Apple Confirms MacBook Pro Thermal Throttling, Issues Software Fix (theverge.com) 187
An anonymous reader shares a report: For a week, we have been seeing reports that the newly released MacBook Pros run hot, which all kicked off after this video by Dave Lee. They run so hot, in fact, that the very fancy 8th Gen Intel Core processors inside them were throttled down to below their base speed. Apple has acknowledged that thermal throttling is a real issue caused by a software bug, and it's issuing a software update today that is designed to address it.
The company also apologized, writing, "We apologize to any customer who has experienced less than optimal performance on their new systems." Apple claims that it discovered the issue after further testing in the wake of Lee's video, which showed results that Apple hasn't seen in its own testing. In a call with The Verge, representatives said that the throttling was only exhibited under fairly specific, highly intense workloads, which is why the company didn't catch the bug before release. The bug affects every new generation of the MacBook Pro, including both the 13-inch and 15-inch sizes and all of the Intel processor configurations. It does not affect previous generations.
The company also apologized, writing, "We apologize to any customer who has experienced less than optimal performance on their new systems." Apple claims that it discovered the issue after further testing in the wake of Lee's video, which showed results that Apple hasn't seen in its own testing. In a call with The Verge, representatives said that the throttling was only exhibited under fairly specific, highly intense workloads, which is why the company didn't catch the bug before release. The bug affects every new generation of the MacBook Pro, including both the 13-inch and 15-inch sizes and all of the Intel processor configurations. It does not affect previous generations.
Amazing (Score:1, Insightful)
It's amazing how remorseful companies are when they get caught doing something silly :|
Here's a thought:
Fix it before you release it to the public and you won't have to apologize and tarnish your reputation.
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So, what does the software fix do? Throttle the CPU slightly less under heavy load?
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Throttle it/spin fans sooner, so the CPU maintains it's nominal base speed.
Re:Amazing (Score:5, Informative)
According to the official statement from Apple (emphasis mine):
Following extensive performance testing under numerous workloads, we’ve identified that there is a missing digital key in the firmware that impacts the thermal management system and could drive clock speeds down under heavy thermal loads on the new MacBook Pro.
So, it sounds like they forgot to digitally sign their firmware, which led to the fans or whatnot refusing to take orders, which led to the system running far too hot. That's why they're able to fix it with a software update in the first place.
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One of the example fixes that has been published had nothing to do with fans as much as it had to do with limits imposed on the CPU management being setup incorrectly compared to the actual design of the thermal management leading to the CPU to not actually thermally throttle but to engage the power limit throttle despite having current and thermal capacity to spare.
I wouldn't read too much into Apple's official statement in that it looks like it is deliberately dumbed down for consumption by the media.
Re: Amazing (Score:2)
Most likely Intel's code. The entire chipset is Intel, not Apple, they only put the wires in the right places. You can run Windows or Linux on it which would have the same issues.
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Intel's API, not Intel's code. The limits and thermal properties are set entirely by the vendor, not by Intel. Intel provide the chip and the specs and it's up to the vendor to provide the power and thermal solutions, and to set any limits as a result.
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How is this not noticed during initial testing?
Stressing a system is hardly difficult or involving.
It is not noticed when you do not bother to test the system in its final configuration.
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Probably a bit of both.
The specs of these 8th gen chips have 2 something ghz speed with 4 soomething ghz speed max. In general these chips have variable speed, based on thermal. This isn't really new. But unlike the old chips which you could overclock until they melt, there is some safety measures in them.
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Honestly I think being VRM-limited is hilarious regardless of where they are. Only overclockers are supposed to hit that wall.
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They could have used an aluminum case and attached the board to that as a heatsink.
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They could have used an aluminum case and attached the board to that as a heatsink.
What do you think the Unibody Macbook Pro case is made from, anyway?
Idiot.
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A mixture of unobtanium and fairy dust, contributing to its excessive price. It is, in any case, not thermally-coupled to the CPU.
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A laptop is a relativel closed system. I guarantee you the CPU is thermally coupled to the chassis.
