Hi Ladies and Gents! I come here again to beg for some help. All I'm hoping is a couple of you might be able to help by posting a screen shot. Hopefully something which can max out the processor and show what frequency it's running at. I've been talking with Apple for months about a problem with my laptop and they're claiming that no PC will run at 100% and that mine only reaching 50% is in fact normal. Now we all know that's wrong, probably a heatsink issue, but it's like talking to a brick wall sometimes. Anyway, I've only got one MacBook, so I'm struggling to prove it's not normal, and I was hoping if I could get a few screen shots from you guys at full load they'll believe me. So here's my screenie, I hope you can copy it... You can see I've got activity monitor to show that my processor is max'd. I've opened terminal and typed 'yes' to get it there... and CoolBook's showing that it's only hitting 50%. You can grab a copy of CoolBook here... http://www.coolbook.se/CoolBook.html Thanks a million if anyone can help! Cheers
You seem to have a Dual Core cpu that you're maxing out. If CoolBook only supports one core (or reads the one) then 50% sounds very correct. Also Apple are partially correct in that in everyday use you will probably never see a prolonged period of 100% load. But with artificial load you should be able to sustain a 100% load for as long as you care. Not knowing CoolBook I can't for life of me tell where you see it's reporting only 50% load? It says 0 down by the CPU load slider... Your activity monitor on the other hand seems to report correctly. I would say your macbook looks perfectly healthy from what you've posted. Could you please put your basic System Info (Apple menu -> About this Mac) in the screenshot as well to let people know more than just "macbook" since that's a somewhat wide term This way I can see what processor you've got. Or you could click "More Info" or alternatively shift-click on "About this Mac" in the apple menu and then have that info in the screenshot as well.
Sorry, I don't mean 50% load, it's at 100% load, but the CPU has dropped from 1600MHz to 800MHz to prevent overheating. Which is what I sorta meant with the 50% thing (bottom lefthand corner of CoolBook). If it was running properly, under 'Information' it should say 1.6Ghz, which is the full speed of the processor you see. Yeah, I picked coolbook because it works on all Mac's. Normally I run MSR Tools which gives more detail about both cores. What's happening is whenever I try to watch a DVD or something, the CPU heats up and it throttles to 50% to prevent meltdown. Which in turn results in a frame every few seconds and loss of audio sync. You're right though, dropping to 50% when idling is great for battery and everyday life, not being able to get it up to speed to watch the odd video is quite frustrating.
CoolBook comes with a link to download their CPUTest application. You should give this a go as it supports running multiple instances which I reckon means it'll be multithreaded instead of the "yes" in terminal which might just be single-threaded?
Ahh I see. I sorta came to the conclusion that it might be what you meant while testing CoolBook here as well I'm on a MBP 17" C2D Santa Rosa and when using CPUTest with 2 instances my CPU throttles up to 2400MHz instantly. It's been running for 6 minutes now and the temp has reached 83 celcius
By the way I just noticed that the CPU load slider in CoolBook allows you to max cpu load by dragging it to 10.
6 MINUTES? Don't make me cry! Well, that makes it 50/50 - either my machine's broken or yours is I tried it with the CPU test from CoolBook and same result... It's not that I even want to load it fully, I just want to watch mind numbing TV Shows
does your mac feel slow when it's at 800Mhz? my friend's macbook pro becomes really slow when it overheats, processor speed drops and the whole thing becomes unusable. it's Apple's bad thermal design. almost all intel processor have a thermal monitoring system, perhaps 85 is for your particular processor. once reaching that threshold, the processor will drop to lowest multiplier to protect itself from overheating.
Have you tried a clean install of OS X? If you've been mucking about with the throttling settings it might be worth it doing a clean install. Edit: BTW when my CPU temp reached 82 or so the fan just started running. Apple just issued an update for heat throttling something like a month ago. I don't know if it was made for both the Macbook and the MBP I own but it might be worth looking into.
Yep wuyanxu, that's exactly what I think's happening. It slows to a crawl... I just don't think it's normal you see, expecting the processor to run at full speed when you need it. It's on the desk infront of me, not in bed or something daft like that too. OleJ Yeah, first thing Apple said to try, so I gave it a go. I've also installed BootCamp and Vista - happens regardless of OS, so I'm thinking it's hardware related.
definitely their bad thermal design. in windows, try Speedfan see if you can make internal fans spin at highest speed. or buy a laptop stand that has a couple USB powered fans to blow on your laptop.
But isn't your problem that it never goes above 800MHz? If you let it cool down and then start it up and launch CoolBook right away what measurements are you getting then? Will it still not go to 1600MHz? Have you tried resetting PRAM and all the other things that on can reset? Have you tried the "battery out, no power cable, hold down power button for 5 secs"? If it NEVER goes above 800MHz then it sounds more like a hardware problem/error than a thermal issue. Edit: Or perhaps you've installed some RAM yourself that won't cooperate with your mac?
