If a MacBook Pro runs hot or shows high kernel CPU, try charging it on the right
apple.stackexchange.com
apple.stackexchange.com
And I've noticed the hub got really unstable whenever the CPU fans would go wild. Looks like it was the controller overheating due to the shitty thermals that Jony Ive's Apple seems to keep pushing out. (Still the Apple of today).
Now that I've switched my ports in a different config, so far I've had no crashes in the last 2 days.
I swear, I wish I didn't love macOS so much (or wasn't so heavily invested in it), or I'd happily ditch it for a really powerful thermally cooled desktop and use that as my machine. WSL makes this more palatable, but the unparalleled retina support on macOS, my 15 years of using it, and just habits built up, keeps me from leaving. (I felt the same way when I first moved from windows to macOS, but it was in my early 20s and I had lots of time to play with the OS)
I also use Regolith Linux, which is a noob-friendly tiling window manager version of Ubuntu, and it feels so slick with multiple monitors.
You can call me too incompetent or whatever but I’ve been running into stupidly obscure bugs that even stumped some of my Linux guru friends.
Just as one example of many, when the device is connected to a Thunderbolt display the Intel wifi driver crashes and restarts periodically which freezes USB input for about 15 seconds every time. This issue persisted across different Linux distributions, kernels and firmware versions.
Don’t ask how long it took to figure this out. I have now connected a USB wifi dongle to the displays USB hub.
I really miss the plug+play nature of macOS, I think Linux has it advantages and it might be better on desktops but it’s just been horrible for me on a laptop. I might have to try a MacBook plus a fast Linux desktop next.
No, you're not incompetent. As usual, manufacturers are putting weird features into their laptops that the Linux drivers and userspace can't keep up with - e.g. the debacle that is the Nvidia Prime gpu switching tech for low power vs high performance modes. Simply doesn't work most of the time, leaving you scratching your head. UEFI related woes are also common as we finally deal with having to give up on a decent experience with legacy boot.
At this point the wise person buys a laptop with official Linux support out of the box. It helps you and it helps the community (vote with your dollars!).
In general, my experience using debian-based distros as a laptop driver have been more or less frictionless. I use an older lenovo thinkpad (x1 carbon, 1st generation, purchased for like $200 secondhand a year and a half ago).
In general, thinkpads have a reputation for having a plug+play linux experience, once you boot for the first time. I'd recommend giving them a try before throwing in the towel, if you have any patience in reserve.
You can get pre-owned (older=more stable linux support) t-series thinkpads with very nice specs, especially if you're willing to trade off display resolution. Plus the parts that die (batteries, ram) are all commodity and replaceable, you could presumably run with the same laptop for a decade, if you're in to that sort of thing.
Linux laptop experience is notorious for weird quirks and instabilities with the hardware. Desktop is a lot smoother.
If you want to go back to macOS because you don't have to be "lucky" to get a laptop that plays nice, I don't blame you. But for me, the tradeoffs to stay on Linux have been minimal and absolutely worth it.
I had to jump into windows for a few things last month, and WSL2 on windows has become pretty good and bearable, the Docker beta support for WSL2 also really good... seems to use a bit more memory than I recall. But linux cli with a Windows GUI has been surprisingly bearable... Remote (wsl/ssh) extensions for VS Code invaluable as well.
If you have to do a demo in a different room, it's a pain. Your best bet is usually to use another laptop. Same thing if you want to have a call in a quiet place and want to check emails/reference during the call.
Work from home is also easier, you don't have to use 2 computers or carry your tower (though currently that's viable).
At work, I'm on a dock... at home, I'm on a 4k-kvm switch... so I'm not really using the laptop but for a lighter computers... Just got bumped to 32gb ram, which is most of the laptop bottleneck. Though my personal system (r9 3950x) is much faster than the laptop (i7 8550u) both on 1tb nvme.
Without going into people who are often on the road, many folks I know like working on the same computer at the office and at home.
It's usually easier to carry a laptop than a desktop. Even though there are many very small desktops nowadays (see HP's elitedesk mini - though it looks like a laptop without an screen, so I'm not sure it's that much more powerful) the laptop has usually fewer cables to unplug so it's generally less of a pain.
Another angle is that for many people a laptop has enough power for the activities they do and being portable is a real plus. I'm typing this on a 2013 MBP in my bed. This laptop might be slow compared to a modern mid-range desktop, but it's not tethered to a fixed spot. When I need to do serious work, I can plug a 4K screen and external keyboard and have the desktop experience.
