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Speed Step @ OS X Lion

M

meme1255

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 15, 2012
749
598
Czechia
Hello,


I would like to ask if is normal that my Macbook Pro 5,1 2.53 GHz C2D
still runs at maximum frequency and appears like it doesn't use Intel SpeedStep.


I've used 3 utilities: MacCPUID from Intel, CPU-X and CPU-Z in X11 over WINE.
Always same result: 2,53 GHz, +- a few MHz.


In Windows, Speedstep looks like it works okay, so it looks like something is wrong with Lion.(10.7.4)


Thanks for reply,


meme



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I already sent this to Apple Support as bug.
 
There is a utility called coolbook, but it does not support Lion.

OSX does use Speedstep, but they do not expose what they are doing under the covers.

Is there a particular problem you are trying to solve?
 
Last edited:
Yes, problem is battery life. Battery heath 85%, 9400M and Safari & Textedit only. 2h on battery is max. And I do believe it is caused by (not working) speedstep
 
meme1255 said:
Yes, problem is battery life. Battery heath 85%, 9400M and Safari & Textedit only. 2h on battery is max. And I do believe it is caused by (not working) speedstep
Click to expand...

SInce they don't expose it, I can't prove or disprove that speedstep is the issue. However I can tell you that i have found that I can make the battery last longer by doing stuff like turning down the screen brightness to 50% and turning off bluetooth. Also, with Safari, it depends on what you are doing with is as to how much it's going to tax the CPU. For example, last night I was working with mine on battery and had, among other apps, safari running. I noticed that the computer was getting really hot on my lap and the battery was burning up quickly. I took a peek at activity monitor and noticed the logmein plugin for safari was using a fair amount of CPU cycles.
 
I've already tried all of this tips , of course. And , in my opinion, this horrible battery life is caused by 2 things (mainly):

1) OS X Lion (Higher usage of system resources ) ( For example, on my friend's Lenovo, enabling power-saving CPU mode (from ~3,2GHz to 1,7/1,2 GHz) increase battery life from ~ 6 hours to 8-9 ... ( That notebook is running Windows 7 & has 9-cell battery)
2) Unsupport of EIST

------
I have written to Apple Developer Center, hopefully they will respond me soon.
 
The problem is no one seems to know or care.
I have tried to run sysctl -a in a terminal windows on my MBP 13 June 2012 with OS Lion, and the CPU speed is definitely locked:

hw.cpufrequency: 2900000000
hw.cpufrequency_min: 2900000000
hw.cpufrequency_max: 2900000000

I'm sure it used to work in Snow Leopard with my 2011 MBP, so not sure what the deal and why no one cares.

It's probably Lion or you wouldn't have the same issue.

If it isn't solved with Mountain Lion, I'll return my MBP. Battery life is ridiculous.

How come no reviewer has reported this?
 
meme1255 said:
I'll try it on SL the day after tommorow.. (Maybe tommorow) And no one noticed probably because they think it is normal and only new Macs are reviewed :(

PS: I Zhave reported it to Apple Developer team..

----------

One more time - https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1405064/

----------

Do you think that replacing lions files with snow Leo's would work? https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1225750/
Click to expand...

No, I don't think it would work, but apparently you can replace the applepowermanagement kext by another file. Sounds like a receipe for disaster so I'll wait until I find out more.

I've tried using the tools in Xcode to monitor the CPU speed but they can't display the CPU frequency anymore. It was possible with Shark (in CHUD) but I don't think CHUD works on Lion, so we're back to square one.
 
meme1255 said:
Looks like it don't work since 10.4.8 :eek::eek::eek: :mad:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/3279405#3279405
Click to expand...

Have you tried Snow Leopard? I can't downgrade because SL will not handle the new hardware of my MBP (HD4000 etc), but my 2011 MBP 13 with SL had much better battery life.

I have updated my thread in Apple Discussions, please have a look and post your results in the thread if you can.

Maybe someone will come up with information in the end.
 
Right now on iPad - SL results here at the bottom: forums.macrumors.com/threads/1405064/

I will test HW monitor as soon as possible..
 
meme1255 said:
Right now on iPad - SL results here at the bottom: forums.macrumors.com/threads/1405064/

I will test HW monitor as soon as possible..
Click to expand...

I have posted a final answer from the developper of Hardware Monitor in the thread above. Speedstep and Turboboost are enabled in Lion, it's just that utilities can't report the actual CPU frequency.

So case closed as far as I'm concerned.
 
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