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Something's not right

R

reuvenbrom

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 2, 2009
12
0
Hi all,

I recently purchased a 15" MBP 2.66 with 9600M GT graphics. Here's my issue:

- When plugged into AC, expose is fine.
- When running on battery, expose runs choppy (even with "Higher Performance" graphics set in Energy Saving)

Is this normal? Has anyone else noticed this?
 
Is it all the time, even when the processor is say running a real app. in the background?

Could it be the speedstepping for the processor to save battery? Lowers clock when doing little kinda' thing. You'll notice it with genie effects and expose and other fancy things when the machine is doing very little on battery power and then you hit it with one of those seemingly small tasks (but it's not so small) at a lower clock speed.
 
NC MacGuy said:
Is it all the time, even when the processor is say running a real app. in the background?

Could it be the speedstepping for the processor to save battery? Lowers clock when doing little kinda' thing. You'll notice it with genie effects and expose and other fancy things when the machine is doing very little on battery power and then you hit it with one of those seemingly small tasks (but it's not so small) at a lower clock speed.
Click to expand...

nice idea, could be that.. but then wouldnt everybody be complaining about it?
 
reuvenbrom said:
no I havent. What did you have in mind?
Click to expand...

If you put your restore disc in and boot holding D (I think, from memory) you'll boot into a hardware diagnostic mode, run the tests and see if something comes up, if it does, I'd be taking it to a genius bar and showing them/getting a repair/replacement.
 
There have been a few posts similar to this. It's not really a problem or performance issue when the computer is running and taking in commands or already working in some way. It's only as it sits a wee bit idle.

If you hit expose repeatedly in quick succession, do the windows seem jittery or each time or is it only the first one?
 
OK, I just went to an Apple store and checked out every notebook. All of them (including the most expensive 17") do the same thing as my machine, except the 13" models (maybe because they run at a lower resolution or maybe they have some different CPU throttling).

AC Plugged in ("Higher Performance" set):
- Dock positioned on bottom, 2 Finder windows = choppy Expose
- Dock positioned on bottom, many Finder windows = smooth Expose
- Dock positioned on right, 2 Finder windows = smooth Expose
- Dock positioned on right, many Finder windows = smooth Expose

Running on Battery ("Higher Performance" set):
- Dock in any position, any number of Finder windows = choppy Expose, with possible smoothening after the second or third time of calling Expose

Doesn't make any sense, this sort of thing shouldn't happen on a $2000 laptop with 4GB RAM and 2 friggin video cards(which is why I picked this model over the cheaper one without the 9600M GT). I think they took the CPU energy saving idea too far. But at least now I know its not only my machine.

In addition, I have Windows 7 Release Candidate (64-bit) installed, and it too has variable smoothness when opening/closing/maximizing/minimizing windows.

To respond to the above, I did the hardware diagnostics and there were no problems.
 
thats pretty much an insult!! yea the throttling as gone too far.

but i must say, even my original MBP running at 1GHz does not look choppy at all, even with a million windows open.

maybe they underclock the GPU significantly whilst on battery and that is causing it.
 
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