On the rare occasion when I need a lot of power for some task, I'll usually fire up some outrageous ec2 instance for an hour or two. It will also have better network connectivity, which allows me to work comfortable over my parents' DSL line too.
I guess it all comes down to usage patterns. If you always use your computer on the same desk and never have the need to move it, I guess a desktop is a more effective use of funds. But many people seem to enjoy being able to carry the computer on a sofa, in the kitchen, etc.
They got rid of the desktop PCs and gave us all crappy laptops (they took a few years to catch up in power to what we had) and the argument was they could not ensure a secure environment on random home PCs. They were probably angling towards a hot-desk setup too but most people have a dedicated desk still.
I definitely preferred the old setup. I just struggle do any meaningful work at all on a laptop, I need to plug it in to a screen but I can't dedicate that space so normally just put up with it rather than unplug my home setup.
They do provide docks in the office but unfortunately a few different generations of HP laptops are around so you might need to search for the right one.
Meanwhile, the MS Surface I'm typing this on has a blurry Task Manager and unreadable notifications because 75% of them fall off my Full HD screen.
Fractional scaling seems to be quite a mess, at least in KDE it breaks a lot of layouts.
The 3700X is a mid-high range offering btw. 3600 and 3600X (which isn’t wotth) is midrange.
Thanks
Which laptop do you use? I tried to switch from my just-post-Intel MacBook Pro to the Lenovo X220 several years ago, figuring Linux support + IBM quality (they had been fairly newly bought out) would give me a solid machine. Turns out several stuck pixels on the monitor and a keyboard on which some keys didn't work were officially regarded as within acceptable quality range. (Plus, I hated the trackpad, but that's my preference rather than a hardware issue.)
But since that time Apple more focused on phones, desktop OS didn't get much better. The only thing they are doing is more and more cloud integration to lock you in the Apple ecosystem. I got tired of that.
Now I prefer to use Regolith Linux, because it's much better for the development to have a Linux system with proper package management, without messing with the brew.
The distro is insanely fast, and you can almost forget about a mouse with i3. It also is really minimalistic, and default settings are really good. I didn't have any urge to change anything.
And it works really great on Thinkpad laptops which have an amazing keyboard. For home, I am using NUC Hades Canyon with last-get desktop i7 processor which a bought for 300$ and you know what, it's at least 2 times fast comparing 2019 MacBook Pro 15'. RIP mac mini. All drivers installed out of the box, even wifi and external sound card works without any notch.
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2019/06/install-regolith-linux-i...
I was you at this time about two years ago. Exact same thing. Fed up with Apple hardware bullshit, and with their pricing. With Apple in general. I had a sick iMac (as sick as an iMac can be, I mean). Loved and was invested in OSX. But something tipped the scales. Can't remember what specifically, but I said "fuck it" and put the machine on Craigslist. Got a buyer immediately, and lost very little money on a three year old machine. Took the cash, plus a little more, and built a PC. A liquid cooled PC. An egregious, so-ugly-it's-kinda-neat monster with tubes and a radiator and fans and the whole deal. I run Windows 10 Pro and Ubuntu. Neither is perfect for me. Windows especially can be maddening. My personal pet peeve is the lack of powerful device search -- in OSX, I could use Spotlight or better yet Alfred to look inside PDFs, for example. SOL on that in W10.
But it was worth it. My AMD-powered PC smokes anything in my Zip code, I'm pretty sure, and it's more than enough for my work needs (and my work does actually put the thing through its paces.)
I miss OSX, but not enough to go back.
And curious, do you dual boot Ubuntu, or do you use WSL? My biggest gripe with Windows is the insufferable terminal. But WSL fixes that, and WSL 2.0 is going to have full platform Docker support as well.
Now that Apple insists on proprietary chips, has horrible thermal throttling, got rid of the MagSafe charger, and regressed on keyboard experience, I can’t say I’ll buy another MacBook if my current one dies.
I have both WSL and dual boot, but I dual boot way more. This is likely because I am a command line idiot, and never got fully fluent with navigating my computing life using one. It's high on my list of skills to master in life, because I know what a force multiplier it can be, but I haven't gotten around to it. I mostly use Linux to write, weirdly enough: from org mode to LaTeX to statistics coding, it's a smooth experience - again because it's pretty "just the basics" and does them well. I have no actual need for Linux - I'd be fine with just windows. I guess it's more aspirational on my part.
Apple's moves: yeah man, they're taking that walled garden shit to serious extremes. I know there's a logic to it that works for them, so I don't begrudge them their choices necessarily. But I did really like the company for a long time, so it's a bummer to see them the way they are now.
