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mister19stick
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Fusion slows down to a crawl when the weather is hot

Fusion 12.2.3/Macbook pro 16" 2017 OSX Monterey 12.4

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19044.1766]

It's summer in the UK.

When the weather gets to about 30 degrees Celsius, I've noticed that my Fusion VM slows down to a crawl: literally takes twenty seconds to come back from a mouse click or keyboard press.

The ambient temperature is the only thing that's changed.

I use this laptop for work and not being able to work during office hours is a little frustrating.

Is this to be expected?

Have I fallen foul of coincidence? What else could it be?

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Technogeezer
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I wonder if thermal throttling (which reduces the clock speed of the Mac's CPU when chip temps are too hot) is happening...

Can you hear the fans on the MacBook when this occurs?

 

 

- Paul (Technogeezer)
Editor of the Unofficial Fusion Companion Guides

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scott28tt
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Thread reported, it needs to be moved to the area for Fusion.

 


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mister19stick
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is that something i need to do? how?

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scott28tt
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No, there are volunteer moderators who get notified when threads or comments are reported, this hasn’t been moved yet but it should happen.

 


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Although I am a VMware employee I contribute to VMware Communities voluntarily (ie. not in any official capacity)
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mister19stick
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how will i know when it's happened?

it's quite hot here today and the VM is struggling...

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scott28tt
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Look at the "path" just above your original comment:

Screenshot 2022-07-19 at 15.28.57.png


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Although I am a VMware employee I contribute to VMware Communities voluntarily (ie. not in any official capacity)
VMware Training & Certification blog
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mister19stick
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cool (ha!) thanks

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Technogeezer
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I wonder if thermal throttling (which reduces the clock speed of the Mac's CPU when chip temps are too hot) is happening...

Can you hear the fans on the MacBook when this occurs?

 

 

- Paul (Technogeezer)
Editor of the Unofficial Fusion Companion Guides
ColoradoMarmot
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That's most likely the case.  Make sure the machine is open (not in clamshell mode), on a raised cooling stand and blow a fan across it.  If it's older, and you're comfortable doing it, you can open it up (see ifixit.com for instructions) and blow canned air to clean off the fans.

 

But the sad truth is that if it's above 90, you're going to have thermal throttling.

mister19stick
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Looking at the CPU temp, it says "(fans)" so I guess that's true.

Would it throttle the VM more than, say, Chrome, or is it just more noticeable?

(As an aside, yesterday the whole thing stopped working until it rained,.)

Now it's running at 68 and seems fine.

I guess I'll just have to learn to live with it.

Thanks all.

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RDPetruska
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@mister19stick wrote:

Looking at the CPU temp, it says "(fans)" so I guess that's true.

Would it throttle the VM more than, say, Chrome, or is it just more noticeable?


Absolutely!  Virtualization software is VERY CPU intensive, unlike a web browser (at least should be).  Fusion is creating an entire computer to run, and (for the most part) the guest OS has no idea it isn't running on an actual physical machine.  So yes, it is very resource intensive and will definitely increase the internal temp of the system.

ColoradoMarmot
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FWIW, I use iStat Menu's to monitor the various temps in my machine - it's been really helpful over the years.

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wila
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Hi,

There's a bunch of reasons this can happen.

You could be charging your mac from the wrong side (so it gets hotter than from the other side), the CPU fan could be dirty or it could be something on the configuration or software side.

A few links:

https://macresearch.org/fix-mac-high-cpu-checklist/

https://www.cultofmac.com/705319/macbook-pro-overheats-charging-from-wrong-side/

 

--
Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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