Coupling the heatpipe and heatsink assembly to the case on something as large as a laptop is quite hard to do with any kind of decent transfer coefficient. You cant use highly conductive thermal epoxy or not even the manufacturer can disassemble it, and the flex in such a large frame prevents use of thin film solutions like thermal paste or the foil/paste thermal pads used in high power density servers.
If you take a look at iFixIt's teardowns you'll see little to no coupling between the expensively produced metal case and the heatpipe assembly.
How do I make a claim for the guarantee you've offered? I would like my money back if possible. Please transfer 0 bitcoin to my wallet address.
One way it has been done in the past in high performance desktop replacement laptops is to use a very large area flat heap pipe to couple to the case. This is not an option for Apple due to their quest for thinness at any cost and they do not make desktop replacement laptops anyway.
If they coupled just the CPU and I assume GPU, it would create an uncomfortable hot spot.
Re:Amazing (Score:5, Informative)
It's amazing how remorseful companies are when they get caught doing something silly :|
Here's a thought:
Fix it before you release it to the public and you won't have to apologize and tarnish your reputation.
It was actually Intel's fault. They didn't change the TDP for the 6-core CPUs. MacRumors has a more complete (and less biased) Report, encompassing three Articles:
https://www.macrumors.com/2018... [macrumors.com]
https://www.macrumors.com/2018... [macrumors.com]
https://www.macrumors.com/2018... [macrumors.com]
Fortunately, it didn't require a hardware rev. to fix...
Kudos to Apple for getting right on this issue, instead of issuing denials. No "You're holding it wrong" here!
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"It was actually Intel's fault. They didn't change the TDP for the 6-core CPUs."
The i9 SKU was intentionally designed to have the same TDP as the 4-core i7 SKU.
Not changing the TDP isn't a mistake, it's the entire point. None of the MacRumors articles you link to support your implication that not changing the TDP was a fault.
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"It was actually Intel's fault. They didn't change the TDP for the 6-core CPUs."
The i9 SKU was intentionally designed to have the same TDP as the 4-core i7 SKU.
Not changing the TDP isn't a mistake, it's the entire point. None of the MacRumors articles you link to support your implication that not changing the TDP was a fault.
From the first MacRumors article:
https://www.macrumors.com/2018... [macrumors.com]
"These conditions may be presenting themselves due to the new six-core design of the i9 CPU featured here. While Intel increased the core count of the CPU, they did not increase the thermal design power (TDP), or the amount of dissipated power manufacturers should plan to have to cool for a proper CPU design. This is an issue because this number usually reflects normal usage, and does not account for turbo modes. It's also likely it can excee
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"Sure sounds like an engineering oversight on Intel's part to me."
You are still assuming that the part does not meet the TDP specified, rather than Apple failing to load the correct V-F curves for that SKU via firmware.
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"Sure sounds like an engineering oversight on Intel's part to me."
You are still assuming that the part does not meet the TDP specified, rather than Apple failing to load the correct V-F curves for that SKU via firmware.
V-F curves?
Voltage/Frequency???
Well, whatever it was, the Patch seems to have pretty much fixed the issue:
https://www.macrumors.com/2018... [macrumors.com]
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"It was actually Intel's fault. They didn't change the TDP for the 6-core CPUs."
The i9 SKU was intentionally designed to have the same TDP as the 4-core i7 SKU.
Not changing the TDP isn't a mistake, it's the entire point. None of the MacRumors articles you link to support your implication that not changing the TDP was a fault.
Not changing the TDP isn't a mistake, it's the entire point.
But the TDP did change and Intel evidently lied about it. Come on. In which universe does a 4 core part have the same TDP as an 8 core part, other things being equal?
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"In which universe does a 4 core part have the same TDP as an 8 core part, other things being equal?"
You do die level cherry picking to fit a small volume top bin, the same way you get i7 SKUs with the same core count and TDP but slower clocks.
The old 4 core i7-7920HQ has a core clock of 3.1 GHz and a TDP of 45W: https://ark.intel.com/products... [intel.com]
The new 6 core i9-8950HK has a core clock of 2.9GHz and a TDP of 45W: https://ark.intel.com/products... [intel.com]
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If you actually read any of those links everyone is blaming apple not intel.