X1 Search [0] is lightning-fast, results-as-you-type, and searches inside every file and in all of your email and attachments. Not just what's open in your mail client but also email archive files. I have email archives back to 2000, and the lookup is still instant.
X1 is actually one of the two things that had me switch back to Windows the two times I've gone all in on a switch to Mac. (Ironically back then the motivation was Apple's hardware was much better.)
Not content search, but for general file search, Everything[0] is indispensable. I have it bound to Win-Shift-F.
I have a mid 2012 MB air that I still love. Screen isn't nearly as nice, but I use it over the MBP because the keyboard isn't like typing on cement and I can actually use it on my lap without feeling like its actively trying to burn my balls off. In all fairness though, I have a XPS 9560 and 9360 and both overheat and throttle like crazy and require throttle stop. Lone cowboy admin for a small company so I've got a pile of laptops.
I'm legitimately curious. I've used OS X a bit, but am primarily a windows/linux user.
In 20+ years of computer use, I've never wanted this facility. I actually take the option of removing the search indexing system from windows 7 (where you still could), and just used everything's filename search. On W10, I deliberately disable/break cortana/search so it doesn't run all the time.
Out of curiosity, what do you use a file-aware search facility for?
With the exception of the big famous names (famous for the 13 of us in our niche, anyway), I rarely remember those studies' authors, nor the titles of the papers most of the time - i.e. the data encoded in the filename. But I do remember certain phrases, numbers, and the like that they use in the body of the paper - in other words, the material that actually interests me. File content search for PDFs and other text allows me to enter one of these snippets and find the paper in question without having to spend minutes upon minutes scratching my head about "who was that lady at NYU ... or was it a guy at Berkeley"?
Do you have experience with doing the Hackintosh thing at all?
With that said, I have been noticing more and more people building these insanely powerful desktop machines (a lot of times for less than a MacBook Pro) to keep at home.
Here is where it gets interesting - then the same group of people start walking around with a burner Chromebook that was bought on the cheap with nothing more than a shell with SSH or just simply remote into their desktop via apache guacamole.
Technology is pretty neat.
Equivalent setups with Windows and Mac are sub-optimal since there is only so much you can hack the window manager to do what you want. But you do need to go through some legwork and a learning curve get Linux working for you.
Definitely a better experience than I remember a year and a half or so ago. The new MS terminal works pretty well, and the Docker WSL2 support is very seamless. VS Code with WSL extensions works great. I spend most of my time in that space and have had so few issues.
Note: editing \\wsl$ files in windows is a little slow, same for wsl editing mounted windows drives... but in the sandbox has been really great.
I returned my 2018 Mac Mini because I was frustrated with all the constraints:
- eGPU required a PC-like external chassis, totally defeating the point of the Mini.
- Want to upgrade the storage? You need an external drive chassis and a free TB3 port.
- Only 2 type-A USB ports
I got fed up with it and returned the Mini.
So, I ended up building a really nice mini-ITX Hackintosh for the same price as what I paid for the Mini. It's got a couple NVMe sticks in it, and a 10tb hdd. The whole thing is about the same size as an eGPU chassis alone. It's quiet, it stays cool, and is relatively rock-solid.
That was almost 18 months ago and I still don't regret it a bit.
It's the "Mac" for me.
But laptops are a lot trickier. You need drivers (or patches) for a lot of extra hardware (your trackpad, your battery-level-reader, the screen brightness controller, etc); you need sleep and cpu power management to work; you usually can’t just swap out the wifi card with a Mac-compatible one, etc.
It can absolutely be done, but you need to do a lot of research on compatibility beforehand. And as a result, you may discover your options aren’t really all that much better than they were in Real Mac land.
I would go for it (ie start doing research) only if there’s something specific you really want in a laptop that Apple simply doesn’t offer. A touch screen, for instance.
It would work if I kept this laptop as my backup (can't stop working for a day or two while I fix all that stuff).
Also, if you’re on Hackintosh, Apple isn’t touching your bootloader!
I still use MBP for travelling but not when at home.
W/ the new ARM news coming out, I kinda wonder if the Intel line is on life support and Mac engineering attention is all-in on the new ARM macs?
I have 3 cables hooked up. First is for the apple TB3 to TB2 adapter so I can reuse my TB2 hub. Second is a USB C to DisplayPort cable for my second 4k monitor (cuz I couldn't run both 4Ks off the hub), and the third is power.
What are you referring to? Windows has hires, wide gamut support.
If you are talking about the icon mess that Windows is nowadays, then I agree. But I hardly care about icons in the operating system.
