MBP 2018 i9 Battery and throttle issues

[seb2195]

Hi Everyone,

I have a 2018 MBP (i9, 32gb Ram, Vega20)

I am having some ridiculous battery life compared to stated online. We are talking 90 mins video editing (FCPX workflow on SSD with Compressor rendering) or sub 3hrs normal use (Simple web browsing). Battery condition is showing as normal. Graphics is autoswitching, have tried PRAM, EMC and reinstall, and this has been persistent accross operating systems (Sierra and Catelina).

Is this normal?

Also having some throttling issues, with the device rarely going anywhere near the advertised GHz. Any advice would be appreciated. Really disappointed as my 2012 rMBP had much, much better battery.


Thanks!

 

[0906742]

Maybe battery aging and getting weaker?
How many charge cycles and what battery health percent?
Do you also notice sharp drop in Full Charge Capacity when CPU load is high?

I noticed that in my MBP 2019 battery is losing operating time as it ages and now about 30 charge cycles it much less than when it was new.

macbook pro 2019 entry level battery issues

Does it go at the same level or even a bit higher than the aluminium chassis on the highest place? How noticeable it raise when battery/machine is hot? In mine it is really little, I's say like 0.05mm but it is noticeable because when cold it is just below the chassis but get just above when...

forums.macrumors.com

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[seb2195]

I was wondering that but the battery has never really lasted above 3 hours.
I’m on 93 cycles and 94% of original capacity.
Yes drop in capacity when under load - very strange!

 

[0906742]

It could be just a weak battery, since it also drop capacity under load which is not common with healthy battery. I've seen batteries sometimes weak right out of the box so that could explain it never run above 3 hours. For example, I have seen quite big difference between two iPhone X'es in our family. One with weak battery and other with strong and there is huge difference in standby and operating times in real life, even the "weaker" one also claim 100% battery health when new.

In the thread I linked FCC drop under load seems very rare issue with newer machines, so I think it is really just the battery getting weak when it occurs.

How deep dips your FCC does under load?

 

[seb2195]

It could be just a weak battery, since it also drop capacity under load which is not common with healthy battery. I've seen batteries sometimes weak right out of the box so that could explain it never run above 3 hours. For example, I have seen quite big difference between two iPhone X'es in our family. One with weak battery and other with strong and there is huge difference in standby and operating times in real life, even the "weaker" one also claim 100% battery health when new.

In the thread I linked FCC drop under load seems very rare issue with newer machines, so I think it is really the battery getting weak when it occurs.

How deep dips your FCC does under load?

Is this something covered under AppleCare? The Genius Bar said everything was fine and blamed it on a rogue app, but seemed disinterested that I did a complete format and reinstall without any additional apps.

Do you mean frequency Clock speed for FCC? Under load it has dropped to 0.8ghz for some reason I cannot work out what is causing the throttling.

 

[0906742]

Is this something covered under AppleCare? The Genius Bar said everything was fine and blamed it on a rogue app, but seemed disinterested that I did a complete format and reinstall without any additional apps.

I guess not, because as far as I know, the battery is considered healthy as long as health shows 80% or more.

Do you mean frequency Clock speed for FCC? Under load it has dropped to 0.8ghz for some reason I cannot work out what is causing the throttling.

No, I mean Full Charge Capacity for FCC, it shows that for example in CoconutBattery app.
Basically that is just the battery full capacity value in mAh's so you can compare it to nominal full charge capacity (Design Capacity).

I believe throttling comes more from the heat, it throttles CPU it when it gets too hot.

 

[leman]

I am having some ridiculous battery life compared to stated online. We are talking 90 mins video editing (FCPX workflow on SSD with Compressor rendering)

If your CPU/GPU is active and doing work during that time, 90 minutes sounds about right (that translates to about 30W sustained power draw).

Also having some throttling issues, with the device rarely going anywhere near the advertised GHz.

How did you check this?

Its very difficult to diagnose issues without proper information. You need to give us more, such as screenshots of your Activity Monitor, Intel Power Gadget readouts etc.

 

[seb2195]

If your CPU/GPU is active and doing work during that time, 90 minutes sounds about right (that translates to about 30W sustained power draw).

Ah really? is that the impact of the additional power draw from the i9/GPU?

I'm currently running at 23 watts power draw, nothing open except safari and this webpage, about this Mac settings showing I'm not using the GPU, is that normal for web browsing? I guess I was just expecting more life from the battery, maybe some good power savings if the power is not being used?

