rMBP 15' EFI v1.0 Throttling issue?

mattlovell

mattlovell

mattlovell

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Had this issue now since updating the EFI just after I got my Macbook. For anyone who doesn't know its an issue where the MB starts aggressively throttling down the CPU and GPU, possibly related to sleep. Very annoying if you like to play games under windows bootcamp, as nothing short of an SMC reset will fix it, and only temporarily at that.

Just wondering how many other people are experiencing it / have found a workaround or have any info on when Apple might get their act together and update the EFI! :confused:
 
It seems to be talked about a fair bit over at MacRumors. It's a horrible bug to have and I'd hope it gets sorted out very quickly.

There are also reports of it happening in OS X as well, so many people can be affected without realising unless they do very CPU and GPU intensive things.
 
Yeah I'm keeping track of the MacRumours thread, seems to be the most active of the numerous threads about it on multiple sites!

Think I have noticed it on OSX although not tested it so can't know for sure.

Driving me nuts now, just feels like its tainting an otherwise more or less perfect (in my opinion!) machine.
 
Well have you set it to only use the integrated GPU and watched videos? Flash ones tend to cause a bit of sound stuttering and tiny lag spikes.

It seems that's one way to pick up on it, sadly MSR Tools doesn't work in Lion or Mountain Lion, which would have reported your active CPU frequencies.

Either way I hope they fix it soon. I had it after a day. It's sad that such an amazing machine has bugs like these. Besides this EFI issue the only other thing that annoys me is the lack of a dedicated Line in port for a mic. :p
 
I had the problem on my first machine, YouTube flash videos would lag and stutter in OSX (don't use Bootcamp), I had the machine replaced for a different reason and I haven't experienced anything like it since.
 
Hey chaps, have a look at the Intel Power Gadget which actively shows your CPU frequency and power usage.

http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-power-gadget-20

I've noticed my 2.6Ghz seems to idle between 1.2Ghz and 1.5Ghz, and it usually runs up then after I run something that needs some power.
When running 4k video from here http://e-nautia.com/vanden/disk?p=2148840
after downloading it I've seen my CPU average at 3.4Ghz, which instantly drops down to around 1.2 again once it stops.

Normal Idle

ScreenShot2013-01-04at135238_zpse71dfa3c.png


After Video
ScreenShot2013-01-04at144539_zps2730a0cb.png
 
N19h7m4r3 said:
Hey chaps, have a look at the Intel Power Gadget which actively shows your CPU frequency and power usage.

http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-power-gadget-20

I've noticed my 2.6Ghz seems to idle between 1.2Ghz and 1.5Ghz, and it usually runs up then after I run something that needs some power.
When running 4k video from here http://e-nautia.com/vanden/disk?p=2148840
after downloading it I've seen my CPU average at 3.4Ghz, which instantly drops down to around 1.2 again once it stops.
Click to expand...

Isn't this just Speedstep or Turbo Boost? After it drops to 1.2, if you then run the video again, does it go back up to 3.4ish?
 
Last edited:
mattlovell said:
Isn't this just Speedstep or Turbo Boost? After it drops to 1.2, if you then run the video again, does it go back up to 3.4ish?
Click to expand...

It does sometimes, other times especially when I run a game or use flash on youtube I'll here some static in the videos and then it gets stuck at around 1.2Ghz until I reset the SMC.
 
Ah right. Personally, I have managed to fix the problem I was having in bootcamp (a windows power issue, which I'm astonished I didnt think of!) and can't say I have noticed any problems in OSX, so perhaps I am actually one of the lucky ones who doesn't seem to have the bug. I'll test out those monitors later today and post what I find.
 
That's good to know. So far today it hasn't done anything bad today. I played some Borderlands 2 for a bit and I had no problems at all. I hope it stays like this.
 
I have to say it runs really well.

I play at 1920x1200 with most things on high. I turned off ambient occlusion and shadow, along with FXAA since I don't really notice the aliasing. It runs buttery smooth.

If I want the lighting and shadows on I just drop the res down to 1680x1050 and it's still brilliant. With those on it's still really playable, although it doesn't feel like it's above 60 FPS then. The slight increase in visuals aren't enough for the performance hit it takes.


One thing to note is that the Mac version is a patch behind the PC version and there isn't any cross play because of that. Aspyre is working on fixing that ASAP and then to prevent it form happening again.

Good thing I got the game on Steam so I can play it on windows as well. The steam Cloud doesn't sync your saves between OS X and Win because of this patch issue, but you can just manually transfer the saves files over without issue.


EVE online is really laggy though, although that's just in the station, once you undock it's fine. I haven't had the chance to try any other games tough. I'm glad about 1/4 of my Steam library are OS X compatible though.

On the note of the EFI bug, I've not had my CPU get stuck when down clocked lately. Although I do get some audio stuttering here and there on some videos because the CPU keeps going up and down. I noticed it only happens when the CPU frequency takes a dip down from above 3Ghz to below 2.

I wonder if you can disable speed step, and if so what the battery life will be like.
 
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