If you want a powerful system, an 8-core 16-thread Zen2 Ryzen with an RTX 2080 Super is a beast for the same kind of prices you get a Macbook Pro.
macOS and mac apps support high-DPI essentially flawlessly. On Windows even system dialogs have blurry text, as do many third-party apps (such as Mathematica until the very latest release).
The problem is that Windows has way better backwards compatibility, while Apple routinely kills old tech. So app developers have to keep up, which is good for the user.
On the other hand, of course, you can still run very old apps in Windows, while Apple does not even support 32-bit, modern OpenGL or Vulkan.
I also think that Apple's decision to only support 1x or 2x to be the right choice. It's the wild west on Windows when it comes to high DPI. Half the UI in windows is either scaled up to "retina" and the other half is tiny boxes or text. As a result, objects are always the "correct" size relative to other objects around it.
The problem you describe is probably old applications which haven’t been properly updated to support hi-res. If they do custom drawing or controls or frameworks, Windows cannot do anything to fix it.
I do have very few icons in a normally hidden taskbar but as I set their size to tiny they have no particular look at all. I just distinguish them by color pattern.
Not sure what problems you have with dragging. I have 2 32" 4K monitors hooked up (one is vertical position) and do not experience any particular problems.
Most of these things have probably been fixed, but I'm not sure. Windows devs?
I have two monitors and windows scales apps equally on both even though one is 5120x1440 and the other is 1080p. The result is that I either pick small icons on the big monitor or big icons on the small monitor.
Then again, maybe it won't be so bad. Worth a try at some point just setting up a couple of my elixir and ember projects to run off WSL2.
And all the software "just works" at this resolution nicely.
> Apple says "we are listening now, and here is a new cooling design," then it comes out to be even less adequate that the old one. I can't think of anybody else capable of trolling up their customers like that.
Apple's thermal engineering is simply bad, and doing it bad is a company policy.
There are no other believable explanation to me. Apple been promising to fix their thermal design for years on end, with each year's model being supposed to have better thermals than the previous one, but in reality all their designs were consistently crappy.
The only explanation to that for me is that they took thermals as a subtle marketing feature, just like makers of laptops with crappy batteries always find ways to draw battery life from thin air.
Correctness of this statement is only notional.
All of their current models can have much better thermals without increasing their bulk if they actually tried to make it so. Quite number of other makers have superior thermals in even thinner packages, and, more importantly, cheaper ones.
So far, none of their recent models show a single sign of thermal engineering being being done as such. Their 16 inch model has a thermal solution I would only see in a $300 white label laptop. Yes, they added few extra millimetres to fans, but at the same time they still use the same single skinny heatpipe, and tiny radiators.
And all of that is when they have access to the best parts, and fabrication services on the market. If you look closely on their BOM, they have many surprisingly low spec parts, and very minimalistic, spartan design decision.
Thermal zones in servers is a good example of low physical footprint and high density power consumption that cools quite well. The engineering effort being spent on a good thermal solution can cause a device that is thin to outperform a thicker device.
It's just that Apple does not seem to be spending the resources there.
Yes. And it's not even a subtle marketing feature. Reviewers ogle over internal designs.
But it's also partly in their dna. Landing on the wrong side of compromise is something they've been doing for a long time even in desktops.
Unfortunately, some conditions force the discrete GPU to activate - one of which is "being plugged into an external monitor." Even if you've only got terminals open, the GPU runs real hot with 1% load, and the fans ramp up to match. (This may only be true for some monitors - my work-provided monitor is the Apple Thunderbolt Display).
Sometimes Slack forces the discrete GPU to turn on, for example when clicking on an embedded youtube video. The discrete GPU will remain in use until Slack is restarted. Other applications sometimes behave similarly - I use https://gfx.io/ to see what applications are forcing it on.
Perhaps the cooling engineering is better, but the practical effects of it make me miss my 13" laptop.
Had something similar with AMD (desktop) GPU some years ago. It wouldn't go to the lower power states if my desktop refresh rate was set above 119 Hz. So it would be hot and fairly loud. So I ended up using 119 Hz on the desktop and configure games to use 144 Hz.
I also noticed that the video card wouldn't decrease the RAM clock rate significantly, but when on the desktop reducing the RAM clock a lot had a very noticeable impact on heat and no measurable performance degradation. The answer I got for that was that it was tricky to dynamically scale the RAM to such a degree (IIRC I set it to half normal speed). I ended up using an overclocking tool with profiles, worked fine.