Yeah, it does spike to 1.6 for a few seconds from a (literal) cold boot. Then it quickly falls back to 800MHz. You can see on the second screen shot that it wasn't even loaded long enough to fill the graphs on activity monitor before it fell back, I noticed and pressed cmd+shift+3... It's been to Apple a couple of times and it passes their tests - basically it's prime95 stable. They don't seem to get that even though it passes the tests, it does it so very slowly and prevents me doing basic things - like iChat video and all that jazz. See, my end game here is that they'll just put a new heatsink on the thing and it'll stay at 1.6 long enough for me to watch a DVD. At the moment they won't do it on warranty because it's normal and no PC will run at full frequency Crazy speak. The cost to pay for them to do it is pretty crazy. I'll give those resets a shot now, once the kettle's boiled! Oh, and the external fan thing... Yeah, that helps, I don't have a proper one for a laptop - I just sit a big deskfan next to it and it seems to help. But y'know how it is, you buy an expensive laptop, you don't expect to carry around a deskfan to use it
Extreme thermal throttling? Go into Vista and run Coretemp or install iStatpro in OS X. What sort of temps are you getting when idle?
Sitting here just watching iStat at idle with a coffee now... CPU: 52c CPU Heatsink: 45c HD: 32c Aiport Card: 35c Enclosure Base: 32c Enclosure Base 2: 32c Enclosure Base 3: 30c Power Supply: 48c Under load, after about 1 minute the CPU hits 90c - I never leave it long enough to actually note down the others! It's just not right, but I don't want to open it, that's Apple's job (at least for now anyway). (Oh, I've not gone Snow Leopard yet... No point on an 800MHz huh? - I try to keep smiling)
90c within one minute without any particular load... I'd say that is reason enough to have Apple send you a replacement laptop if they've already tried to "fix" it twice before. I can't believe that you cannot somehow get through to tech support to explain all the maladies caused by too rapid overheating. It is reasonable that your machine should be capable of taking advantage of more than 50% CPU speed for more than just 2 minutes. Back to Apple I say.
Yeah, they say it's normal, which is why I'm after some screenshots to show them otherwise. The problem is, once they say it's normal, it seems to be set in stone. I've only spoken to one of the guys who ran the tests. When I tried to explain 'I think it's speedstep coming in to protect it from heat', he asked what speedstep was... I told him Intel's thing for saving battery and if your heatsink falls off, to save your CPU. He actually said 'Ahhh, dam Microsoft magic'!!!! I seem to be stuck in a loop - "There's nothing wrong with it, you can send it to be verified, but they'll charge you £60 if it's normal"... It goes away a month... Comes back... "Everything's fine, you can't expect the CPU to work at full speed". Start again! Sorry, now I'm just venting at you people! Sorrry!!
A bit late reply..: How about trying Apple forums or perhaps see if you can somehow get hold of someone at a higher level than "Oh Intel Microsoft thingamagic workin' that for ya". I'd keep on insisting to speak to someone who knows what the heck he's dealing with. I completely concur with your diagnosis and there is only Apple to fix the issue. They might try a replacement of your mainboard. Don't let the man get you! Fight the Steveness!
No worries on the late reply! I ended up with 12 examples of machines working perfectly before taking it to them in the end. But they said they don't accept my research, as it was not conducted by Apple. It's such a long story now. Apple Care have basically said no. I've spent a long time trying to test and show them evidence etc etc. Basically it passes the Apple Hardware Tests (which they admit doesn't test for the issue) and the 'techincal people' say that it's perfectly normal. I got passed then to customer relations, which wouldn't allow any 'techincal' talk who told me there was nothing more they would do. I've asked them to clarify what other laptops (or macbooks even) that throttle under load. I've shown them the Steve Jobs speech about how the thermal profile is high enough, but they say they don't compare models. I shown them Intel documents stating thermal monitor should not be used to make up for underperforming heatsinks, but they state it's an Apple laptop not an Intel laptop. Since they say they think it could be that particular software, I ran the same tests with 5 other programs in 3 different operating systems. But they said they don't support anything but OS X and there's no supported test for the issue. Finally they said that if I am not happy with a machine which can only run at these speeds I should seek legal advice against the Apple Store where I bought it. As in, tough luck, we've got your cash, you get a solicitor. Nice huh? Ohhh, but they did say they'll look it on a software basis, so I started with why I can't video chat. Here I have to contact my internet supplier. So I asked why dock was slow, they said switch off, wait for the machine to cool and try again.... .... I got bored with that, as I know it won't fix it. Anyway, it seems I'll be forced into county court action. I'll keep you posted though.
Wow.... That's really rotten customer service from Apples side. What amazes me here is that any Apple representative from the UK worth his salary should have picked up on this and helped you get a replacement. It's just ridiculous. You should hang on to the argument that the machine won't even play a DVD. Heck my GFs old Ibook G5 800Mhz will play a DVD with no probs. As to the "oh the dock is slow? Well turn the machine off" part... That's just so pathetic reasoning I wouldn't know weather to laugh or cry if I had that discussion. It would be a far fetch but I might know someone who knows someone etc etc... I'll see if I can pull some strings to get you in contact with the proper people at Apple but please don't hold your breath . Court action is just always such a hassle. Especially since this is all down to Apple first level support not behaving right.
