which cover throttling & thermal management before you buy your next laptop to make sure you're not buying something that is defective. On my previous Dell XPS laptop the CPU and GPU shared one heatpipe & heatsink. It could handle 100% CPU with an external monitor, but the GPU was much more power hungry and placing any significant load on the GPU made the CPU throttle significantly. Each manufacturer & product has different thermal management solutions and you need to do research before buying to see if a laptop will work for you. You'll also want to see whether external displays are always driven by the discrete GPU instead of the integrated GPU on the CPU - even if not being heavily used, just turning on the discrete GPU creates a fair bit of heat. Or just buy a gaming laptop if you can accept with the added size & heft - they're often cheaper for equivalent CPU/GPU than the 'premium' laptops like MacBook, XPS, but sometimes don't get the newest features (Thunderbolt, USB-C charging, etc.) as early. One of my friends had a gaming laptop with the same specs as my XPS and when under load his laptop would blow out enormous amounts of hot air from its big vents, whereas the XPS clearly had a much lower heat removal capacity.

walrus01 5y ago
At one point in time I went whole-hog on a 17 inch gaming laptop that I treated as basically a folding desktop, it's this absolutely garantuan ASUS thing where the entire rear of it is one huge heatsink unit for the CPU and GPU. If you intentionally consider it from the design perspective of something that will only be relocated once every few weeks or months, and is certainly a lot lighter than a mini-ITX desktop PC and traditional monitor, it can be a good solution. Sadly, the touchpad on it is nowhere near as well refined as the apple version. I can comfortably leave that thing spending 8-12 hours to encode a HEVC/H265 codec 4K video without worrying about it melting down.
- vvanders 5y ago
  Even "gaming" laptops have come a decent ways in size/form factor. I picked up a Zephyrus G15 a bit ago and it's pretty portable while having the ability to sink a good amount of wattage.
  - walrus01 5y ago
    yeah I just checked and the modern version of my 17 inch laptop monster, which is about 8.1 pounds, is down to 5.95 pounds in a 17 inch version with an intel 11800 something mobile CPU, and geforce 3070 in it. Probably still has a huge external power brick.
    - evilduck 5y ago
      I have a 13" M1 MBA and a 16" Legion gaming laptop. They're both good computers for their own purposes but the 230 watt power supply for the Legion is almost as heavy as the MBA (2.2 vs 2.8 pounds). Carrying the computer and the charger together my Lenovo is more than 3x heavier than the MBA. Gaming laptops are just more-portable desktops to me. I would slip the M1 in a backpack without a second thought. It can even share a charger with my phone. Bringing a gaming laptop anywhere would need to be well justified.
      - 5y ago

bombcar 5y ago

To monitor throttling, you may run: pmset -g thermlog

8note 5y ago

It seems like a good marketing ploy to me. The default behaviour for an apple owner is to buy a new one when it's not running as well as theyd like

SavantIdiot 5y ago

Have you tried using 'powermetrics'? sudo powermetrics --samplers smc |grep -i "GPU die temperature" sudo powermetrics --samplers smc |grep -i "CPU die temperature" It's proactive, but at least it is a useful tool.

vaughan 5y ago

> root cause There is a bug for 5500M GPU that causes 18W sustained power draw with one external monitor. It should normally be 5W or so. The throttling is due to your VRM chips overheating. There is no temp sensor for this exposed to the user. The VRM chips have no cooling. The high GPU watt draw pushes the temps of the VRMs above their thermal limits with no cooling. The solution is to put thermal pads on your VRMs to dissipate the heat to the backplate. Completely resolved my issue. Disabling TurboBoost can also help. Running fans at max speed at all times too because Mac is slow to ramp them up when load increases. Apparently the 5600M doesn’t have this issue and the 5500M bug is fixed in Monterey. But the thermal pad mod is still amazing. Apple couldn’t do it stock, because there are regulations about hot a backplate can get related to risk of burns.

colordrops 5y ago
These are very good leads, thanks. Already ordered the parts to try it out.
dnhz 5y ago
Hmm so 5300m also has no issues?
temp 5y ago
>and the 5500M bug is fixed in Monterey Hm, I still seem to get the same behavior (using the very latest Monterey beta) I'm using the 2019 MBP 16 w/ the 5500M GPU
- vaughan 5y ago
  Damn, I heard it was fixed, then another beta unfixed it - maybe they found some issue with the fix. Fingers crossed on this one I guess.
tdy_err 5y ago
A write-up of this mod: https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookpro/comments/gs6bal/2019_mbp_16_vrm_cooling_mod https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookpro/comments/gs6bal/2019_mbp...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

WA 5y ago

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 battery duration is down from like 10 hours to 3 or something. A disappointing thing for a €3,300 device.

lelandfe 5y ago
Similar feeling when I learned that my M1 Macbook doesn't support two external displays...
- joconde 5y ago
  I like that they clearly admitted to it, so I know what I'm buying. Other products usually pretend to support anything and let me discover the issues after purchase (like an XPS 15 with a GPU that couldn't actually run games the GPU supported, because of insane thermal throttling).
- KarlKemp 5y ago
  I'm using it on one of the Pro XDR displays, and it's quite impressive for the cheapest notebook to drive this monster of a pixel-wielding behemoth with zero issues or complaints... (2732*2048 + 2560*1600 + 6016*3384 = 30,000,000 pixels, although I'm not sure if the iPad receives a pixel signal, or renders its own content) So it doesn't seem to be a lack of graphics power that causes this limitation. (Incidentally, the XDR and current-gen iPad pro displays are the first where I get the illusion, when watching high-res video, that there's an actual window in the display and I am looking at a real scene behind it)
- Joeri 5y ago
  You can add more external displays with a displaylink hub: https://www.reviewgeek.com/75284/everything-you-need-to-run-multiple-monitors-from-your-m1-macbook/ https://www.reviewgeek.com/75284/everything-you-need-to-run-...

mdoms 5y ago

I don't even use an external monitor with my work MBP despite having one available to me. If just completely destroys the computer's capabilities.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]