My XPS 15 had a similar issue where turning on the GPU made it heat up and become loud - actually the discrete GPU offered no performance increase because the heat made everything throttle....... sad! At least I could use an external monitor with that one though.
It's just a limitation of the laptop form factor. My desktop has a 45 watt processor, same as the i7s, and it has a huge block of metal and a 120mm fan to keep it cool quietly (but still audible under load). There's no way to fit a 45w CPU and 45w GPU into a laptop and make it work.
I manually disable Intel Turbo boost now though. And for some reason when I start up my laptop it can reach around 90 degrees C if I have a bunch of things open (I guess it turbos when it is restoring previous apps open) but that makes sense though.
I wish they’d make a thicker laptop with more room inside, but that’s just not what they do.
Apple aren't stuffing a third party CPU into an inadequate cooling solution with the iPhone because there isn't one. If there was an equivalent to i7/i9 in terms of mindshare in the mobile market I wouldn't be suprised if Apple released a phone with a low clocked and badly cooled one of those too.
Some releases have been worse than others, this would be my favourite example: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Pro-15-Core-i9-s...
I feel like the top answer is missing the forest for the trees. If the temperature of the chassis rises past 100 degrees because a peripheral was plugged in, and degrades performance if all of the peripheral ports are in use... that's not a usable computer.
Edit: Ah, 100F is 37C, so that's not so bad.
I was running Windows 7 in Bootcamp and I wanted to set up Gentoo Linux in a virtual machine for some Linux work I needed to do
I left the machine on my desk to compile a kernel. Basic wooden desk, nothing underneath or around it. No problems there
Roughly 5 minutes later, the system had reached what Speccy reported to be a scorching 117 degrees celsius! (242.6F)
I immediately shut it down and left it to cool off, then asked around on an IRC full of various flavours of IT people (programmers etc)
The horrifying answers I got were that this was INTENTIONAL and that "the system acts as a giant heat sink" which is why it didn't power off after crossing a threshold
As far as I understand it, running it under Bootcamp also disabled any kind of thermal throttling and forced the more power hungry "Radeon" graphics chip to be used, further adding to the problem
The top cover part between the touch bar and the screen regularly runs so hot that touching it really hurts. Can't leave my hand on there for more than a second or two. Ran all sorts of diagnostics and according to those everything is fine.(MBP 2017)
Note that was back in 2009. Macbook thermals: not good.
Edit: Well TIL there is an awful lot of heat to get rid of.
What is annoying:
- runs extremely hot, easily
- fans are often on full force albeit nothing special is happening
- before buying the ridiculously expensive AirPods Pro, re-connecting them (normal AirPods) after a disconnect often required a system reboot (to the point I’ve made the reboot part of my pre-meeting schedule)
- connecting external devices usually requires adapters. With them too, when the adapter stopped working usually it helped connecting it on the right side (Reboots weren’t helping)
- for some reason the adapter would work on the left side again after some time
- as soon as I connect the external screen (not even a retina one) the fans go louder
- time machine is a PITA. Every time it runs fans are blaring up, machine gets hot - even system is getting significantly slower. Even if it just backs up a diff of 150MB. And it runs multiple times a day, with no option of configuration other than no auto-backup at all.
- Window’s decade old window management via shortcuts still doesn’t exist in macOs (you have to install a third party tool for that)
To add a contrasting datapoint, my (gen 2) AirPods have been virtually flawless for a year or so with my 15" 2017 MBP.
Did you try resetting your Bluetooth stack? https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/reset-mac-bluetooth-module/
After reading that, nothing I read about USBC surprises me. Sounds like another spec for vendors to abuse and ignore.
0: https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/03/could_switchs_non-...
USB-C is a complete mess. I can’t believe Apple dropped MagSafe for this. They could’ve made all the io ports type C but kept MagSafe for charging with an optional chargeable type C port on the right side.
It is solid metal with lots of airflow underneath.
I have a 2018 13" Macbook Pro.
(I'm in no way affiliated with Roost, I'm just a happy customer.)
Roost: https://www.amazon.com/Roost-Laptop-Stand-Adjustable-Portabl...
Thick aluminum or copper seems more rare, I don't know if it's commonly produced.
You're not trying to move huge amounts of air, since heat transfer from the laptop to the air is pretty slow. You just need enough movement to clear out any hot air that is building up under the laptop.
Also, if the overheating issues are true then macOS should issue a warning when charging from an unsuitable port.
It doesn't seem to be an issue with the port being unsuitable - the SE post mentions[1] that the right side similarly increases in temperature significantly when in use. It just doesn't trigger the same throttling behavior.