According to this intelligent-sounding Slashdot user, there was an errata in the CPU datasheet.
https://apple.slashdot.org/com... [slashdot.org]
People are stupid. They blame Apple for EVERYthing.
Or are you new here?
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According to this intelligent-sounding Slashdot user, there was an errata in the CPU datasheet.
https://apple.slashdot.org/com... [slashdot.org]
People are stupid. They blame Apple for EVERYthing.
Apple is blamed because Apple deserves to be blamed. Apple shipped this product without testing it and/or ignored the test results.
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According to this intelligent-sounding Slashdot user, there was an errata in the CPU datasheet.
https://apple.slashdot.org/com... [slashdot.org]
People are stupid. They blame Apple for EVERYthing.
Apple is blamed because Apple deserves to be blamed. Apple shipped this product without testing it and/or ignored the test results.
Listen to yourself.
Do you REALLY think Apple did either of those things?
Re:Amazing (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if it was an error in the Intel data-sheet, didn't Apple actually *test* this machine under load before they released it?
Did they not see for themselves that there was severe thermal throttling going oin and say "that's not right" - before sending it back to the lab for some changes?
It would appear not.
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Where did you get all that from? The articles you linked to only say
While there were many theories as to what was causing the throttling, Apple has discovered that there was a missing digital key in the firmware that impacted the thermal management system, driving down clock speeds under heavy thermal loads. This is what has been addressed in today's update.
No idea what a "digital key" is in this context. Maybe they mean an entry in the thermal management lookup table, like a key/value pair or something.
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Where did you get all that from? The articles you linked to only say
While there were many theories as to what was causing the throttling, Apple has discovered that there was a missing digital key in the firmware that impacted the thermal management system, driving down clock speeds under heavy thermal loads. This is what has been addressed in today's update.
No idea what a "digital key" is in this context. Maybe they mean an entry in the thermal management lookup table, like a key/value pair or something.
From the first linked MacRumors article:
"While Intel increased the core count of the CPU, they did not increase the thermal design power (TDP), or the amount of dissipated power manufacturers should plan to have to cool for a proper CPU design. This is an issue because this number usually reflects normal usage, and does not account for turbo modes. It's also likely it can exceed the draw of previous four core CPUs given the similarity of clock speeds and process nodes they are featured on. "
Sounds like Inte
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Sounds like Apple didn't read the docs properly... Based on the time frame for developing the laptop and the timeframe for the i9, they probably did most of the work using older CPUs and then swapped out near the end without remembering to check for the increased turbo mode heat dissipation.
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Sounds like Apple didn't read the docs properly... Based on the time frame for developing the laptop and the timeframe for the i9, they probably did most of the work using older CPUs and then swapped out near the end without remembering to check for the increased turbo mode heat dissipation.
That's entirely possible, depending when they had access to Development Samples of the i9 variant used, and when the Datasheet was updated.
But it still sounds like Intel was trying to hit a particular TDP and gamed the specs to paint a prettier picture than was likely encountered in real-world use.
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It was actually Intel's fault.
The spec was Intel's fault. Releasing a laptop to the public without as much as a simple performance test is very much Apple's fault any way you cut it.
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It was actually Intel's fault.
The spec was Intel's fault. Releasing a laptop to the public without as much as a simple performance test is very much Apple's fault any way you cut it.
I'm sure Apple did plenty of performance testing; but apparently not enough.
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It was actually Intel's fault. They didn't change the TDP for the 6-core CPUs.
Fortunately, it didn't require a hardware rev. to fix...
I suspect Apple did the design around the promised performance of Intel's very late 10nm processors and finally got tired of waiting and had to make do with what is available.
Re:Amazing (Score:4, Insightful)
Either way Apple is culpable as well. In fact many of those mac rumor comments support that position. Apple's hands are not clean here.
