Charging a MacBook on the wrong side can lead to noisy fans and lower performance

Ana

Well-known member
Member
Joined
Dec 12, 2018
Messages
1,169
Trophies
0
In brief: By the looks of it, Apple may be having a new Chargegate on its hands. Several users have found their MacBook Pro has a habit of maxing out the CPU and overheating when charging using the left side ports.
On the official support page, Apple states that you can charge your MacBook Pro using either one of the USB-C ports. However, it turns out that there are a right way and a wrong way to charge your expensive device, especially if you don't want to see any performance impact.
The issue was found several months ago by a StackExchange user that reported seeing unusual activity in Activity Monitor. Specifically, he noticed unusually high CPU usage for a process called kernel_task, which caused high temperatures and reduced overall system performance - not to mention the fact that it keeps those tiny fans spinning on what should otherwise be a relatively quiet machine.

If that wasn't enough, restarting the MacBook in question won't solve the problem, with the kernel_task process popping up again as soon as macOS boots up. According to Apple, one of the functions of kernel_task is to manage your MacBook's CPU temperature by deliberately making less of it available for apps that are using it too intensely.
In this case, a careful investigation revealed that having a peripheral plugged into one of the left-hand ports at the same time as a charger is connected to the other increases the temperature of the MacBook case. Sensors that monitor the Thunderbolt ports seemed to confirm this to be the case even if the CPU temperature doesn't warrant the throttling.
 

Latest content

General chat
Help Show users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
      There are no messages in the chat. Be the first one to say Hi!
      Back
      Top