Dropped Macbook Air M1

[Geoca]

Hello, a few weeks ago i dropped my macbook air, the height was around 1 meter, and the laptop was in a bag, yet it still got a small dent ( ). Being paranoid, i ran the apple diagnostics tool, which was fine, inspected the laptop and besides that small dent, nothing seemed wrong with it.

However, recently i observed that it throttles faster in Dota2 than it used to. It starts out with 90fps at mid settings and 1080p (on an external monitor), but after 10-15 minutes it drops at 40-50. Before it ran at 90fps all game. The laptop also feels also slightly warmer in normal use than it used to, just above the function keys. It may have been the same before, but i'm not sure.

When i had 90fps constant all game, there was an issue with the mouse cursor not locking in the external monitor during the game. Now, that issue is gone, but i have throttling, so it may be a software update that is causing this.

The room is also about 5 degrees celsius warmer than before.

How can i check that everything is fine with the laptop? Any suggestion on what might have caused this?

Thank you

 

[bobcomer]

The M1 MBA doesn't have a fan, so you couldn't have broke that. It's probably just the ambient temperature difference now that is making the difference. It sounds like it's working fine to me, if you had broken something you'd know it because something wouldn't work at all.

 

[Geoca]

I just tested it under cinebench R23. Biggest multi score for a 10 minute run is 6700 points.

I ran powermetrics from the terminal while I was playing Dota2, and after a while the cpu throttled to 1.4 GHz and the GPU to 900mhz.

Maybe the cpu and the heat sink isn’t making good contact after the drop?

 

[bobcomer]

I just tested it under cinebench R23. Biggest multi score for a 10 minute run is 6700 points.

I ran powermetrics from the terminal while I was playing Dota2, and after a while the cpu throttled to 1.4 GHz and the GPU to 900mhz.

Maybe the cpu and the heat sink isn’t making good contact after the drop?

I would think you'd have more problems than that if that were so. I know my M1 MBA has always throttled almost immediately when doing VM machine work or big browser sessions. (lots of tabs) I haven't opened my MBA so I don't know how the heat sink is secured, but in any other laptop that I've opened, none of them could possibly have the heat sink loose without some serious damage inside and it would rattle like heck! (They're screwed down)

Can you take it to an apple store to get checked?

 

[Geoca]

Can you Please trigger a Cinebench R23 benchmark for a 10 minute run? What score do you get?

 

[bobcomer]

Can you Please trigger a Cinebench R23 benchmark for a 10 minute run? What score do you get?

I'd have to install it and I'm not running the current OS, so it wouldn't fit with yours anyway. (I'm running the beta of the next OS now.) We also have different ambient temps I bet.

But okay, after 10 minutes the score is 5730. Ambient temp is 79F, and the MBA is quite warm. M1 MBA with 16G RAM, and 1TB SSD. Clamshell mode.

 

[bobcomer]

Second pass with only the benchmark running 4552. (I forgot to shut down my Windows VM for the first pass.)

 

[CMMChris]

Your throttling behavior doesn't sound normal to me. To make sure it really is just ambient temperature and not some issue with your heatsink remove the bottom plate of the laptop and check the heatsink for damage. If it looks bent / not straight, that might be the cause of your throttling issues.

 

[Geoca]

Second pass with only the benchmark running 4552. (I forgot to shut down my Windows VM for the first pass.)

Why is it so low? Were you doing stuff in the background? I think it may have been because you run it in clamshell mode.

Your throttling behavior doesn't sound normal to me. To make sure it really is just ambient temperature and not some issue with your heatsink remove the bottom plate of the laptop and check the heatsink for damage. If it looks bent / not straight, that might be the cause of your throttling issues.

Do you by any chance have the M1 Air so you can do a R23 benchmark as well?

 

[bobcomer]

Why is it so low? Were you doing stuff in the background? I think it may have been because you run it in clamshell mode.

No active cooling, of course. Clamshell mode shouldn't make that much a difference.

 

[bobcomer]

Why is it so low? Were you doing stuff in the background? I think it may have been because you run it in clamshell mode.

I just ran another test, just woken up from sleep, no other apps running, 6612.

 

[Geoca]

I just ran another test, just woken up from sleep, no other apps running, 6612.

That seems similar to mine. Do you do any gaming on that laptop? Like WoW? Or Dota2?

 

[Tenkaykev]

Just ran a cinebench R23 test on my base M1Air. 7541 on the 10 minute test. Temperature is 27c in the room. I’ve done the thermal pad mod and having seen the heatsink / processor arrangement I doubt very much that youve done any damage.

 

[Geoca]

In that case i am trying to understand what went wrong. One of the changes that come to mind is when i used to play on my external monitor (1080P), the mouse wouldn't screen lock whatever i did. It would move out of the game to the other screen. But i got a constant 90 FPS. Now, the mouse screen locks ( i didn't do anything ), but after a short while the FPS drops from 90 to 50. I didn't check before in WoW the behaviour, but it doesn't seem as smooth as it used to. I guess it could be a software thing so i will reinstall macos from scratch and see how it goes.