All hardware ships with buggy software to some degree or another. And this is extremely minor as it exhibits itself under very specific scenarios and in most cases artificial workloads and the end result is a slightly slower CPU and nothing else. We're not talking about a data leak here. This only makes the news because every tech "journalist" is looking for the latest Apple scandal to garner a bunch of clicks / views.
It would have been much, MUCH worse for Apple to miss their hardware release date. No company, when faced with a choice of shipping hardware with a minor software bug that can be patched later, and slipping a hardware release would choose the latter.
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"very specific scenarios" "artificial workloads"
This is marketed as a high-performance laptop, yes? The sort of machine to be used for heavy workloads like video editing, so why wasn't it tested under the workloads it's supposed to be good for?
Video editing is exactly one of the things this is aimed at. Rendering is a normal part of VE, so it's not a very specific scenario, nor is it an artificial workload.
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Again, if you can prove that this software fix actually resolves the problem and doesn't merely mitigate it, then I'll retract the above.
And if you can prove that it won't, I retract what I said.
All we have to go on now is that Apple said it would. Being that I doubt Apple would claim something publicly that is clearly false and knowing there's a giant community just waiting to prove them wrong, I tend to believe them.
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Ya like when apple said it was not throttling iphones
Ya like when a YouTuber discovered that Apple's new laptop was throttling excessively and then Apple said they'd fix it in a patch and then a day later they did?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Seriously, Apple has a long history of arguing stuff is "by design" which rationally shouldn't be. It's an argument that's nearly unfalsifiable.
Except they didn't claim it was by design, they admitted it was a bug, and they already fixed it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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The OP claimed they'd never fix the thermal throttling issue which is the topic of this thread. They did, the next day.
If you have other beefs about it's performance characteristics, leave me out of it. I said nothing about that.
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Sorry, you don't get to change your criteria in the middle of the conversation. We both know what were were talking about. It's topic of this article if you get confused go back and read it. We're talking about a specific thermal throttling bug, as reported by the YoutTuber.
You're trying to change the criteria to "can Apple make the Macbook Pro conform to my personal definition of satisfactory performance". I'm willing to bet the answer to that is no. Sleep tight knowing you're victorious.
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Seems like we didn't have to wait for long for an answer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Again, if you can prove that this software fix actually resolves the problem and doesn't merely mitigate it, then I'll retract the above.
... ?
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Everyone knows that the MacRumors site is less biased when it comes to Apple stuff. No question.
It's less biased than Slashdot; that's for SURE.
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It's amazing how remorseful companies are when they get caught doing something silly :|
Here's a thought:
Fix it before you release it to the public and you won't have to apologize and tarnish your reputation.
...so basically, for any sufficiently complex venture involving human beings, never release it to the public.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's amazing how remorseful companies are when they get caught doing something silly :|
Here's a thought:
Fix it before you release it to the public and you won't have to apologize and tarnish your reputation.
...so basically, for any sufficiently complex venture involving human beings, never release it to the public.
Truth. It still confounds me that people don't understand the idea that these projects don't have unlimited time and budget to fix every issue imaginable before release. Speaking generally, not all companies and actors are inherently evil (though if left to their own devices many would trend that direction). If I spent the amount of time and/or resources that some people demand working on finding every single tiny issue (that a lot of times get blown out of proportion) then either the end result would be
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Confounded or not, it's poor practice to release a product without sufficient testing to ensure it's going to perform as expected.
I'm not just picking on Apple either. It seems in a rush to get the product out the door, many companies do a half-assed job at testing their products because the current attitude is " We'll just issue a fix later and blame the junior programmer ". This is especially evident in any game / software that's released today.
It is for this reason I typically wait at least six months
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I'm not just picking on Apple either.
You aren't, but there is a tone of that on here. If Apple held the parts back longer for testing, people would bitch about how Apple's offerings are behind their competition. Like it or not, the market demands some balance between buggyness and performance. People probably undervalue stability and overvalue new shiny, but Apple is not really in a position to change that. Cars had useless fins way back in the 50s.
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If Apple held the parts back longer for testing, people would bitch about how Apple's offerings are behind their competition.