Looking at an iFixit teardown[2], the ssd chips are located next to the left thunderbolt controller. I wonder if that may be why temperature spikes on the left side trigger more aggressive temperature management than spikes on the right.
[1] Quote: Note that high temperature on the right side appears to be ignored by the OS. Plugging everything into the two right ports instead of the left raised the Right temperatures to over 100 degrees, without the fans coming on.
[2] https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Touch+Ba...
And before USB-C and Thunderbolt, "Just because a cable looks like it'll fit" DID mean it will work, at least for what an end-user would have been likely to face.
More interestingly: it was posted, but barely discussed, in 2018: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17843277.
> Note that high temperature on the right side appears to be ignored by the OS. Plugging everything into the two right ports instead of the left raised the Right temperatures to over 100 degrees, without the fans coming on. No kernel_task either, but the machine becomes unusable from something throttling.
It's fine because in that situation it's on a stand on my work desk and it's noticeably cooler when not runnig the externals when it's on my lap.
Lovely hardware and it was a good move to switch to a Mac because the team I run had already standardised on macs when I joined the team but its one thing that makes me wish I'd stuck to an equivalent Thinkpad/Fedora if I'm honest.
I'm dreading the day MacOS formally blocks kernel extensions.
Ref : https://marco.org/2020/01/13/macos-low-power-mode-redux
Until Apple does this, I'm happy with my Turbo Boost Switcher Pro purchase.
I think the biggest thing I would miss is being able to send texts from my computer. I use that all the time. I and a Windows computer at work for a bit and it absolutely drove me nuts.
Is that a typo?
If not: I'm intrigued! Which monitor is it?
Admittedly my use-case is niche, but I wouldn’t be surprised about similar things happening with other devices.
Runs freaking hot when driving a 4k monitor through thunderbolt. The secondary GPU seems to be the problem.
I didn’t have this issue with my 15 inch retina Macbook pro through mini Displaport.
Crazy.
My work from home setup has me on the left side, instead of right.
Switched sides back, it's left me alone.
It's -crazy- to think this is a real issue.
I tried foil, but it didn't help except when it was connected to ground.
I have an LG Ultrafine 5k connected via thunderbolt. In order to use my machine for anything even mildly intensive while the monitor is plugged in, I've resorted to a 5-fan laptop cooling stand and a medium-sized personal cooling fan sitting next to it.
I do live in a warm climate, but this is ridiculous.
The only thing I can think of other than it being shitty thermal design is that the cable is dodgy, easily losing signal if moved the wrong way. Is this something that could affect it? I'm planning to order a new cable but I've seen so many reports of thunderbolt ports getting to hot and triggering the dreaded kernel_task I'm not optimistic.
I found a tool called Mac Fan Control, which lets you change the thresholds at which the fans kick in. I've been using it for a good while now. Laptop runs louder, but cooler.
Today my machine slogged to a crawl, became basically unusable to the point of restart -- I don't remember which port the power was plugged into, but this definitely shed some light on the issue. Fan Control wasn't running, incidentally.
[1] https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/16-is-hot-noisy-with-an...
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/g5lvbc/15_fla...
I wonder if this is the reason my MBP would get sluggish while kernel_task uses a surprising amount of CPU? I always blamed the corporate spyware/antivirus. Maybe I was just charging it wrong
Been driving me mad till I hacked my dock to fit on the right side and connected power on the left, which resulted in better airflow and lower heat generation by the controllers....
This happens to me as well while charging if the battery is below ~50%. Start recharging above 50 and it doesn't happen. At some point I took it to an Apple store for an unrelated issue and they told me that their diagnostics flagged a faulty sensor in the internal charging circuitry. I haven't sent it back yet for repair because of the turnaround time involved, but consider that it could be related.
I recall this being an issue with 2016 and 2017 models (edit: just the 13" models), not sure about more recent ones.
Seriously, I know my Mac is a little old (2015 pre-Touchbar) but that doesn't mean I need to suffer like this w/ kernel_task eating 1,324% of my available CPU just because it's getting a little hot.
Other routes taken:
- Get a Fan App to keep the fans running at max 24/7, meh
- Take the risk of bricking my one and only dev machine by disabling the kernel_task process altogether, no thanks
No, just one nice ice pack with a cute tea towel on top, makes for a nice stand that keeps the aluminum unibody thingy nice and cool, sigh
It has PID 0 and is part of the kernel. AFAIK you can't disable it (unless you build your own kernel).
Again, I haven't done this, too scared ;D
[0] https://blog.viktorpetersson.com/2016/01/03/how-to-fix-kerne...
