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benmuetsch

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 10, 2020
90
37
Hello everyone,

I don't know if I can report this to Apple because my 7.1 Mac Pro is out of coverage and my GPU is not a factory MPX module but what I noticed via iStat menus is an increased power draw of my computer which is caused by the GPU. Now on a desktop Mac this is not a real big deal but if this happens on laptops as well, it will drain the battery quiet a bit. And yes, It's on the Intel side of things, so maybe not of great interest for Apple, but many Intel models are still compatible so I'll post my finding.

If I start my Mac Pro and do nothing, the GPU enters the usual idle state and downclocks all the way to it's p0 state, then drawing like 10W or even less. Since updating to Sequoia, if you once do anything - like browing the web - and then close the browser or stay on a static web page, the GPU won't enter the idle state again, always clocking up and down, drawing quiet some wattage, up to 3 times more than it used to be. If I wait till the display turns off, after like 20mins, the GPU enters a real idle state again.

Anyone experienced this issue? Yeah, you have to be used to monitor your numbers on iStat but I'm sure there are some of thouse guys out here! :)

My specs:
7.1 Mac Pro / 48GB RAM / 1TB SSD / 2TB SATA SSD / AMD Radeon RX 560 4GB
 
Just a little update by myself: the problem seems to be solved.

a) there still was some indexing going on
b) Firefox seemed to be a part of the issue, now got an update and resolved
c) GPU seems to get triggered a bit from the SystemUI agent, which renders iStat menus

When letting the Mac Pro sitting at idle now, power draw is as expected and the GPU also enters low power state.
 
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