And people would be right in both cases. The underlying problem is, Apple management consciously decided to let the PC offerings rot because that revenue is shrinking while handset revenue is growing. However little sense that makes, that's what they did, then one day they suddenly woke up, saw they needed the PC revenue to make the next quarterlies, and panicked to the extent that best practices were thrown out the window in the rush to catch up from a place they never should have been in.
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I don't think you can really fall behind by skipping an Intel dev cycle. You need to start from the new chipset either way. These laptops all come out of the same factories and are all based on the same reference designs - granted Apple does a little more customization than most, but it's not like they are starting from scratch... the newest machines all look essentially like the last generation.
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So, you think that this fiasco is not because of Apple management panicking and forcing a impossibly short timeframe on engineering, so best practices practices were tossed to the wind? See, everybody else who offers Intel's 8 core part puts it in a realistic enclosure. Apple management seemed to think they could wave a magic wand and change physics.
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No I think you are actually not being fair to Apple, which generally has decent quality. No need to be subjective - just Google for surveys and such. Apple is always at or near the top when it comes to quality. Consumer Reports has them at #1. PC Magazine ranks them even with HP and Toshiba. Square Trade has them at #4. And so on. You are talking about this like it was a hardware design problem, and it seems to have been a problem with an unsigned driver. It's a stupid mistake, but I mean, they fixed it and
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So, you think that this fiasco is not because of Apple management panicking and forcing a impossibly short timeframe on engineering, so best practices practices were tossed to the wind? See, everybody else who offers Intel's 8 core part puts it in a realistic enclosure. Apple management seemed to think they could wave a magic wand and change physics.
They might have been waiting for and relying on Intel's very late 10nm processors.
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Don't get me wrong, I agree that it is bad practice, but I disagree with the generalization that all or even most of these companies are doing that. The sheer complexity of tech now a days creates huge volumes of tests that essentially just continue to layer on top of each other. Rarely do the testing requirements for a new release decrease especially given how feature hunger almost all markets have become with the drive into insane fringe technologies (AI is cool and all, but it is in infancy for almost
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Well if that is the case maybe it is more warranted than I initially thought. As I said, I only have a passing familiarity with the issue and don't generally keep up with common trends with Apple hardware (I dislike most of their security practices and the walled garden ecosystem, so no point keeping up with it especially when I haven't written anything for any of their OSs since college).
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It still confounds me that people don't understand the idea that these projects don't have unlimited time and budget to fix every issue imaginable before release.
They had plenty of time since the last MacBook Pro.
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The problem is it is really all blind conjecture. They had/have a problem, one that from the outside seems very easy to find and horribly obvious, but there are lots of reasons this could have been overlooked in a testing environment. Like I said, I don't want to necessarily make excuses for because they did screw up whether from incompetence, laziness, or just a honest mistake. It just really doesn't seem fair to make a blanket statement about it is my point.
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Fix it before you release it to the public and you won't have to apologize and tarnish your reputation.
It's way, way more important for them to meet their hardware release dates. In 2 weeks no one will even remember this and they know it.
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In 2 weeks no one will even remember this and they know it.
Oh sure, how right. For example, nobody remembers "you're holding it wrong".
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Oh sure, how right. For example, nobody remembers "you're holding it wrong".
I know right! Apple's stock has TANKED due to "you're holding it wrong". It's cited EVER DAMN DAY as a reason to avoid Apple products. Touche my friend!
So anyway, you remember the things you remember, and not the ones you don't. Do you think if we googled for a few minutes we could find a few Apple missteps that you didn't quote here today, maybe proving my point? How about the 1993 Macintosh TV! What a flop, people STILL haven't gotten past that screw up! Or remember the Ping social media service? I don't,
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AAPL stock is treading air for the moment by relying on sucking an ever increasing amount of money from its steadily diminishing market slice. If you want an idea what could go wrong with that, look at 2008 wheb AAPL tanked by more than half because everybody decided at the same time that they better not risk their disposable income on nonessentials.
For now, AAPL support relies on an unbroken ten year runup of the economy, that encourages diehard fans to replace their products frequently and sink a lot of m
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There is only so much remorse a company can feel.
