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sagoskog
sagoskog
Known Participant
October 5, 2018
Question

High CPU and fan speed with LR CC and MacBook pro 15” 2018

  • October 5, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 8596 views

When I'm running Lightroom Classic CC version 7.5 on my brand new MacBook pro 15” 2018 the fan speed get extremely high.

The fan runs almost continuously after I open Lightroom CC and start to look at pictures. It doesn’t need to be ”hard work” like HDR or editing, only normal usage when I’m scrolling trough my DNG photo's in the library module.

I used Activity Monitor to see the CPU Lightroom CC is using, and it spikes up to 1291%! When open LR CPU is 216% and with HDR rendering 5 RAW pictures it’s above 1000% CPU and the temperature peaks at 101°C when measuring with Intel power gadget. The CPU usage go back down when I’m not doing anything in LR.

  • Turning off GPU had no affect on this
  • The performance in LR speed is okay
  • Resetting the SMC and NVRAM did not helped
  • The laptop is on a flat surface with nothing obstructing the air inlet/outlet openings
  • I don’t have any 3rd party plugins
  • LR is not generating previews in background
  • Adress lookup and Face recognition are both disabled


I know that Lightroom CC is an intensive program, but just scrolling through photos shouldn’t do that, right? For example on my old Macbook pro 13” mid 2014 the fan only ran when I was doing ”hard work” like HDR rendering.

Something is causing the CPU to work hard when I open LR. Is it a hardware malfunction or is Lightroom CC version 7.5 not compatible with my MacBook Pro?

Someone that know what's going on? I bought this new Macbook to work with a silent computer due to a head injury that make my brain very sensitive to sound and I can't stand this fan noise!

According to Apple suport the problem lies with Adobe and according to Adobe suport the problem lies with Apple…

I'm running LR on a Macbook Pro 15" from 2018:

  • OS X 10.14 Mojave
  • 2,6 GHz Intel Core i7,
  • 32 GB RAM
  • Radeon Pro 560X 4096 MB/ Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB

Please help me with this ❤️

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

J
Community Expert
Jao vdLCommunity Expert
Community Expert
October 6, 2018

high CPU usage when just scrolling through images is not normal IF you have previews of the right size generated. Check what it says in  your catalog settings in Classic. It should be the Auto setting with a standard size big enough for the resolution of your display. Typically 2560 for a MBP because of their retina displays being very high resolution. You also want to make sure use graphics processor in preferences->performance is checked.

Sometimes Lightroom will go nuts because of some rogue setting in its preferences. To check this, reset the preferences.

sagoskog
sagoskogAuthor
Known Participant
October 6, 2018

The previews got the auto setting and the graphics processor is checked

Iv'e also already tried to reset the preferences...

thebarteck
thebarteck
Participant
November 28, 2019

Hi,

did you manage to solve your problem? I have exaclty same issues - but with LR Classic. This week I've wasted 2hours with Adobe support and 1,5 hour with Apple support over the phone with no solution.

 

Reinstalled LR Classic, reinstalled MacOS and still super slow import, work in develop and export.

 

Looking forward to your reply!

Bart

johnrellis
johnrellis
Legend
October 5, 2018

I used Activity Monitor to see the CPU Lightroom CC is using, and it spikes up to 1291%! When open LR CPU is 216% and with HDR rendering 5 RAW pictures it’s above 1000% CPU and the temperature peaks at 101°C when measuring with Intel power gadget. The CPU usage go back down when I’m not doing anything in LR.

This is normal. LR deliberately uses as much of your CPU as possible when rendering raws and merging into HDRs and panoramas. And the Macbook Pro is designed to run its fans during high CPU usage. The fans drive lots of people crazy (including my wife), but that's the way Apple designs its laptops.

When open LR CPU is 216%

This doesn't sound normal.

Just to double-check, you've verified by clicking on the identity plate in the upper-left corner that address and face detection are disabled, right? Make sure Sync With Lightroom CC is also disabled -- that can sometimes go wild and use a lot of CPU.

1. With all those disabled, can you verify the CPU with LR idle for at least ten minutes and nothing running (e.g. preview generation) in the progress bar in the upper-left?

2. And what is the sustained CPU usage as you scroll continuously through the thumbnails in Library?

sagoskog
sagoskogAuthor
Known Participant
October 6, 2018

Is above 1000 % CPU normal for Lightroom? Never was on my old Macbook pro...


Yes as I wrote both address and face detection are disabled, and also the sync with Lightroom CC.

1. I'ts  between 50-100 % when doing nothing at all for 10 min.
2. It's between 80-600% when scrolling picturies

johnrellis
johnrellis
Legend
October 6, 2018

Is above 1000 % CPU normal for Lightroom?

Yes. Using most of the processors for export and merge has been normal for LR 6 and 7.

A Macbook Pro 15" 2018 has 6 cores and 12 virtual processors ("threads" in Intel's confusing lingo).  In the Mac's Activity Monitor, each virtual processor counts as 100%, for a maximum of 1200% (glitches in how the operating system counts can sometimes add up to a little more).  Whereas a Macbook Pro 13" 2014 had 2 cores and 4 virtual processors, for a maximum of 400% reported in Activity Monitor.

Thus, the same version of LR 6 or 7 running on your old laptop would report a maximum of 400%, while the new one would report a maximum of 1200%.

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