Macbook Pro mid 2017 CPU Throttling problem

[Cryptocrab]

Hey everyone. I have had a mess of four weeks back and forth with Apple Singapore. Please can you give me some guidance?
The model is a 15" mid 2017 Macbook Pro with all extras and upgrades, including the 3.1Ghz CPU and 560 GPU. The laptop in two years old and is my main work horse in rendering, virtual machines and programming.
My laptop so far has been in three times for repairs under Apple Care;

• New Keyboard due to faulty keys
• New Fans
• New Screen due to random popping noises (no idea how but it worked)
• Pending new logic board.

The current issue is that the CPU never hit any turbo speed above 3.2Ghz and throttles continuously with high GPU/CPU rending or compute - also depletes battery when on charge. I have screenshots, logs and evidenced in store but because the built in diagnostics do not show "fault" the senior Apple advisor can not help me any-further so I am stuck.

The most frustrating aspect is the number of times I have been into the store for repairs and rebuilds. Sure most of you can appreciate the number of hours it takes to restore and get back to production.

Last week though I was promised a new machine replacement, then two days later this was changed. I have some really bad experience with Apple care "senior advisors" and a black hole of promises, coarse language and notes not updated on repairs - apparently in Singapore you have no one to escalate too and I am stuck in limbo.

any ideas?

 

[Sanpete]

"Pending new logic board": Does this mean you know your current trouble is with the logic board, so you've ruled out that it's, say, heat related or due to some other cause?

 

[Cryptocrab]

Hey Sanpete, the store want to do this as a "good will move" though they stress they can not find a fault even though it clearly can not go beyond speeds of 3.2ghz and throttle much lower during demanding compute. I am losing much face over this.

To top it off, once advisor told me to hang up on the phone trying to understand why the replacement machine was approved then rejected

 

[Cryptocrab]

Screenshot of throttling - this was evidenced in store.

 

[Sanpete]

Almost looks software limited. Hard to see how any common hardware problem would cause it. Have you run programs or commands that would affect the turbo speed?

 

[Cryptocrab]

This is on a new machine build - no other software

 

[Sanpete]

It was operating at normal turbo speed before, but it isn't now? When did the change occur, and was it immediately after anything that might affect it like a repair?

Are you using the current OS?

 

[Cryptocrab]

I have only noticed it during recent high compute when compared to peer Macbook Pro with same specs. Yes I am running the latest version of MacOS and still the same after the repair. I have a lemon, or this model can not handle the heat produced with the CPU upgrade

 

[jerryk]

I have only noticed it during recent high compute when compared to peer Macbook Pro with same specs. Yes I am running the latest version of MacOS and still the same after the repair. I have a lemon, or this model can not handle the heat produced with the CPU upgrade

Pretty sure this is the same throttling issues that plagued these 15" models since 2016, especially if you have the i9 CPU. Dave Lee did some videos on this and the 2019 15"

 

[Sanpete]

Still looks to me like some software setting. It's there before any thermal throttling. It's the kind of thing sometimes done to avoid or limit throttling.

Have you *ever* used software or commands to control turbo (or fan) speed/throttling? I've never tried it myself, and I don't know if it's possible for such commands/software to alter something that wouldn't be changed by OS updates or clean installs.