Is there a program or terminal command which displays the current CPU speed? I only find tools that display the maximum speed, only the temperatures or don't run at all. I need it for a MacBook Pro 15" (from 2007) with 2,2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo.
I don't want to get into the debate over CPU speeds, have you considered running a benchmark app to see if this model is operating at a rate comparable to similar spec'd models?
Geekbench or Xbench can indicate if the Mac is matching others in performance. Ideally you would run it on a clean install to prevent background tasks causing issues.
This Mac sounds like it has been through a lot of repairs - personally I'd be looking at the price of newer second hand models, baked GPU's rarely make a Mac better in the long run, 'reballing' is a short term fix as far as I can tell and there are no new chips to fit to these boards.
Also try running Apple hardware test - see what that complains about, it may be more than just the battery if you are seeing performance issues.
How to use Apple Hardware Test on your Mac - Apple Support
If you don't have the original disks you will need to create your own bootable AHT disk…
https://github.com/upekkha/AppleHardwareTest
P.S. If you know your way around Linux try running it on this Mac - it will allow you to use the same tools to read the Mac's CPU speed.
EDIT: corrected second link
There are multiple anecdotal posts on the topic, so I suspect you may be correct that this model of Mac is throttled with no battery…
MacBook throttle down from Bad Battery
https://gigaom.com/2008/11/21/run-your-macboo/
Some suggest disabling the model specific kernel, seems drastic & probably ill advised!
http://www.rdoxenham.com/?p=259
Apple even had a tech note on the topic…
http://web.archive.org/web/20081204024530/http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2332
The only thing I do not know is how to measure the current CPU performance to see if it is throttled (beyond benchmarking it).
As I wrote: I need the current CPU speed. The scaling governor changes the clock speed depending on the work load of the processor and I need to know how fast the processor is in the very moment, not the maximum speed. This is written in the specs of the computer.
It seems to me. I reactivate the computer with the oven trick after it laid around for years. I recycled the battery month ago because it bloated and now I have to run the Mac without a battery. I think I read once that the laptops throttle the speed when no battery is installed and would like to confirm it. If the GPU will not got loosen again in the next week I may purchase a battery.
I think you are looking for something that is not there. Without the battery the system (modern OS) is trying to save energy. The CPU clock does not change, nor does the bus speed which is the gouverning speed, unless there is a turbo mode (in that case the clock speed can be faster for a short time, this is not the case here.).
If you think that CPU speed is important for total speed, you better look at other possibilities as disk speed (SSD), or a better GPU.
I have a very old PC Laptop running Linux and there the CPU can switch between three or four different speeds, beginning from 800 MHz up to 1,7 GHz (which is the highest of that CPU). It depends on the work load. Even my Raspberry Pi can run at different speeds. Therefore I thought the CPU in the MBP can also switch to different speeds. I did not know that is fixed.
Steffen Bendix wrote:
I have a very old PC Laptop running Linux and there the CPU can switch between three or four different speeds, beginning from 800 MHz up to 1,7 GHz (which is the highest of that CPU). It depends on the work load. Even my Raspberry Pi can run at different speeds. Therefore I thought the CPU in the MBP can also switch to different speeds. I did not know that is fixed.
All CPU's vary. From their lowest operating speed to their highest speed. There's no such thing as a two-speed CPU.
So, Dialabrain is not correct, when he writes, that the CPU speed is not fixed? You say, it is fixed. I am confused. What is correct then? Why can the CPU in other computers run faster and slower depending on the workload and the Mac's CPU cannot, although it is an Intel CPU like the PC CPUs?
I never spoke about a Turbo Boost. My question was a different one. I would like to know wether the CPU throttles the speed. I assume it does because of the missing battery. But I can't tell it for sure because there seems to be no functioning tool existing to read out the current speed.
I understand. I was trying to correct some of the misinformation in the thread.
As I mentioned early in your post, if The Intel Tool is not compatible, there is little chance you will find the tool you want. It is very difficult to get an accurate CPU speed at any given moment in any case. One of the problems is there is very little need for such a tool, so no one bothers to try and write one.
dialabrain wrote:
All CPU's vary. From their lowest operating speed to their highest speed. There's no such thing as a two-speed CPU.
I did not write that the CPU has two speeds. I assumed that the CPU in the MacBook Pro can change its speed dynamically because CPUs in much older and cheaper computer can. But I want to read out this clock speed. I am sorry but is my English so bad (I am not a native English speaker)?
I did not write that the CPU has two speeds
No, I did, and it does, one of the speeds is 'not fast enough' and the other is 'fast enough'. The difference between them can be observed without additional 'tools'.
Steffen Bendix wrote:
I would like to know wether the CPU throttles the speed. I assume it does because of the missing battery. But I can't tell it for sure because there seems to be no functioning tool existing to read out the current speed.
It would be much more likely to throttle the speed when on battery than when it's using AC.
I don't really need the old Mac as I have another, faster and newer one. I am glad that I could wake it up again and wondered about its slowness. But it can be a subjective feeling because I am used to faster computers. The system is freshly installed (from Lion through all versions up to El Capitan). The Mac was slow with every system. Of course I ran the Apple Hardware Check and it found no problems. I agree with you to let Linux run on the machine to check it there. I know that there are tools to read out the current clock speed. But it would be a bad test because I don't know wether the throttling takes place under Mac OS X as well.
I am not sure but I remember an article that the speed is reduced when the battery is out because the AC power could be too weak under heavy load. The battery normally works as a supporting buffer. But I could be wrong.
How to display the current CPU speed?