Look there is a problem.
Next week,
We fixed the problem.
The time and effort for any company to be perfect would mean no product will get released and will constantly being tested and regression tested.
The CPU gets hot, it slowed down due to Intels spec. Apple figured they were being a bit too safe with the threshold so does a software update.
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That's not what Apple's proprietary port is for.
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Here's a thought:
No, here's a thought.
These things are going to heat up to like a jillion degrees and some dude's [junk] is going to catch fire. Apple's plan all along? You decide.
If you have a problem with that, you are holding it wrong.
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No, here's a thought.
These things are going to heat up to like a jillion degrees and some dude's dick is going to catch fire. Apple's plan all along? You decide.
So what you're saying is, Apple is involved in a Liberal Feminist conspiracy?
In other news (Score:1, Flamebait)
Story claims opposite (Score:3)
Why would it be less? Apple's reported battery life is with the CPU at full performance, not throttled down - remember they said they had not seen that case. So it means Apple's battery life figures (usually very realistic) are based on the CPU operating at normal speed.
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Somebody got wooshed.
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Still don't get it?
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The woosh can sting something terrible. I recommend a salve.
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Agreed. I've had a number of Apple laptops over the past 15 years, and frankly they've all exhibited *better* battery life than Apple claimed.
That hasn't been my experience with other brands... okay, I mean "Dell".
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Can't be. The 2018 model has a 58Wh battery, so to get the claimed 10 hours of battery life it needs to average 5.8W. That includes the screen, WiFi radio, and all the other components like DRAM and chipset.
I'll make it easy for you though, let's say the rest of the laptop is powered by magic. Show me an Intel CPU that runs at "full performance" on only 5.8W.
Yeah, Right (Score:4, Interesting)
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QUOTE: "representatives said that the throttling was only exhibited under fairly specific, highly intense workloads"
Sure, exporting video from Adobe Premiere Pro. Clearly an unusual workload.
You are workloading it wrong.
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But that's who/what the laptop is aimed at.
So, specific, but not unusual.
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And only one example. Actually you'll hit it anytime you peg the CPU for more than 15-20seconds. Mind you you won't hit it editing a word document or posting crap on the internet, but then you didn't buy a Core i9 for that either did you.
No way to fix this issue (Score:2, Insightful)
I wonder how they can fix this issue without either lowering the performance or allowing the VRM to overheat thus killing them faster.
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As long as the VRM's last as long as AppleCare, it doesn't matter.
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I wonder how they can fix this issue without either lowering the performance or allowing the VRM to overheat thus killing them faster.
They could build a thicker laptop intended for the high performance desktop replacement market but that is just crazy talk.
beyond ridiculous (Score:2)
The Macbook has been garbage for a while. (Score:2)
Man, who would have thought cramming two more cores into a system that already was thermally insufficient would case heat and throttling issues?
I never really believe Jobs was the heart of the company but considering the trend-chasing that Tim Cook has led apple into and the garbage hardware pumped out because no one is around to tell Ives when he has stupid ideas I'm beginning to think there may have been something to that.
Apple bruised by Verification and Validation fail (Score:2)
What does it say? When a customer more brutally stress tests your brand-new product than your own V&V department, it says that the fruit of your labors isn't the highest quality produce, best calibre nor the embodiment you claim.
Its bad apples. It's bruised fruit on sale which AAPL should send packing and sell the next fruit off the tree. To hell with a Bandaid® patch. Its still bad fruit. Cutting out the part that's bad with a patch around and over the bad spot still leaves a bad taste!
SteveJo
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They could have been leaving the CPU at boost speed for too long. Then it has too really slow while the system dumps heat.
Re:A software fix for a thermal issue? (Score:5, Informative)
Except, the CPU was not overheating. The throttling did not happen because of the CPU
The CPU is powered by a Voltage Regulator Module (power delivery module). It turns out it is this chip that is overheating - when the CPU is going full tilt, it's demanding 125W from the VRM. This causes the VRMs to heat up and when they get close to their maximum thermal limits, they send a signal to the motherboard telling it to throttle the CPUs so they draw less power so the VRMs can cool down.
