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Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

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Archive for the ‘MacBook Retina’ Category

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Way easier to fix on Intel MacBook machines than I thought: macos kernel_task high cpu dual screen

Posted by jpluimers on 2023/03/13

The links found via [Wayback/Archive] macos kernel_task high cpu dual screen – Google Search were daunting.

In the end, the issue ways way easier to fix than I thought: open up your Intel MacBook (you need pentalobe screwdrivers for that), then with some compressed air, clean the dust (especially from the fans).

This post saved my day [Wayback/Archive] kernel_task takes up 500% of my CPU when plugging in external monitor – MacBook Pro 15″ Retina Display Mid 2015 – iFixit

Things I haven’t tried yet:

  • Cleaning out more free space from HDD
  • Using plain HDMI cable into the HDMI cable port
  • Taking MBP apart and cleaning any potential dust

…
Block Image

I faced the very same issue that you guys are facing and based on input from another forum decided to get my 2016 MPB fans cleaned out.

This made an immediate impact where when I connected my external display to the MBP.pre-cleaning, it would overheat causing the fans to spin at 6000 rpm or thereabout and the kernel_task would eat up 500%-900% of the CPU rending the system unusable.

This simple cleanup of the fans has allowed me to connect the monitor with no kernel panic anymore and even though the fans run around 5000 rpm now the CPU and GPU are running around 10 degrees cooler now.

The same picture is in [Wayback/Archive] macos – MacBook Pro high CPU with external monitors – Ask Different.

An even dirtier MacBook was at [Wayback/Archive] External Display – High CPU Usage – MacBo… – Apple Community.

Links that were interesting but unhelpful:

–jeroen

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Apple, Mac, MacBook, MacBook Retina, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Cleaning the cooling fans of a 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro 2015 model

Posted by jpluimers on 2022/03/14

After years of use, the cooling fans of my 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro 2015 model got quite a bit dirty, causing them to run louder and louder.

The video below the fold shows how to clean them: 11 screws, some isopropyl alcohol, (dry!) compressed, and caution for the connector-clips connecting the bottom plate.

It helps having a:

  • pentalobe P5 screwdriver
  • plastic spudger so separate the bottom plate (especially be careful with the connector-clips)
  • magnet to stick the screws to, as they are really tiny and it is easy to loose them

I got the pentalobe screwdriver with some spare screws from the German Amazon: [Archive.is] Kricson Ersatzschrauben MacBook Pro – 4 Pack Gummi: Amazon.de: Computer & Zubehör

You can get a similar one from the USA Amazon site: [Archive.is] Amazon.com: 8 Pack Rubber Case Feet + Set of 20pcs Repair Replacement Screw + 1pcs 5 Point Pentalobe Screwdriver for Unibody MacBook Pro Retina A1425 A1502 A1398 13″ 15″ Bottom Case(Retina): Computers & Accessories

Two important tips:

  • After using isopropyl alcohol, let the parts dry
  • Hold the fans when spraying compressed air (to prevent the fan-motors to create over-voltage, and to prevent the fans spinning faster than they are rated for)

The iFixit pictures for replacing the SSD help greatly to see how to remove and re-attach the back-cover, and where the various parts are inside the machines.

Note the screws differ between the 13-inch and 15-inch models!

–jeroen

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Apple, Mac, MacBook, MacBook Retina, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, Power User | Leave a Comment »

dd on MacOS / OS X with progress report

Posted by jpluimers on 2022/01/21

Since dd on Apple does not support progress parameters via [Wayback] macos dd progress – Google Search:

  • [Wayback] Quick: dd with progress indication on macOS

    A nice way I found to get progress indication whilst still being able to benefit from the huge speed increase in using /dev/rdiskX is to install a tool called pv, also known as [WayBack] Pipe Viewer.

    Example:

    sudo dd if=/dev/rdiskX bs=1m | pv -s 64G | sudo dd of=/dev/rdiskY bs=1m

    Another way to achieve something similar would be to use brew to install coreutils, which will come with a newer version of dd that supports the status option.

