3

I have MacBook Air (early 2014) with Big Sur installed as an emergency.

And it happened, I lost my job, work laptop was taken back, and I had to use my emergency laptop.

The battery is damaged, it does not charge at all, so the power adapter needs to be connected all the time.

Something tells me the MacBook is slower the listed CPU speed because the battery level is constantly on 0-1%, even if it is charging from adapter.

I'm not sure if it is a problem, ideally I can buy a new battery and try to replace it, but I'm not sure it will solve the problem, and I'm on a low budget during my job-hunt.

Is there any way to check the CPU speed level, and is it possible to force MacBook to not decrease CPU speed?

Improve this question
1
  • Are you asking for theoretical reasons, or are you actually perceiving different / slower behavior?
    – pion
    Dec 23, 2021 at 15:42

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
3

Many Mac laptop models throttle the CPU when the battery is not capable of supplying enough power (or if it absent or faulty). It is not possible to overcome this. Otherwise the Mac would (sometimes) want more power that the charge cable can provide.

Is it possible to disable CPU throttling on a MacBook Pro with a completely dead (not recognized) battery?

Why does a MacBook throttle without a battery?

CPU throttling on Macbook with bad battery and Catalina

I know this a bad time to be outlaying cash, but you either need a new battery, or a new Mac.

Improve this answer
1
  • i will buy a new battery (it costs 60 euros) if I know that it will solve the problem
    – Aziz
    Dec 24, 2021 at 0:16
1

You can use Intel Power Gadget, it's an official app from Intel that shows you your processor's current frequency among other things. If you have the Intel Core i5 model then your normal working frequency should be around 1.4GHz and can get up 2.7GHz for more demanding tasks.

But please note that a lower frequency doesn't necessarily mean that your laptop "lowers the CPU", it might also happen just because your laptop isn't doing anything particularly demanding at the moment and so it allocates only as much CPU resources as it thinks would be enough to get the job done ideally without any noticeable degradation in performance. I hope my feedback would be useful

Improve this answer
1
  • Thank you for answer, So I installed Intel app, and for the Frequency it says Max - 0.9, Avg - 0.8, Min - 0.7
    – Aziz
    Dec 24, 2021 at 0:15

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .