Apple: 2018 MacBook Pro Throttling Is a Bug, Fix Now Available

Megalith

Megalith

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Apple has officially responded to the throttling seen in the higher-end 2018 MacBook Pro with Core i9 chip and other 2018 MacBook Pro models: apparently, it was unintentional and caused by a bug. The company has released an update to macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 that addresses the issue.

The throttling issue first came to light on July 17, a few days after the first new 2018 MacBook Pros began shipping out to customers. YouTuber Dave Lee tested the top-of-the-line 2018 15-inch MacBook Pro with 2.9GHz Core i9 chip using Adobe's Premiere Pro and found that it was underperforming compared to a 2017 MacBook Pro with a Core i7 chip.
 
orange_monster said:
i bet this isnt a software bug, they wanted to slap 'i9' on a model to sell more $$$, i bet we are a week away from "early reports from users say that after the fix the laptops experienced massive overheating and crashes..."
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I had come here to state this as well.
 
Holy crap. I read the comments on that page... Those people are insane! I've never seen such a CJ for a company before.
 
alxlwson said:
Holy crap. I read the comments on that page... Those people are insane! I've never seen such a CJ for a company before.
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Those aren't real comments on there right? Those are all jokes posted by somebody that thinks it would be funny to act like they have lost their damn mind right?
 
alxlwson said:
Holy crap. I read the comments on that page... Those people are insane! I've never seen such a CJ for a company before.
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LOL my favorites are the apologists for why QA didn't find a problem like, say, the CPU rapidly overheated under load. Also, the loads of people that think Apple fixed a bug in the laws of physics rather than just locking down the voltage and clock speeds to something their poor heat dissipation design can handle make me giggle a bit.
 
vegeta535 said:
So how is software going to fix this? Are they going to drop the voltage to the cpu? Now they will get crashes instead?
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Best guess I have is that the the voltage will be dropped and the advertised core and boost clock speeds will be kept only on one core while multi core speeds won't go much past base clock speeds
 
DNMock said:
Best guess I have is that the the voltage will be dropped and the advertised core and boost clock speeds will be kept only on one core while multi core speeds won't go much past base clock speeds
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That opens them up to another class action lawsuits.
 
make the fans louder?

i wonder if the cpu was regularly hitting 99C
 
Sweet beegees, software made my Mac ! I knew they wernt lying to mee.

Now if I could just gid de update for the siri IRL avatar id be fixed.

Glad to see their user base is so accepting of marketing mirrors and Intel smoke.
 
vegeta535 said:
So how is software going to fix this? Are they going to drop the voltage to the cpu? Now they will get crashes instead?
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They had the courage to add a new feature, egg frying mode. While your programs are running just put a tin foil tray on the keyboard and fry your egg. There is even a built in time in that when your CPU has died due to overheating your egg should be ready.
 
I want to know how you can cure thermal throttling with a software patch without impacting performance. I call bullshit.
 
jnemesh said:
I want to know how you can cure thermal throttling with a software patch without impacting performance. I call bullshit.
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The only way I can see is if they were overly conservative with something, and left some head-room in. Or like others have said, boost single core, throttle multi, or something like that. Unless there truly was a bug maybe in some hardware monitor that was sucking cycles. These are REALLY stretching things though, so...
 
jnemesh said:
I want to know how you can cure thermal throttling with a software patch without impacting performance. I call bullshit.
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It is not thermal throttling, but the VRMs are underspecified and cannot provide enough juice to the cpu under heavy load. It cannot be fixed, but can be mitigated in software. Read here

Of course with low spec vrms I wonder how long these machines will last before starting to get mass failures due to blown vrms.
 
M76 said:
It is not thermal throttling, but the VRMs are underspecified and cannot provide enough juice to the cpu under heavy load. It cannot be fixed, but can be mitigated in software. Read here

Of course with low spec vrms I wonder how long these machines will last before starting to get mass failures due to blown vrms.
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I am guessing on average, just past the warranty date.
 
orange_monster said:
i bet this isnt a software bug, they wanted to slap 'i9' on a model to sell more $$$, i bet we are a week away from "early reports from users say that after the fix the laptops experienced massive overheating and crashes..."
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Now now. That's not fair. It's entirely possible when it heats up it'll just disable some cores.

Who am I kidding. Shit heat management and early thermal demise are core apple desktop and notebook DNA.
 
Jim Kim said:
Remember the Apple press conference where they said the Macbook Pro i9 would be released w/out bugs.
They made a simple mistake and meant to use the word wouldn't.
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The fact any software company would make a claim like that shows how inept they are and how gullible their customers are.

Anyone that works in the software industry will tell you, there is NO SUCH THING as bug-free software.

Source: I'm a Software QA Engineer :p
 
alxlwson said:
Holy crap. I read the comments on that page... Those people are insane! I've never seen such a CJ for a company before.
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Unfortunately the site has a big chunk of Apple lovers, a big chunk of Apple haters, then some balanced people in between. There aren't product reviews or anything, so the site mostly just rakes in cash from the backs of the latest news.

There are a lot more "regular people" there than technical people, sadly.. and it's probably the best site for Apple-centered news..
 
Your new turbo profiles.
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farticle said:
Following today's update, customers who own a 2018 MacBook Pro should see an appropriate level of throttling that is common to all devices under heavy load and does not impact performance to the point where the machine is underperforming compared to earlier, less powerful models.
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What the fuck? I don't know what's worse - the fact these claims are being made or that this is the state of the industry. We've gone backwards.
 
I shouldn't laugh at people who spent so much money on a glorified waffle iron, and then defend it to the death, but I just can't help it.
 
Enough with the speculating what the root cause is...

So... does the updated firmware "fix" the problem?

Enquiring minds want to know.
 
bbf said:
Enough with the speculating what the root cause is...

So... does the updated firmware "fix" the problem?

Enquiring minds want to know.
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Hell no, it's just a software fix. It is impossible to patch a hardware design flaw. They will literally have to open that case and apply a heatsink or something to reduce the temperature.
 
It's funny that when something like an XPS 15 has this same issue, nobody gives a shit.

Kaitian said:
Hell no, it's just a software fix. It is impossible to patch a hardware design flaw. They will literally have to open that case and apply a heatsink or something to reduce the temperature.
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Or you know, adjust software controlled thermal throttling that doesn't make the CPU constantly cycle between max turbo and 800mhz.
 
J3RK said:
I can't hear it over all the increased fan noise!! :p
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Honestly don't know if you mean fan as in the plastic thing that spins around an pushes air through the device, or fan as in the rabid people defending the hell out of this.



diehardman said:
It's funny that when something like an XPS 15 has this same issue, nobody gives a shit.

Or you know, adjust software controlled thermal throttling that doesn't make the CPU constantly cycle between max turbo and 800mhz.
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Where is the i9 XPS 15 that is 75% the performance of the older version? Video I found was showing the i9 XPS 15 to render faster than the previous version.
 
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