Macbook Pro Retina CPU Throttling to 0.8GHz

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Scubacelt Author

Level 1

3 points

Macbook Pro Retina CPU Throttling to 0.8GHz

Hi All,

When my MBPR 2012 i7 2.3GHz is processing information CPU throttles down to 0.8Ghz ?

This seems a little extreme given that its rated at 2.3Ghz

Here is a picture of the CPU Power, Frequency and Heat:

Is there anything i can do to boost CPU?

At present its sat on flat desk with plenty of air flow around and i can feel the fans are blowing air out from the rear left and rear right which I assume are its exhaust vents. I have also read that updating the EFI and SMC might help - they are already updated to the latest version. The notebook is still under warranty but i would like to find out if there is anything i can do myself to fix it.

Anyone able to help find a way to boost CPU?

Posted on Jan 24, 2014 4:39 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

JOSE F CARBONELL

Level 1

4 points

Feb 24, 2017 2:09 PM in response to Scubacelt

I had the same problem. I run a cpu test with bootcamp and the cup was ok. I checked the battery with Coconut battery and I had several battery failures (under the right tab Battery Info ...). I replace the battery with the ORIGINAL apple battery (since this non apple batteries could cause the cpu to throttle down), I did a SMC reset, and working perfectly 100%. My cup was set at 800mhz flat. Just a simple battery replacement with the genuine original Apple battery. Small alterations in voltage in non original batteries will cause this issue. It is actually a quite well know issue. If you processor test ok, it is the power management. Do not forget to do your SMC reset, it is pretty much mandatory, or your computer will run with the fans crazy and weird processes all day long.

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Answer 2

dlfretz

Level 1

4 points

Aug 1, 2017 2:01 PM in response to JOSE F CARBONELL

I have the same problem with a Macbook 15" Late 2011 with CPU throttling. I used to have an 11,000 multiCPU score with GeekBench 3 and now I have around 3,000. I did change my battery a few months ago. (I wish that I had saved the old one to go back.) I also reset the NVRAM and SMC. I also regreased my heatsync with Artic Silver 3. The fans are cleaned and working. I played around with iStats increasing the fan RPM to the maximum . I even tried the moving of the kext file. Nothing has fixed the slowness. I have an OEM Apple battery on order. I hope that it works.

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Answer 3

Dogcow-Moof

Level 8

36,179 points

Jan 24, 2014 5:19 PM in response to Scubacelt

The CPU speed is throttled down when there isn't actual work for the processor to do.

Unless you're running a compute-intensive application, odds are your CPU spends a lot of time waiting for I/O, and when it's doing so it can be throttled down to save power.

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Answer 4

Scubacelt Author

Level 1

3 points

Jan 24, 2014 5:24 PM in response to Dogcow-Moof

Hi William,

Thanks for your reply.

The CPU is under load rendering a 3D scene, all CPU's are running at 100%

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Answer 5

Dogcow-Moof

Level 8

36,179 points

Jan 24, 2014 5:54 PM in response to Scubacelt

The processors may have offloaded computation for various tasks to the GPU.

The temperature of the processor is about right for a compute-intensive task as Intel lists Tjunction for that processor as 100ºC.

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Answer 6

Jan 24, 2014 5:53 PM in response to Dogcow-Moof

A cooling pad to conduct more heat away, or raising the bottom to allow at least 3/4" or 20mm underneath will allow a convection current to form underneath. That still may not provide enough improvement to avoid an overheat power off.

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Answer 7

Dogcow-Moof

Level 8

36,179 points

Jan 24, 2014 6:04 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

The processors aren't performing an overtemp poweroff at that temperature; TjMAX for that processor is listed as 105ºC.

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Answer 8

Scubacelt Author

Level 1

3 points

Jan 24, 2014 7:02 PM in response to Dogcow-Moof

Thanks for the replys guys i really would like to try to get to the bottom of this.

William, although i wasn't running a GPU or CUDA based render I do take your point there is a changce that some GPU resources may has been off loading laod in some way.

I therefore did a quick search for a CPU only benchmark app. The following results show at first CPU peaks at around 2.8 GHz (not its highest turbo rate) and then gradually decreased until it reaches rock bottom 0.8 Ghz:

0.8 GHz was reached in around 1 min 50 seconds.

With my 3D renders lasting hours perhaps a whole day sometimes - it just sits at 0.8 GHz all day 😟

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