Comment by alsetmusic
2 days ago
> I recently installed App Tamer
Plus one for this tool. I've been using it for about eight months or so. Useful for keeping Backblaze and other daemons from taking over when they're supposed to be invisible.
> Unfortunately, this does nothing for services such as WindowServer which now often takes up 50-100% of a core just on its own.
WindowServer can be a real dog (Finder, too, if opening lots of windows with videos that can be previewed in QuickLook). Closing all of the open windows is inconvenient, but it solves the issue until they get built up again and stay open for an extended period of time. I hope they address this in the future; we'll see how a new CEO prioritizes software quality. I'm the most hopeful that I've been in five or more years given the change in leadership. Doesn't mean it'll happen.
> I have fibromyalgia and seem to be sensitive to hot keys; my Thinkpad regularly getting to hot to touch with even light usage is EXACTLY why I went and bought a MacBook one morning in '23.
That shouldn't happen on a machine built in 2023. Take it to an Apple Store (or third-party) and see if a repair tech agrees. I repaired laptops that overheated when I had that role. There was a debacle about thermal paste a decade and a half ago (maybe longer). If it's under AppleCare, you might be able to get it fixed at no extra charge. If not, I'm sorry that it'll cost money, but Apple offers a flat-rate repair for laptops. Maybe they'll say it's fine and it'll be frustrating, but it's worth exploring.
We will see, Ternus was previously senior VP of hardware engineering so my money has been on it getting worse. I'm excited for Gravity Linux though.
I appreciate your suggestion. I'm curious if the machines you repaired then had aluminum unibodies? My understanding is that if my chassis heats up quickly, then the thermal coupling is good, since the unibodies act as a heat sink. Certainly, blasting the fans at 100% typically makes it cold enough to use after just a couple minutes unless I'm actively pelting my cores. Very impressive cooling system. Unfortunately the default curves are terrible and I have to use third-party software to control the fans, but they do work well. Anytime a Rosetta application is running I usually have to blast the fans as well; Thunderbird alone makes the computer too warm to comfortably use. Thankfully, the benevolent overlords at Apple have decided to cut Rosetta support for 28.
The problem is these background services each taking up 50-200% CPU, and it being enough of them that at least one seems to usually be misbehaving. That means the machine is just running hot a lot more often during casual use. My M2 is under Apple Care but I plan to transition it to Asahi or Gravity soon and just live with the lack of proper SEP support on it for a year or two, and see if that clears up the thermal issues, since it was fine until I upgraded to 26.
The M5 is under Apple Care and I do plan to get around to taking it in. It's a daily driver for work so it's been difficult making time and I had some misplaced hope that Apple would correct this as 27 matured.