MacBook Pro (Early-2011) running slow after logic board replacement

Question

Background:A couple of weeks ago my MacBook Pro (Early-2011) failed due to the infamous graphics problem. I had my logic board replaced by a certified Apple shop under the extended repair program [1].During the repair I got an email about my battery being dead. I thought that sounded a bit strange since it worked when I handed it in, but I didn&#x27;t really give it any thought. When I got the MacBook back sure enough the battery had died. I could run from just the power adaptor, but had kernel_task constantly throttling my CPU. I ordered a replacement battery from iFixit which I received and installed yesterday and that seems to work fine (battery status normal and so on).The problem:Everything seemed to work fine, but I noticed quite quickly that my dear MacBook was running incredibly slowly. I did a Geekbench 3 test, and sure enough the score was 1/4 of the average for this particular hardware [2].Here follows a list of symptoms and then a list of things I have done to try and fix the problem:Symptoms:The MacBook seems to be running about 1/4 of the normal speed (CPU is quickly saturated and Geekbench shows multi-core score of around 3000).pmset -g therm returns a constant CPU_Speed_Limit &#x3D; 43 [3].Solutions attempted (and failed):Reset the SMC + PRAM: I have tried resetting both multiple times, but have not seen any changes.Disable the ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin and the whole IOPlatformPluginFamily kext [4]: This did not seem to change anything.Reinstalling Yosemite: I did a reinstall using my recovery partition, the issue remains.Maxing the fans at 6000 rpm lowers the core temperatures to around 50 degrees Celsius, but this doesn’t seem to change anything.I have run Linc Davis diagnostics test [5] - the results are posted below.I’d rather not take it back to the shop at I know they wouldn’t have any idea what do do and would just send it back in for service, and I’m a bit worried they’ll say that its the replacement battery’s fault (which I guess it could, but I just find that extremely unlikely). I wonder if Apple under clocked the replacement logic board on purpose to avoid another GFX-gate in a few years.Any help / ideas is greatly appreciated - thanks!References:[1] MacBook Pro Repair Extension Program for Video Issues (https://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro-videoissues/).[2] Geekbench 3 results (http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/2634746).[3] Apple pmset man page (https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/ man1/pmset.1.html).[4] Guide to disable IOPlatformPluginFamily kext (http://www.rdoxenham.com/?p&#x3D;259).[5] Linc Davis diagnostics test (found here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6485942).

