2017 Touchbar Macbook Pro Sucks...?

[Ndotp]

Hey everyone,

I was curious to see if anyone else was having similar issues with the 2017 touchbar macbook pro....

I upgraded from the 2013 retina display 15 inch. Same exact specs, only difference is the 2013 model I had, had the flash storage upgrade. I noticed that you can't add flash storage as an upgrade anymore. Does anyone know why Apple took this away? I think it would explain why I am not a fan of this new Macbook Pro. This new model I have absolutely sucks. I've had it for a month now - upgraded because I wanted "the latest and greatest" (yeah I'm that kind of guy).

Issues I've had: incredibly slow in comparison to the old model I had, fan is incredibly loud when I only have photoshop open (had photoshop open on 2013 model and the fan was on but not nearly as loud), apps crash much more frequently, have had issues turning the computer on.

Was curious if anyone else would agree or disagree? I assume part of my issues are due to no longer having flash storage. Defiantly regret spending $2,500 on what was supposed to be an upgrade, but am slowly figuring out this is not the case....

 

[Yahooligan]

I'm not sure what you mean when you say that you "no longer have flash storage." You absolutely do have flash storage, that's all they come with. You cannot UPGRADE the existing flash to larger internal storage. So, your issues have nothing to do with the storage.

I just had my 2013 15" rMBP replaced with a 15" rMBP TB. They do not have the "same specs." Different CPU, faster flash storage, different GPU, faster memory, etc. I have had no problems with my new one and it is much faster than my old one which would beachball for a few seconds every time any app was launched.

My only complaint is that it's Dongle City on my desk now since everything has to make use of the USB-C ports.

 

[Ndotp]

I'm not sure what you mean when you say that you "no longer have flash storage." You absolutely do have flash storage, that's all they come with. You cannot UPGRADE the existing flash to larger internal storage. So, your issues have nothing to do with the storage.

I just had my 2013 15" rMBP replaced with a 15" rMBP TB. They do not have the "same specs." Different CPU, faster flash storage, different GPU, faster memory, etc. I have had no problems with my new one and it is much faster than my old one which would beachball for a few seconds every time any app was launched.

My only complaint is that it's Dongle City on my desk now since everything has to make use of the USB-C ports.

I just realized how poorly that was written (rookie move).... What I meant was that the previous model I had, had the option of the "fusion drive" or all NAND flash storage as upgrade options. I had all NAND flash - that is no longer an option when you try to upgrade today. I edit photos daily and notice a huge difference between the two machines when trying to access photos. The previous model I had would load the photos instantly - this model takes longer. Previous model was almost full at 480GB/500 used. This one has only about 100GB used. Trying to figure out why this model is so much slower and freezes up much more than the older model..... Thoughts on that?

 

[Yahooligan]

I just realized how poorly that was written (rookie move).... What I meant was that the previous model I had, had the option of the "fusion drive" or all NAND flash storage as upgrade options. I had all NAND flash - that is no longer an option when you try to upgrade today. I edit photos daily and notice a huge difference between the two machines when trying to access photos. The previous model I had would load the photos instantly - this model takes longer. Previous model was almost full at 480GB/500 used. This one has only about 100GB used. Trying to figure out why this model is so much slower and freezes up much more than the older model..... Thoughts on that?

I understand what you were saying, I'm not sure you got what I said, though. Your new Mac is all-flash. The "upgrade" from Fusion to all-flash no longer exists because all-flash is the only storage available, the only choice to make is what size flash drive you want. As such, the storage "difference" between old and new isn't really any different except that the new Mac has faster flash. Which means the storage on your new Mac isn't the cause of your problems. If you want to test yourself, install this and see: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blackmagic-disk-speed-test/id425264550?mt=12

Here's my results:

So now that we've hopefully moved beyond storage being the cause, you mention it's running much slower and the fan is running loud when you're not doing much. When this is happening, launch "Activity Monitor" and look at what is consuming CPU. Is Photoshop just sitting there idle when this happens or is it doing some processing?

As for app crashes and power-on problems, I've experienced nothing of the sort with mine. It has been rock-solid, performs as expected, and is faster than my old rMBP.

 

[Ndotp]

I understand what you were saying, I'm not sure you got what I said, though. Your new Mac is all-flash. The "upgrade" from Fusion to all-flash no longer exists because all-flash is the only storage available, the only choice to make is what size flash drive you want. As such, the storage "difference" between old and new isn't really any different except that the new Mac has faster flash. Which means the storage on your new Mac isn't the cause of your problems. If you want to test yourself, install this and see: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blackmagic-disk-speed-test/id425264550?mt=12

Here's my results:
View attachment 721956
So now that we've hopefully moved beyond storage being the cause, you mention it's running much slower and the fan is running loud when you're not doing much. When this is happening, launch "Activity Monitor" and look at what is consuming CPU. Is Photoshop just sitting there idle when this happens or is it doing some processing?