I figured it was the blanket restricting airflow (which I'm sure is still a big contributor). Interesting stuff.
Quick summary of my experience: It turned out TB3 chip is on the left side by the power plug and was warming up too much by having both power and accessories flowing thru it for the internal fans to be able to cool off, and the OS was spinning up phantom kernel_task cycles to attempt to slow and cool down the computer.
In my case case I was waiting for an 87W TB3 docking station to come along, and was in the meantime running 2 external monitors off the left side using Apple's dongles.
This looks like the post that saved my sanity. Apple has a pretty serious design flaw in its MacBooks.
For years OS X (macOS?) has been my go-to, but lately I find myself wondering why I’m paying such a premium for what amounts to some nice-but-problematic hardware and an OS with a bolted-on package manager. To develop iPhone apps I guess?
I see some good points in this thread (e.g. iMessage). Maybe I’m just getting old. I’d rather just have a ThinkPad or an EliteBook running Ubuntu or, sigh, Windows. (I’m not a Windows fan but at least it doesn’t feel like it’s regressing like the Mac experience has been.)
Maybe I am just crazy but I had to go back and use XP for a few days for a project I’m working on (long story). After being on it and going back to 10 I honestly miss it in a lot of ways.
The UX on Xp was so clear, I still know where all the settings are and how to use them. I felt so in control. Now on Windows there are like 10 different settings menus with completely different design languages. I can’t find anything without search (and search is a disaster in and of itself). I can’t control updates well and in the last year there have been multiple updates that borked machines.
"Please, Mr. Computer, can I do some work now?"
"I say theee NAY! For I must now proceed to install 20 minutes of updates and I will also not shutdown. HAR! HAR!"
I also don’t understand the idea that MacOS has been regressing, it seems like a weird hivemind take around here lately.
MacOS has had a bad run, though. It is substantially buggier than it used to be - I see far more weird silent failures than I have in a long time (pre-Snow Leopard), bad performance in some cases, etc.
And then there is all the Catalina security-related breakage. Maybe that will work out for the bulk of users, but it broke the platform for me. That's the reason I don't see myself paying for another.
Then add the silliness (thankfully behind us) with the butterfly keyboards on the MacBooks.
I can’t speak for the rest of us, but between the glitchy (for me) experience with Catalina and some of the unwelcome (to me) changes around SIP, I definitely feel less and less happy every time I sit down to do work on my Mac.
Something always seems to break for me on macOS updates. Often it's related to third-party software, but it still feels like a regression for me.
For Catalina:
* I use Karabiner-Elements for keyboard customization. Since Catalina, hitting capslock will randomly stop the keyboard from working until the OS is rebooted. My solution has been to remove my capslock key to avoid inadvertent presses.
* Since iTunes was removed, Apple Music no longer works with Firefly Media Server. This means that any NAS device with iTunes library support can no longer serve that library to macOS. My solution has been to give up playing music on macOS, since I can't find any software for the relatively simple use case of "play my pre-organized folder from this artist in chronological order by album".
* Left or right side relative to what? Is it my right when looking at the laptop screen?
* Does this have any implications for reliability of Bluetooth transmitters? I use a mouse and keyboard that both plug into a USB-C hub, and sometimes have issues with mouse tracking, or keystrokes not being registered. My WFH setup has these things plugged in on the opposite side they normally would be, and I think I'm seeing this issue a little more frequently than I was in the office.
[0]: https://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/unifying-receiver-usb [1]: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/io/uni...
* I hope so! I use bluetooth mouse and keyboard, and have had similar issue on my MBP 2019 (the latest one). The issues only seem to crop up when I'm at my desk, with the power plugged in on the left side, and the USB-C hub (for external drives and monitor) on the right side. I now have a tiny bit of hope that swapping power and hub might fix these issues.
Switched to the right side port, CPU usage for kernel_task dropped to around 4-6%.
Switching back, letting it chooch for a while, still hovers around 5% but with more jumps to 6 or 9%. May be down to that side having cooled down a bit.
I'll keep an eye on it, that's pretty interesting.
I 'm having issues even on one of the right side port. I can't use it for anything. If I plug in my monitor, It shows me "USB Accessories Disabled" error. If I plug in my HDD, it just doesn't work. I've tried resetting the SMC and PRAM. Anyone had similar experience ?
Generally I am a big fan of Apple products, but I don't know how they have the gall to ship these things with such hideously disruptive heat issues. Hopefully the new 16" model is the start of a swing back toward sanity.