Here is a picture of a Cinebench runtime only getting 583pts which seems super low and it never goes up to the base clock speed. Is this how it should be running?

No, I mean Full Charge Capacity for FCC, it shows that for example in CoconutBattery app.
Basically that is just the battery full capacity value in mAh's so you can compare it to nominal full charge capacity (Design Capacity).

I believe throttling comes more from the heat, it throttles CPU it when it gets too hot.

My Battery is showing 97% design capacity (using battery monitor with only safari open) when running a cinebench it drops to between 96 and 88% FCC.

 

[leman]

Ah really? is that the impact of the additional power draw from the i9/GPU?

Under load, sure (it can go up to 60Watts+). But just having an app open does not mean that any substantial work is being done.

I'm currently running at 23 watts power draw, nothing open except safari and this webpage, about this Mac settings showing I'm not using the GPU, is that normal for web browsing?

That is certainly not normal, unless some work is being done in the background. It should consume around 10W on idle.

Here is a picture of a Cinebench runtime only getting 583pts which seems super low and it never goes up to the base clock speed. Is this how it should be running?

I would say that your clocks are abnormally low. You should be seeing around 3Ghz sustained while running Cinebench. Since your temperature is never above 70C and your CPU power usage tops out at 20W I'd say that you have a problem with your power management system.

I'd recommend the following:

1. Reset the SMC
2. Do a clean new install
3. Check if the Cinebench yields the same result

If it doesn't change anything (or if you already tried the above steps), you should escalate it to technical support. The guy who looked at your machine before seems like an idiot. Rogue software could cause your machine to use more power than it should, but you CPU is not hitting its limits, which is abnormal.

P.S. Did you at any time use any of the tools that limit your CPU's TDP? This could be an effect of such a limiter.

 

[0906742]

If your CPU/GPU is active and doing work during that time, 90 minutes sounds about right (that translates to about 30W sustained power draw).

But isn't battery much bigger than 45W in that model? Should run much longer with 30W power draw.
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Here is a picture of a Cinebench runtime only getting 583pts which seems super low and it never goes up to the base clock speed. Is this how it should be running?

Should be much higher. Even my entry model MBP 13 2019 gives well over 1600pts.

My Battery is showing 97% design capacity (using battery monitor with only safari open) when running a cinebench it drops to between 96 and 88% FCC.

Pretty big FCC drop under load. Battery seems weak based on that. I see several % drops in my MBP too and it has very poor battery run times. It should not drop if battery is strong.

 

[leman]

But isn't battery much bigger than 45W in that model? Should run much longer with 30W power draw.

Yeah, sorry, that would be 170 minutes give or take. I had a brain fart 90 minutes would mean ~55W power draw, still perfectly "achievable" when transcoding or rendering.

 

[seb2195]

1. Reset the SMC
2. Do a clean new install
3. Check if the Cinebench yields the same result

If it doesn't change anything (or if you already tried the above steps), you should escalate it to technical support. The guy who looked at your machine before seems like an idiot. Rogue software could cause your machine to use more power than it should, but you CPU is not hitting its limits, which is abnormal.

P.S. Did you at any time use any of the tools that limit your CPU's TDP? This could be an effect of such a limiter.

I have tried a fresh install, SMC reset etc. Nothing installed to limit TDP either. It looks like it is going back to technical support. Possibly with the Cinebench screenshot to show them, hopefully I'll get a different result this time.

Pretty big FCC drop under load. Battery seems weak based on that. I see several % drops in my MBP too and it has very poor battery run times. It should not drop if battery is strong.

I'll mention this as well, see if I can get the battery swapped as I have purchased AppleCare+


Thanks for everyones help, it wasn't me going crazy after all!

 

[leman]

I have tried a fresh install, SMC reset etc. Nothing installed to limit TDP either. It looks like it is going back to technical support. Possibly with the Cinebench screenshot to show them, hopefully I'll get a different result this time.

You can say something along the lines of "My CPU has the TDP of 45W and yet it does not hit in in a sustained workload that occupies 100% of CPU, so it does not meet the advertised spec". And if the person you are talking to seems not to understand what you just said, demand to talk to a technician

Good luck!

 

[BeatWilson]

If you let you computer run all night rendering video with the Vega 20 chip i9 model, the battery will drain once completely then only charge upto a certain percentage before throttling down and back up and so forth showing your battery going through more cycles than it is actually because it is not actually charging all the way back up.

There was a video made about this.

 

[seb2195]

have a genius appointment booked this evening, I’ll update you all how it goes.