MacOS – How to disable SpeedStep/XCPM on Macbook Pro 11,1 OSX 10.10.2

batterykernelkernel-extensionsmacbook promacos

Does anybody know how to disable OSX from throttling/underclocking the CPU on a Macbook when the battery gets low on power? I think the feature is called SpeedStep. The problem is that my battery is damaged and no longer works so I have to run my Macbook off of the power adaptor and I would like the system to run up to speed, instead of at 0.8 GHz, so I can use it until I get a new battery. I have a Macbook Pro 13" Late 2013 i5 2.6 GHz with Retina(11,1). It's running OSX Yosemite 10.10.2 with Darwin kernel version 14.1.0.

I've already tried these kernel patches with no luck:

perl -pi -e 's|\xe2\x00\x00\x00\x02\x00\x00\x00|\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00|g' kernel
perl -pi -e 's|\xe2\x00\x00\x00\x4c\x00\x00\x00|\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00|g' kernel
perl -pi -e 's|\xe2\x00\x00\x00\x90\x01\x00\x00|\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00|g' kernel
I've also heard of a "NullCPUPowerManagement.kext" kernel extension, but I'm not sure if that would work on my system. I know there are some hackintosh boot loaders, such as clover, that support modified SSDT and DSDT, but I'm not sure if that will work for my problem. Any help is greatly appreciated!

Best Answer

So, after researching more and trying other methods, what can I say:

  • How to disable the SpeedStep when using MacBook Pro without a battery? and it's answer pointing to “Fixing” kernel_task CPU Problems in MacOS 10.7/10.8 will help you with problems where processes take a lot of percentage from the processing time. Doing the trick will turn your macbook useable, but the Ghz will stay at minimum.
  • The new kernel power management works only from Ivy Bridge forward, so Macs equiped with Sandy Bridge or older processors still using the old power management and therefore the kernel patch won't work.
  • Removing AppleIntelPowerManagement kexts won't help, and NullCPUPowerManagement won't help too… I still get the same 0.8Ghz.
  • Using apps like SMCFanControl will help with controlling the fans, so any reply that helps getting the original clock are welcome as the chance of burning the processor due to heat are diminished.

So for now I think that will be all. If I get any solution to work, I will report it here!

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