As for app crashes and power-on problems, I've experienced nothing of the sort with mine. It has been rock-solid, performs as expected, and is faster than my old rMBP.

I understand what you were saying, I'm not sure you got what I said, though. Your new Mac is all-flash. The "upgrade" from Fusion to all-flash no longer exists because all-flash is the only storage available, the only choice to make is what size flash drive you want. As such, the storage "difference" between old and new isn't really any different except that the new Mac has faster flash. Which means the storage on your new Mac isn't the cause of your problems. If you want to test yourself, install this and see: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blackmagic-disk-speed-test/id425264550?mt=12

Here's my results:
View attachment 721956
So now that we've hopefully moved beyond storage being the cause, you mention it's running much slower and the fan is running loud when you're not doing much. When this is happening, launch "Activity Monitor" and look at what is consuming CPU. Is Photoshop just sitting there idle when this happens or is it doing some processing?

As for app crashes and power-on problems, I've experienced nothing of the sort with mine. It has been rock-solid, performs as expected, and is faster than my old rMBP.

Got it. Tried it out and it wouldn't let me upload the screen shot - said file too big. My results were: 1613.1 mb/s on the write and 1988.2 on the read (no programs running in background). I appreciate you taking the time to respond and help me figure this out BTW. I'm a huge Apple guy, trust me - have had every iphone, 3 macs, have the apple 4k tv on the way, multiple watches, and just off of personal experience - I use my computer everyday and have to say I'm unimpressed with how poor the performance has been. For example I use lightroom to edit photos - typically uses higher CPU than most programs (similar to photoshop). When I use the arrow keys to move between photos, the photos have always taken a second or two to load the crisp clarity of the photo. This machine takes a half a second longer than the retina display I had and when you're going through 500+ photos, a half second on every photo starts to add up. I have literally no idea what is wrong or why it's doing it. I understand what you said about all computers having flash now. Also this morning when I went to open up my computer from sleep mode, the screen wouldn't turn on but the speakers had some faint clicking noise looped and the only way to get it back and running was to hold down the power button and restart. I did closed the laptop while I was listening to music, so it was almost like the beat of the song just was on some weird loop right when the beat hit. Just weird little things like this have lead me to regret the decision of "upgrading." I never had any issues with my old computer except when I had 15 programs open at once - some of those 15 being photoshop, lightroom etc - but that's not out of the ordinary when you're running that much at once.

 

[Yahooligan]

Very strange indeed and I have no idea why the new one would be slower. Something worth trying is to go into System Prefs -> Energy Saver and uncheck the "Automatic graphics switching" box. I'm wondering if maybe your issue is because it's using the slower Intel iGPU instead of the Radeon Pro dGPU. This would also kick the fan on high because the CPU will run hotter as it's doing both GPU and CPU tasks. You mention Photoshop and Lightroom, both of which are/can be GPU-intensive and if for some reason they're not making use of the dGPU then this could explain your performance problem.

If that doesn't work then I would take it to your local Apple Store and show them what you're experiencing. If the new laptop still doesn't perform at least as well as your old one then you have a 14-day return window, so as long as you haven't had it for more than 14 days you can still return it for a refund.

 

[Ndotp]

Very strange indeed and I have no idea why the new one would be slower. Something worth trying is to go into System Prefs -> Energy Saver and uncheck the "Automatic graphics switching" box. I'm wondering if maybe your issue is because it's using the slower Intel iGPU instead of the Radeon Pro dGPU. This would also kick the fan on high because the CPU will run hotter as it's doing both GPU and CPU tasks. You mention Photoshop and Lightroom, both of which are/can be GPU-intensive and if for some reason they're not making use of the dGPU then this could explain your performance problem.

If that doesn't work then I would take it to your local Apple Store and show them what you're experiencing. If the new laptop still doesn't perform at least as well as your old one then you have a 14-day return window, so as long as you haven't had it for more than 14 days you can still return it for a refund.

Man, I can't thank you enough. It looks like that was indeed the problem! That box was checked and now it is unchecked. Tried opening lightroom and going through the photos was completely different. I still got the rainbow spinning circle when I tried to quit and then "application not responding." I ignored it for about 10 seconds and it finally worked itself out. Just a few days ago I couldn't even get mail to open without it crashing. You've been more helpful than 90% of the people I've talked with on Apple products! Thanks again and cheers to the new computers!!! That must have been the default setting - funny how an easy fix can change everything....

 

[Yahooligan]

Awesome, glad that helped!

As for the beachball when closing Lightroom, it's been a while since I've used Lightroom but if you have a lot of photos (Like multiple thousands) then it may be doing something with the database/catalog to make sure the state is clean before shutting down and this would be normal behavior.

Good luck and hope you're able to enjoy the new laptop now!