    Example:

    gdd if=/dev/diskX of=/dev/diskY bs=1m status=progress

  • [Wayback] el capitan – How can I track progress of dd – Ask Different

    You just need to enter a controlT character from the keyboard while the dd command is executing.

    By pressing the controlT character, you are sending the same SIGINFO signal to the dd command that the command pkill -INFO -x dd sends.

     

    dd itself doesn’t provide a progress bar. You may estimate the progress of the dd copy process by adding a pkill -INFO command though.

    Example:

    dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/null bs=64m count=1000 & while pkill -INFO -x dd; do sleep 1; done
  • [Wayback] dd progress indicator on OSX

    signal siginfo is coupled to key-combination CTRL-T. No need to use kill, you can just type CTRL-T in the terminal window where dd is running.

–jeroen

Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, Apple, iMac, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, MacBook, MacBook Retina, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, MacMini, Power User | Leave a Comment »

MacOS: when “Command-Tab” does not work (no visual response, no application switching) you need to restart the Dock

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/05/21

Based on [WayBack] Command-Tab Not working….. – Apple Community

If you go to Activity monitor and search for dock, doubleclick on it, choose Force quit.
It will restart the Dock app and now it should work.

I wrote this alias which restarts Dock (including Dashboard and Spaces as they are served by the same process).

alias restart-dock-dashboard-spaces='killall -KILL Dock'

Related: my 2013 post Mac: Restarting the Mac OS X Dock, Finder, Spaces or Menubar | Stefan Ernst.

–jeroen

Posted in Apple, iMac, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, MacBook, MacBook Retina, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, MacMini, macOS 10.12 Sierra, macOS 10.13 High Sierra, OS X 10.10 Yosemite, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Need to figure out how to remount 2015 Retina MacBook Pro SD card that got ejected during sleep

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/09/04

Somehow, every now and then, a 2015 Retina MacBook Pro will eject the SD Card during sleep.

I’m not sure about the cause, just about the message that a drive got unmounted in an unexpected way.

This fails to rescan for the drive on Mac OS Sierra:

sudo kextunload -b com.apple.driver.AppleSDXC
sudo kextload -b com.apple.driver.AppleSDXC

As per [WayBack] external disk – Problem with kextunload SD card remount – Ask Different, I tried the kextstat below, however, before the unload/load statements, kextstat | grep -e SDXC returns nothing.

After them, it returns something like

156 0 0xffffff7f841f3000 0x12000 0x12000 com.apple.driver.AppleSDXC (1.7.6) 0F6F5025-A1C4-3E77-9ECD-4D4410E684C5 <16 15 12 5 4 3 1>

When it happens again, I will likely need to read these:

It might be that somewhere along the line, SDSX is not started by default any more or not applicable to MicroSD to SDXC card converters. These screenshots at least show that this disk is connected via a USB path:

The screenshots are from the stock “System Information.app” tool, and I really wish it showed the kext drivers used for each device. That would make debugging these issues a lot easier!

A solution then could be as easy as this:

Unmount all USB connected devices (for instance with a command like diskutil eject disk1);

sudo kextunload -b com.apple.driver.AppleUSBCardReader
sudo kextload -b com.apple.driver.AppleUSBCardReader

However my first try got me an error similar to the one result [WayBack] External USB disk sometimes requires a reboot to be recognized after eject – Ars Technica OpenForum I found after searching for “class com_apple_driver_AppleUSBCardReaderDriverNub has” “instances.”:

7/28/16 10:05:54.000 AM kernel[0]: Can't unload kext com.apple.driver.AppleUSBCardReader; classes have instances:
7/28/16 10:05:54.000 AM kernel[0]: Kext com.apple.driver.AppleUSBCardReader class com_apple_driver_AppleUSBCardReaderDriverNub has 2 instances.

–jeroen

Posted in Apple, Mac, MacBook, MacBook Retina, Power User | Leave a Comment »

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