MacHive

Pro Tip: Undervolt that Macbook and Turn Down the Heat

There may be a few of you who do not understand the concept of under-volting so the next few paragraphs are for you, if you don’t want the history of undervolting feel free to skip the next paragraphs.

What is undervolting¹?

Undervolting is a pretty scary term when uninformed. The short definition would be “to supply a CPU with less voltage than what the chip manufacturer specifies”. There are many reasons for undervolting a chip and the biggest benefit would be maintaining the same performance while using less power. When you undervolt a CPU you reduce the heat produced as well as the amount of power required.

What risks² are involved with undervolting?

Simply cutting the amount of voltage to a CPU can result in your operating system locking up. If you were to undervolt your laptop too low you could damage your CPU but with CoolBook this is nearly impossible. I have yet to run into a hard lock up within OSX due to undervolting. If you were to manage locking up OSX simply restart in safe mode (hold shift while booting up) and increase the voltage to an acceptable setting. You can damage³ your Mac so read the README closely.

So now you know what undervolting is and the risks associated with it then lets get to the hands on approach.

CoolBook works by disabling the original driver that maintains the CPU voltage and frequency. It then injects it’s own modifiable driver in the place allowing you the change CPU speed on the fly. It doesn’t get any more seamless than that.

Here you can see what your current CPU speed and frequency is as well as change it on the fly. This application rarely needs to be opened because you wont need to change your voltage often. This controller box also gives you the exact temperature that your CPU is operating at (within a few degrees). 35C is much improvement over my normal temperatures of over 45C.

This drop down box shows you all of the available CPU frequencies you can utilize. Slowing your CPU down will have little affect on battery life due to it’s independence on voltage. Do not confuse frequency and voltage. Voltage is the amount of power needed to power the CPU, frequency is the speed at which the CPU operates.

Within the preferences you can tell your Mac to use different frequencies as well as voltages based on what power source you use while booting up. A great option for when you are on the go and don’t want to have to manually change the voltage after your Mac comes online.

Battery life is a huge cornerstone when I purchase laptops. Squeezing a few extra minutes out of my battery is a big deal. I don’t want you to expect to get another half an hour of work done by undervolting but a 10-15 minute increase in battery life is nothing to scoff at.

There is a clear difference between my Macbook running stock and running undervolted. The fan speed is much lower, the keyboard and underneath feels much cooler, and the battery life appears to have improved a bit. At the low price of $10 I believe that CoolBook is a definite buy for those of you looking for a way to squeeze a few more minutes out of your battery or cool the inferno sitting on your lap.

CoolBook is available for $10 and is a must have for those with warm Macs!

CoolBook is Intel only.

¹ Undervolting via wikipedia.

² There are always risks when running a component out of what the manufacturer specifies. This risk is minimal if you follow the instructions found on CoolBook’s website as well as the README included in the application.

³ Even though the chances are slim MacHive is not responsible in part or in whole for any damage to your Mac in the case that you use this program incorrectly.

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