Does you laptop get warm above the function keys when charging? Not hot, but warm.

 

[bobcomer]

That seems similar to mine. Do you do any gaming on that laptop? Like WoW? Or Dota2?

No serious gaming at all. I have an XBOX Series X, but I only play golf or Madden.

 

[bobcomer]

Just ran a cinebench R23 test on my base M1Air. 7541 on the 10 minute test. Temperature is 27c in the room. I’ve done the thermal pad mod and having seen the heatsink / processor arrangement I doubt very much that youve done any damage.

That's pretty impressive!

 

[Tenkaykev]

That's pretty impressive!

I’m an inveterate tinkerer so although my use case is pretty basic, web browsing, email and a bit of photo editing etc, I couldn’t resist the temptation of opening my M1 Air and fitting a thermal pad to the heatsink. Total cost was less than £5, plus it’s easily reversible.

 

[bobcomer]

I’m an inveterate tinkerer so although my use case is pretty basic, web browsing, email and a bit of photo editing etc, I couldn’t resist the temptation of opening my M1 Air and fitting a thermal pad to the heatsink. Total cost was less than £5, plus it’s easily reversible.

I'm a tinkerer too somewhat, but laptops, not so much. And with those awful pentalobe screws Apple uses, I'd very much rather not, I don't have the hands for it. All I seem to be able to do is strip them.

I expect I'll trade that MBA in, so I want it as pristine as I can keep it. Still, you're getting great performace out of yours, and it is tempting. My biggest complaint with the MBA is it throttles too fast and heavy.

I really shouldn't have bought it in the first place, I knew my workload would push it, but I didn't even know if I wanted an M1, so I went the cheapest I could for what I needed.

 

[Geoca]

I think you also may have a defective unit. Before all of this mine barely throttled. 90 FPS vs a choppy 40 now. Big difference. Maybe the heatsink isn't forming a perfect contact with some logic board parts causing them to heat up faster than they should. It was performing actually better than in some reviews i saw online. Now this...i read about a guy that had his macbook going with 6600 in R23 also, and swapped it out for another unit that has 7300 points in R23.

So something must be happening either under the hood, or some software bug.

 

[bobcomer]

I think you also may have a defective unit. Before all of this mine barely throttled. 90 FPS vs a choppy 40 now. Big difference. Maybe the heatsink isn't forming a perfect contact with some logic board parts causing them to heat up faster than they should. It was performing actually better than in some reviews i saw online. Now this...i read about a guy that had his macbook going with 6600 in R23 also, and swapped it out for another unit that has 7300 points in R23.

So something must be happening either under the hood, or some software bug.

Mine's not defective. When it throttles I can clearly see what's using the CPU. If it throttles with nothing going on or crashes frequently, yeah, that would be a physical problem, but that's not the case..

 

[Geoca]

What is your idle CPU temp? Mine is between 32-35C (90-95F)

 

[bobcomer]

What is your idle CPU temp? Mine is between 32-35C (90-95F)

37-40C.

 

[Geoca]

I'm curious what is the reason for this difference in performance, and why do some people with an un-modded MBA get 7300 points and we get 6600. Maybe there are some other people here that are willing to share their MBA M1 Cinebench R23 score.

 

[jdb8167]

I'm curious what is the reason for this difference in performance, and why do some people with an un-modded MBA get 7300 points and we get 6600. Maybe there are some other people here that are willing to share their MBA M1 Cinebench R23 score.

I haven't run Cinebench 23 since early on in the M1 release cycle. So I just ran it again to see if there was any difference on Monterey.

My overall multi-core score for the ten minute throttling test was 6880.

M1 MacBook Air 16GB/1TB
Clamshell mode in a vertical stand with an external 4K display.
Ambient temperature ~72° F (22° C)
I ran it once without shutting down first and got a 7021. Shut everything down and only started up Cinebench, a terminal window, and Activity Monitor. In the terminal I ran:
sudo powermetrics --samplers cpu_power,thermal,gpu_power,ane_power

The efficiency cluster ran consistently at 100% 2064 MHz for the whole test. The performance cluster started out at 3204 MHz but within 2 minutes had dropped to just over 2500 MHz. After about 5 minutes the P-Cluster was consistently between 2400 MHz and 2500 MHz. The power started out at over 16.0 Watts but quickly throttled to just over 10.5 Watts and finally for the last 5 minutes or so to 9.4 W to 10.5 W.

To answer your question on the range of scores, I think testing variances and just your random CPU lottery are the differences. I seem to have a pretty average performer. While cool I can get over 7000 but after forcing throttling early in the test I get 6880.

 

[darngooddesign]

I'm curious what is the reason for this difference in performance, and why do some people with an un-modded MBA get 7300 points and we get 6600. Maybe there are some other people here that are willing to share their MBA M1 Cinebench R23 score.

7 core vs 8 core, 8GB vs 16GB, and 256GB being around 25-30% slower than the 512GB and larger drives are all variables.