Oliver Haslam·

2018 MacBook Pro Software Update Released To Fix CPU Throttling Issue

If you’ve ventured anywhere near the Internet over the past few days then you will no doubt have spotted that there is something of a storm brewing regarding Apple’s 2018 MacBook Pro, particularly its Intel i9-equipped monster of a notebook.

Multiple reports noted that the computer had a tendency to severely limit their CPU speed when placed under heavy strain, causing the systems to artificially limit their capabilities when they got too hot.

Now Apple has released a supplemental macOS update that claims to address the issue.

According to Apple, its new MacBook Pros were incorrectly limiting clock speeds when under heavy thermal loads, something that had been repeated in numerous occasions on social media. Apple says that this shouldn’t have been happening and was a software flaw, rather than a hardware design failing.

Apple provided the following statement:

Following extensive performance testing under numerous workloads, we’ve identified that there is a missing digital key in the firmware that impacts the thermal management system and could drive clock speeds down under heavy thermal loads on the new MacBook Pro. A bug fix is included in today’s macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 Supplemental Update and is recommended. We apologize to any customer who has experienced less than optimal performance on their new systems.

The limiting of clock speeds when CPUs get hot is nothing new and is actually a sign of the chips working as designed. However, Apple’s latest and greatest MacBook Pros appear to have been getting a little carried away, reducing the speeds too aggressively and resulting in the often sub-800MHz speeds that some users were experiencing.

Users can download the new macOS update now, and we expect to see a whole new round of tests being run in order to confirm just whether this software fix hits the spot, or not.

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