Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

M2 Air intermittent stuttery performance

S

scottrichardson

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 10, 2007
728
306
Ulladulla, NSW Australia
Hi all. I am a proud owner of a 10 core M2 midnight Air with 24GB RAM and 1TB storage. I love it. Hard to fault it really.

However...

I have started to notice intermittent periods of lower performance - namely, the frame rate of ALL OS animations are lower to the point where it looks stuttery. Like 30fps vs 60fps. Swiping desktops, resizing basic windows, scrolling web pages - literally anything that moves stutters this way.

The remedy is to close the lid and re-open. So far this is fixing it either the first time I close/open, or the 2nd time.

The issue appears to occur after a while of being asleep then opening it up again after being left for some time.

This occurs with fairly minimal load on the machine also. Safari, Mail, Messages and maybe 1 - 2 Electron apps open. With tons of RAM spare.

Anyone else experienced this at all? Any ideas what it could be?

If I can, I will try do a QuickTime screen recording of it versus how it looks when it's fine.

Scott
 
yes. choppy OS animations moving b/w spaces. Fairly low load too. I have 16GB M2 Air.

I restarted and it fixes things up. I also uninstalled all the Adblocks like Adguard in safari which runs in background. Yet to see slowdown now.
 
  • Like
Reactions: scottrichardson
Never experienced this but I always shut my Mac down when I am done and restart it when I want to use it.

I am used to Windows not being so friendly after going to sleep.

I had a friend who would go months just putting their Mac to sleep and after several months they would have some randomly issue and I would remind them to restart and then the issue would be resolved. Lol
 
  • Like
Reactions: Crosscreek and Moonlight
vivek28 said:
yes. choppy OS animations moving b/w spaces. Fairly low load too. I have 16GB M2 Air.

I restarted and it fixes things up. I also uninstalled all the Adblocks like Adguard in safari which runs in background. Yet to see slowdown now.
Click to expand...

Ok glad it’s not just me. But a little annoying. I don’t run any ad blockers like you. Just Adobe Creative Suite, Sublime, Safari, Mail, GitHub, CodeKit and Discord. I sometimes have Binance app open too for trading.
 
scottrichardson said:
Ok glad it’s not just me. But a little annoying. I don’t run any ad blockers like you. Just Adobe Creative Suite, Sublime, Safari, Mail, GitHub, CodeKit and Discord. I sometimes have Binance app open too for trading.
Click to expand...
im sure its something software related, maybe with any luck this will clear up with the new os release. I personally dont experience any of these issues on my m2 air
 
  • Like
Reactions: scottrichardson
I have the same issue. The M2 MBA feels like a slower machine than my M1 12.9 iPad Pro even. My explanation is the 60hz display on the M2 MBA I guess?
 
vivek28 said:
yes. choppy OS animations moving b/w spaces. Fairly low load too. I have 16GB M2 Air.

I restarted and it fixes things up. I also uninstalled all the Adblocks like Adguard in safari which runs in background. Yet to see slowdown now.
Click to expand...

The 16" M1 Max MacBook Pro is smooth with Adblocks installed, so I don't think that is the problem? In any case, removing Adblocks is not a fix for me as I cannot stand being spammed by ads.

Anyway, let's see with the next Mac OS update. I hope it's not due to the 60hz display and it's a Mac OS bug.
 
I have a fully upgraded M2 which has not been powered off since I bought it and have not noticed any issues with my system.
 
If you haven't done so, I would check with Activity Monitor when you are seeing this and see if anything unexpected is using a lot of CPU or GPU (most likely GPU).
 
scottrichardson said:
Hi all. I am a proud owner of a 10 core M2 midnight Air with 24GB RAM and 1TB storage. I love it. Hard to fault it really.

However...

I have started to notice intermittent periods of lower performance - namely, the frame rate of ALL OS animations are lower to the point where it looks stuttery. Like 30fps vs 60fps. Swiping desktops, resizing basic windows, scrolling web pages - literally anything that moves stutters this way.

The remedy is to close the lid and re-open. So far this is fixing it either the first time I close/open, or the 2nd time.

The issue appears to occur after a while of being asleep then opening it up again after being left for some time.

This occurs with fairly minimal load on the machine also. Safari, Mail, Messages and maybe 1 - 2 Electron apps open. With tons of RAM spare.

Anyone else experienced this at all? Any ideas what it could be?

If I can, I will try do a QuickTime screen recording of it versus how it looks when it's fine.

Scott
Click to expand...
I'm having the same issue on my MacBook Pro M2 on Monterey 12.7.6. Did you ever find a fix?
 
  • Like
Reactions: scottrichardson
People say they never turn of their Macs and just put them to sleep however from my experience in a professional Graphic Prepress background you should absolutely restart your Mac once a day. It keeps the Computer running smooth with less glitches in both the OS and running apps Like Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop. I work with a few people who don't regularly restart their machine and they are forever having issues.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Technerd108
torana355 said:
People say they never turn of their Macs and just put them to sleep however from my experience in a professional Graphic Prepress background you should absolutely restart your Mac once a day. It keeps the Computer running smooth with less glitches in both the OS and running apps Like Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop. I work with a few people who don't regularly restart their machine and they are forever having issues.
Click to expand...
Very good advice regardless of device or OS. Restart daily.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back