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Portables (Apple) Apple Hardware

Apple Confirms MacBook Pro Thermal Throttling, Issues Software Fix (theverge.com) 187

Posted by msmash from the fixing-things dept.
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.
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Apple Confirms MacBook Pro Thermal Throttling, Issues Software Fix More

Apple Confirms MacBook Pro Thermal Throttling, Issues Software Fix

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  • Amazing (Score:1, Insightful)

    by nehumanuscrede ( 624750 )

    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, what does the software fix do? Throttle the CPU slightly less under heavy load?

      • Throttle it/spin fans sooner, so the CPU maintains it's nominal base speed.

      • Re:Amazing (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Tuesday July 24, 2018 @01:08PM (#57001766)

        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.

        • 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: (Score:2)

        by MikeMo ( 521697 )
        According to TFA, there was an "missing digital key in the firmware" which prevented it from working properly.

    • They could have used an aluminum case and attached the board to that as a heatsink.

      • 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.

        • A mixture of unobtanium and fairy dust, contributing to its excessive price. It is, in any case, not thermally-coupled to the CPU.

    • Re:Amazing (Score:5, Informative)

      by TheFakeTimCook ( 4641057 ) on Tuesday July 24, 2018 @12:50PM (#57001658)

      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!

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by radarskiy ( 2874255 )

        "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.

        • "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

          • "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.

            • "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]

        • "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?

          • "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]

      • If you actually read any of those links everyone is blaming apple not intel.

        • 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?

          • 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.

            • 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)

            by NewtonsLaw ( 409638 ) on Tuesday July 24, 2018 @07:25PM (#57003928)

            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.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        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.

        • 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

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            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.

            • 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.

      • 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.

        • 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.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Agripa ( 139780 )

        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: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by American AC in Paris ( 230456 )

      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)

        by Zmobie ( 2478450 )

        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

        • 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

          • 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.

            • 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.

              • 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.

                • 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.

                  • 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

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by Agripa ( 139780 )

                    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.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Zmobie ( 2478450 )

            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

        • Except that Apple has gotten dinged pretty badly lately for screwing up with throttling issues. This should be one area they would test extensively.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Zmobie ( 2478450 )

            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).

            • They got busted last year for hiding iphone 6 battery issues by throttling the cpu... I believe there was a class action lawsuit and they were giving people a real cheap price to replace their batteries.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Agripa ( 139780 )

          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.

    • 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.

      • 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".

        • 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,

          • 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

    • 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.

  • In other news (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by Fly Swatter ( 30498 )
    Battery life is now less than before.

    • 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.

      • Somebody got wooshed.

      • 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".

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        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)

    by Marlin Schwanke ( 3574769 ) on Tuesday July 24, 2018 @12:43PM (#57001604)
    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.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Agripa ( 139780 )

      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.

  • I wonder how they can fix this issue without either lowering the performance or allowing the VRM to overheat thus killing them faster.

    • As long as the VRM's last as long as AppleCare, it doesn't matter.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Agripa ( 139780 )

      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.

  • So a software update will make it not a "form over function" overly-thin disaster with an insufficient heat pipe and fan? That'd literally be magic. What I assume this does is just let it run insanely hot without down-clocking it. Wow, what a great fix. I wonder why they implemented the throttling in the first place? Also, Apple's quite implied they never ran a stress test of any kind on it? Not even a simple prime number calculation for 10 minutes? REALLY? Maybe they took one look at the heatsink and just

  • 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.

  • 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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