Ableton Forum

I've had a strange thing happening lately. I'm a Mac user and have run Ableton for years with no issues. But lately my CPU has been overloading even while doing very simple, minimal work with Ableton. I opened up the Activity Monitor and noticed that Ableton is using about 20% of the CPU when it's just open, but not doing anything. The second I hit play, the CPU usage jumps up to near 90%. While I'm working in Ableton, it takes me so long to do basic tasks because the pinwheel spins so much. Anybody else had this problem and if so, what did you do to fix it?

The obvious question is what has changed recently? New mchine, new version of Live, new OS, etc.?

nredmon wrote:I've had a strange thing happening lately. I'm a Mac user and have run Ableton for years with no issues. But lately my CPU has been overloading even while doing very simple, minimal work with Ableton. I opened up the Activity Monitor and noticed that Ableton is using about 20% of the CPU when it's just open, but not doing anything. The second I hit play, the CPU usage jumps up to near 90%. While I'm working in Ableton, it takes me so long to do basic tasks because the pinwheel spins so much. Anybody else had this problem and if so, what did you do to fix it?

I had this recently when I didn't know the outlet wasn't active and I ran my MBP into shutdown during a Live session. With the power secured I got all memory restored but noticed my set suddenly was distorting all over. I tried with different audio buffer settings (native as I wasn't home), but realized I needed to reboot. So did that.

After reboot I was quite puzzled that Live kept distorting in that overloaded way, the so called CPU meter in Live 10 kept going way over 100 and that all my Live installations (9, 10 and the respective betas) all had the same issue.

I tried Traktor and this sounded perfectly so no audio interface specific issue. I then started Activity Monitor and noted that things looked askew running my set and not all cores worked at full power.

I left the power supply loading for an hour but the issue remained trough further restarts. It was only 3+ hours later that things got back to normal. At that point my MBP had been fully loaded and then some as I left it unused.

My take on this experience was that I somehow kicked into some kind of power saving mode of my i7 processor and that this for some reason stuck with a not fully loaded system. I do know the battery is used in MBPs for sudden bursts like Turbo mode, so it's important to address battery issues.

It could be in your case you need full SMC reset and full battery load. It could also be something else, but a stuck power saving mode could be an explanation.

doghouse wrote:The obvious question is what has changed recently? New mchine, new version of Live, new OS, etc.?

Nothing has changed. Same machine, same version of Live, no new OS. Literally nothing has changed, except Live overloading the CPU and distorting like crazy on playback.

nredmon wrote:Same machine

And what is your machine specifically?

Stromkraft wrote:

nredmon wrote:Same machine

And what is your machine specifically?

OK, so I deducted you got a dual core 3520M processor in a 2.9 13" Mid-2012 MBP, right? This CPU has "Enhanced Intel SpeedStep® Technology" that "switches both voltage and frequency in tandem between high and low levels in response to processor load" and it has Turbo boost. This CPU also has hyperthreading, but it's only 2 physical cores.

You should be able to get some info on your CPU status running Intel Power Gadget. This shows actual current Power usage, Frequency and Temperature of your CPU in a diagram as well as being able to log the data to file for later analysis.

For more processor information there is also MacCPUID, also from Intel.

Both these assist somewhat together with Activity Monitor to analyze CPU capabilities and current status.

An observation I just made: My 2.2 GHz I7-2720QM CPU according to Intel Power Gadget 3.0.3 usually runs at about 3 GHz with a base clock of 0.22 GHz.

At the moment it's at a temperature of about 70°C. When I check the frequency, because I had stutter at 512 samples audio buffer it's down to about 1.7 Ghz. Cores look all-right in Activity Monitor and are not overloaded.

Live's CPU meter is struggling but while staying at about 70% it's fluctuating above 100% in quick bursts when I have crackles.

I played this track last night without issues.

Clearly this is the CPU kicking in some protection or power save mode. It's not Live!

Stromkraft wrote: Clearly this is the CPU kicking in some protection or power save mode. It's not Live!

5 minutes later the CPU is at 75°C and back at 3 GHz. no crackles whatsoever. Live fluctuates between 40 and 64% according to the CPU Meter with the exact same scene.

clogged up cooling systems and/or crappy thermal paste (which helps conduct the heat from the CPU/GPU to the cooling system) can also cause that kind of behaviour...

fishmonkey wrote:clogged up cooling systems and/or crappy thermal paste (which helps conduct the heat from the CPU/GPU to the cooling system) can also cause that kind of behaviour...

Yes, I think this is not the issue here as I applied the thermal paste myself almost extremely carefully. I am suspecting the GPU to be involved so will read its temperature if this happens again.

I will run the analysis in the background from the terminal for a while and see how often this down clocking occurs.

It's truly a revelation to see that it's normal for a CPU to run in Turbo, which I assume is the reason it stays around 3 GHz when under some load. When not doing much the frequency still fluctuates more than I expected. I'm not familiar if this CPU only upclocks 2 cores or all as the first step.