Part of thermal tuning is to adjust the CPU boost speeds such that it can boost to full speed, then throttle down slightly as the VRM and CPU heat up to a new max steady-state condition where the heat generated can be dissipated.
This is in part due to a documentation error in Intel's docs regarding max thermal power dissipation values.
The good news is if you tweak the throttle settings properly, you can keep the regulators from overheating, but the CPU still performing. This is what Apple did - they optimized the settings so the VRMs will not overheat and force a sudden throttling of the system. Doing this gives you a good 20% speed boost over the old models.
The bad news is if this was caught earlier so Apple could heatsink the VRMs to the CPU like they do with the GPU, you could get up to another 10-20% in performance because you can run the boosts longer since the VRMs would heat up slower.
Re:A software fix for a thermal issue? (Score:5)
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The VRM bit is an important part of the story, but it's not the only important part. We also learn that i9 does not operate inside its published thermal envelope, otherwise no competent engineer would have wiffed the thermal design so badly. Intel lied, Apple didn't verify, marketing jumped the gun on both sides. It's a circus.
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What was the chain of missteps that enabled what can only be called an engineering fiasco?
* AMD's high performing 8 core Ryzen's selling like hotcakes, Intel gets envy.
* i9 rushed to market
* The reason Intel didn't release an 8 core desktop processor in the first place: sucky thermal envelope, and no time to fix the process
* Marketing solution: lie about the power envelope in the spec sheet
* Apple getting shade for obsolete laptop lineup just as PC market showing sign
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Apple is trying to get their own chip to market so that they don't have to give money to intel or AMD. Good luck to them, though. The number of architectures has been shrinking for a reason, and that reason is that amd64 has won. The most competition produced the best products and now there's no reason for anything else to exist but amd64 at the high end, and arm at the bottom. And so sad for intel, they have no arms. They had strongarm->xscale, but it didn't xscale down in power consumption so it got it
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Apple is trying to get their own chip to market so that they don't have to give money to intel or AMD. Good luck to them, though. The number of architectures has been shrinking for a reason, and that reason is that amd64 has won.
X86 has won the battle but most probably not the war. [tomshardware.com] Nothing technical stops ARM from invading X86 space at increasingly high performance points. When X86 tries to invade the low power space, its complex instruction set bites hard because that big chunk of die that decodes it (don't understate this, it is a good chunk of any modern x86 chip) eats battery power and takes up space that could be used for more cores or more integrated system components. In the long run ARM is going to catch up with X86 in sing
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"Intel won't get into ARMs simply because they dread cannibalizing their own x86 market."
Perhaps there is a simpler explanation: incompetence. We've already seen that even with a process advantage, they can only outperform AMD by ignoring security. Perhaps they simply can't make a decent ARM.
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I have many words to describe Intel but incompetent is not one of them. I guess they could make a nice ARM chip but they are afraid to do it. To maintain their share price they need both a huge share of the market and a gross profit in the range of 60% as they still command in their monopoly Wintel business. Looking at the trend for Qualcomm isn't encouraging, their gross margin is trending down, currently around 55% and likely to go lower in the face of robust competition from the likes of Samsung. And it
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we’ve identified that there is a missing digital key in the firmware that impacts the thermal management system
Are they just making stuff up now?
Unless you hold the key, there is no way to know now is there....
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They tested watching cat videos on youtube, what else?
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User: The computer is slowing down when it gets too hot
Engineer: Yes
User: You sold us something that is not performing as expecting
Engineer: We told marketing about this, too. This was not a good idea.
User: We want full power.
Engineer: Okay, enjoy your third degree burns then.
Marketing: Let's call it a "software fix". Fucking engineering at it again ruining our reputation
User: Everything is melting but I gained 20 seconds on a video render! Yay thanks Apple!
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Apple didn't think any of their users would put a heavy workload on their computer, what does that tell you?
That "Pro" is just a dickwaving nameplate, not an indicator of intended market.