askielboe · Answer

Start time: 11:28:24 05/27/15Model Identifier: MacBookPro8,2System Version: OS X 10.10.3 (14D136)Kernel Version: Darwin 14.3.0Boot Mode: NormalTime since boot: 22 minutesLog   May 27 02:22:04 USB Sound assertion in AppleUSBAudioEngine at line 1616   May 27 02:22:31 ** GPU Hardware VM is disabled (multispace: disabled, page table updates with DMA: disabled)   May 27 02:22:35 Process systemmigrationd [188] disabling system-wide I/O Throttling   May 27 02:22:35 Process systemmigrationd [188] disabling system-wide CPU Throttling   May 27 02:22:55 Process systemmigrationd [188] disabling system-wide I/O Throttling   May 27 02:22:55 Process systemmigrationd [188] disabling system-wide CPU Throttling   May 27 02:23:15 Process systemmigrationd [188] disabling system-wide I/O Throttling   May 27 02:23:15 Process systemmigrationd [188] disabling system-wide CPU Throttling   May 27 02:23:35 Process systemmigrationd [188] disabling system-wide I/O Throttling   May 27 02:23:35 Process systemmigrationd [188] disabling system-wide CPU Throttling   May 27 10:22:12 process SystemUIServer[421] caught causing excessive wakeups. Observed wakeups rate (per sec): 509; Maximum permitted wakeups rate (per sec): 150; Observation period: 300 seconds; Task lifetime number of wakeups: 45310   May 27 10:25:01 process Dropbox[520] thread 26280 caught burning CPU! It used more than 50% CPU (Actual recent usage: 50%) over 180 seconds. thread lifetime cpu usage 90.609985 seconds, (78.059264 user, 12.550721 system) ledger info: balance: 90008102080 credit: 90008102080 debit: 0 limit: 90000000000 (50%) period: 180000000000 time since last refill (ns): 178800642050    May 27 11:06:19 ** GPU Hardware VM is disabled (multispace: disabled, page table updates with DMA: disabled)   May 27 11:08:07 process SystemUIServer[223] caught causing excessive wakeups. Observed wakeups rate (per sec): 481; Maximum permitted wakeups rate (per sec): 150; Observation period: 300 seconds; Task lifetime number of wakeups: 45263   May 27 11:08:51 process Dropbox[296] thread 3708 caught burning CPU! It used more than 50% CPU (Actual recent usage: 78%) over 180 seconds. thread lifetime cpu usage 90.479444 seconds, (80.777746 user, 9.701698 system) ledger info: balance: 90024996021 credit: 90024996021 debit: 0 limit: 90000000000 (50%) period: 180000000000 time since last refill (ns): 113978284298    May 27 11:12:52 Over-release of kernel-internal importance assertions for pid 121 (cfprefsd), dropping 1 assertion(s) but task only has 0 remaining (0 external).Daemons   com.adobe.adobeupdatedaemon   org.macosforge.xquartz.privileged_startx   com.bjango.istatmenusdaemonAgents   com.bjango.istatmenusagent   2BUA8C4S2C.com.agilebits.onepassword4-helper   com.adobe.AdobeCreativeCloud   org.macosforge.xquartz.startx   com.adobe.acc.AdobeDesktopService.61660.UUID   com.bjango.istatmenusnotifications   com.google.keystone.user.agentlaunchd   /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.installer.osmessagetracing.plist   -    com.apple.installer.osmessagetracing   /Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist   -    com.adobe.AAM.Startup-1.0   /Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.AdobeCreativeCloud.plist   -    com.adobe.AdobeCreativeCloud   /Library/LaunchAgents/com.bjango.istatmenusagent.plist   -    com.bjango.istatmenusagent   /Library/LaunchAgents/com.bjango.istatmenusnotifications.plist   -    com.bjango.istatmenusnotifications   /Library/LaunchAgents/org.macosforge.xquartz.startx.plist   -    org.macosforge.xquartz.startx   /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.adobe.adobeupdatedaemon.plist   -    com.adobe.adobeupdatedaemon   /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.bjango.istatmenusdaemon.plist   -    com.bjango.istatmenusdaemon   /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macosforge.xquartz.privileged_startx.plist   -    org.macosforge.xquartz.privileged_startx   Library/LaunchAgents/com.google.keystone.agent.plist   -    com.google.keystone.user.agentBundles   /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/AdobeAAMDetect.plugin   -    com.AdobeAAMDetectLib.AdobeAAMDetect   /Library/PreferencePanes/TeXDistPrefPane.prefPane   -    comp.text.tex.distribution.preference   Library/Address Book Plug-Ins/SkypeABDialer.bundle   -    com.skype.skypeabdialer   Library/Address Book Plug-Ins/SkypeABSMS.bundle   -    com.skype.skypeabsmsApps   /opt/homebrew-cask/Caskroom/dropbox/latest/Dropbox.appContents of /etc/ssh_config (ASCII English text, with very long lines)    Host *      SendEnv LANG LC_*   Host *       XAuthLocation /opt/X11/bin/xauthContents of /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.installer.osmessagetracing.plist (XML  document text)   &lt;?xml version&#x3D;"1.0" encoding&#x3D;"UTF-8"?&gt;   &lt;!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"&gt;   &lt;plist version&#x3D;"1.0"&gt;   &lt;dict&gt;       &lt;key&gt;Label&lt;/key&gt;       &lt;string&gt;com.apple.installer.osmessagetracing&lt;/string&gt;       &lt;key&gt;LaunchOnlyOnce&lt;/key&gt;       &lt;true/&gt;       &lt;key&gt;ProgramArguments&lt;/key&gt;       &lt;array&gt;           &lt;string&gt;/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/OSInstaller.framework/Resources/OSMes sageTracer&lt;/string&gt;       &lt;/array&gt;       &lt;key&gt;UserName&lt;/key&gt;       &lt;string&gt;root&lt;/string&gt;       &lt;key&gt;GroupName&lt;/key&gt;       &lt;string&gt;wheel&lt;/string&gt;       &lt;key&gt;WatchPaths&lt;/key&gt;       &lt;array&gt;           &lt;string&gt;/var/db/.AppleDiagnosticsSetupDone&lt;/string&gt;       &lt;/array&gt;   &lt;/dict&gt;   &lt;/plist&gt;Restricted files: 20876Elapsed time (s): 390

askielboe · Answer

I wanted to add this under symptoms as it just appeared, but the forum will not let me edit my first post (yay). So here goes:Symptoms:3. After running for some time I often get thermal level &#x3D; Bad from pmset -g sysloadlog, CPU_Speed_Limit reduces to around 27 and kernel_task starts eating CPU cycles. My CPU cores are going at 70 degrees Celcius and my fans are at 2000 rpm. (I&#x27;ve tried cooling the cores to 50 degrees but I still get thermal level &#x3D; bad.

askielboe · Answer

I can prevent kernel_task from running by disabling ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin (see solution 2. in the first post), but the CPU is still throttled at 1/4 of max speed.All these issues are the same whether I use the broken original stock battery or the (seemingly working) iFixit replacement battery.