My work monitor only has 60W USB-C PD anyway (home does 100W).
It doesn't seem there really are brands that can be considered as reliable anymore. Of course Asia has such a big market share on computer parts, it's not surprising that no laptop can work well after 5 years.
My 15" PowerBook in 2001 was 2.4 kg. The 15" MacBook Pro in the linked answer is 1.83 kg. (At their heaviest, they got to about 2.5 kg.) This seems like a lot of trouble for half a kilo (-25%). It also got much thinner over that time, from 2.5 cm to 1.5 cm (-40%).
It's probably a combination of factors. Jony Ive in 2001: "People will have a visceral reaction to its weight and volume."
At work we all use laptops to allow working from home and we're also all hardwired in because there's no way we'd have reliable throughput over wifi with the multitude of employee work & personal devices our network supports.
But when it comes to smartphones, I agree. They are getting thinner and larger, possibly to make it easier to drop and break or something, because I sure don't get it. It's hard to find a good, reliable smartphone that is around 4 inches today so I can hold it without worry with one hand.
Also, sweet money from selling all sorts of adapters (I think by now I spent at least 1/3rd of what I paid my 2017 MBP on dongles, docks.. this one correctly turns on the display on resume, this one doesn't but passes 4k without hiccups, etc)
These days, for most users (you and I included), very rarely if ever is wifi inadequate. If, for speed or security reasons physical ethernet is needed, the adapters are small and cheap.
I don’t understand the dongle hate.
So last year after people kept losing their dongles we starting keeping USB-C dongles always plugged into the cable ends. Adds $20-$40 to every person-facing ethernet outlet, but nobody ever lacks one, and we noticed more people using Ethernet as a result because of how much faster and more stable it is than our wi-fi.
If anyone not new or transient to the office took the dongle off the cable, they got shamed very, very deeply. YMMV (we are a very shame-effective group) but buying 15 dongles once ended up being cheaper than buying 10 dongles, then 5 a few months later, then another 5, then oops we found the 5 that we thought were lost...
Well, I know what you mean, but... I have a macbook for work and when we all converted to work from home, I needed to buy a USB-C ethernet adapter, thunderbolt adapter, and a USB-C to "old" USB adapter, and was shocked to find out that each one was $30-$40. I guess that's cheap in the grand scheme of things, but it would be nice if this stuff was still bundled into the computer.
So yes, I have dongles at my desk and there are stashes of them around the office, but it's still a source of frustration when they go missing, don't work, etc. I know I'm a bit of a special case, but I would definitely still appreciate a computer that was 50% thicker with a proper ethernet port.
I imagine it's probably as much of an inconvenience for everyone who has the port to take off the dongle and worry about losing it as it is an inconvenience for people who need the dongle in the first place. The solution to both seems to be "only distribute laptops that have the ports your business needs for daily work", but unfortunately companies don't seem to agree.
It’s nice only having to plug one thing in when I start working with a monitor.
I don’t need Ethernet when I’m on the go or browsing in bed. Like most people...
Even in 2020, a professional computer is not really professional IMO if it does not have an ethernet jack. Even my wife’s $300 cheapo HP laptop has a drop-down ethernet jack, it adds no thickness. There is no technical or form limiting reason not to have an ethernet jack.
I once had an Asus eeePC, probably the cheapest laptop ever made, and it had a better life span.
I got a MBP 2019 at the end of May 2019 - it was just released a few days before. My USB-C ports on the left of the computer do not power an external monitor, only ports on the right. This doesn't seem to be called out in any specs, but and another MBP 2019, purchased in October... doesn't exhibit that. I feel like I got some weird 'in between' model. I can't find it now, but I'd thought I'd seen something in the 'system report' showing that some powers had more power than others...
It's a little scary just how often xkcd is relevant.
tl;dr: charge on the right, monitors on the left.
Personally I can’t figure out my development workflow on Windows. I tried the Linux subsystem stuff and IO was just too damn slow. 15 minutes to install a few package dependencies. For a while, I ended up running Ubuntu on another machine that I would SSH into for all my side projects just so I have my trusty zshell and all the nice package managers and other build tools.
"For the fiscal year 2019, the company's iPhone business accounted for approximately 54.7% of total sales; the company's Services segment made up approximately 17.7% of revenue; Mac sales generated 9.8% of total revenue; Wearables, Home and Accessories segment comprised 9.4% of the company's sales; the iPad accounted for 8.1% of the company's sales."
https://www.investopedia.com/apple-s-5-most-profitable-lines...
To be distinctive they need to be different and that carries risks, but mostly they pay off very well.