Show HN: Turbo Boost Disable for macOS

I know it&#x27;s not protocol to talk down Show HN submissions. But this is just a shell script loading a core component of TBS [0] during login without password prompts: by saving your password in a plain text file.<p>I can agree that password prompts at login are not the best user experience but security is there for a reason.<p>Maybe TBS should implement this using the privileged helper pattern [1] which allow a small daemon with root permissions to perform actions for a userland application through a secure RPC channel.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;rugarciap&#x2F;Turbo-Boost-Switcher" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;rugarciap&#x2F;Turbo-Boost-Switcher</a><p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developer.apple.com&#x2F;library&#x2F;archive&#x2F;documentation&#x2F;Security&#x2F;Conceptual&#x2F;SecureCodingGuide&#x2F;Articles&#x2F;AccessControl.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developer.apple.com&#x2F;library&#x2F;archive&#x2F;documentation&#x2F;Se...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developer.apple.com&#x2F;documentation&#x2F;servicemanagement&#x2F;1431078-smjobbless?language=objc" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developer.apple.com&#x2F;documentation&#x2F;servicemanagement&#x2F;...</a>

This is not at all meant to be a criticism, but more a question: is taking a 20% performance hit, as the author writes, really worth it for a theoretical improvement in the lifespan of some integrated circuits? Are ICs actually how modern laptops break?<p>What do you think the odds are in him realising this benefit? Assuming he bins the laptop after, say, 5 years? (he&#x27;s rich enough to buy a £1.3k minimum laptop, assuming it wasn&#x27;t second hand)<p>It relies on several assumptions: 1) His laptop dies before he bins it in 5 years&#x27; time 2) It died becuase of an integrated circuit (the reason he cites) - in my experience old computers tend to die of things like exploded motherboard capacitors rather than ICs. Maybe the death of these are accelerated by turbo boost, too? 3) The integrated circuit&#x27;s death was hastened by a meaningful amount (several months at least; a dodgy thing dying a couple of days&#x2F;weeks later doesn&#x27;t save you from buying a new laptop).<p>Is taking a 20% performance hit on your laptop really worth this? I&#x27;m interested. I can&#x27;t imagine it would be for the vast majority of people.

Relevant quote for those wondering how it’s done:<p>&gt; <i>This is just a shell wrapper around a kext to disable Turbo Boost on 64-bit macOS, taken directly from TBS.</i><p>&gt; <i>We have to use the direct TBS kext because for some reason, their kext can run on macOS, but we cannot sign our own version to work on macOS. They must have signed it with an Apple key or something? Anyway, to get around having to use the crappy Turbo-Boost Switcher GUI, we take the core kext, which is directly enabled&#x2F;disabled with the shell scripts in this repo.</i><p>The kext in question is from this app:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.rugarciap.com&#x2F;turbo-boost-switcher-for-os-x&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.rugarciap.com&#x2F;turbo-boost-switcher-for-os-x&#x2F;</a><p>The benefits of disabling Turbo Boost can be studied more closely at this prior post about Turbo Boost (28 days ago, 6 dupes, 0 comments):<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;marco.org&#x2F;2020&#x2F;01&#x2F;13&#x2F;macos-low-power-mode-redux" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;marco.org&#x2F;2020&#x2F;01&#x2F;13&#x2F;macos-low-power-mode-redux</a><p>-62% power draw (Watts), +59% build duration (seconds), -28% heat levels (Celsius)

Looks neat! Shouldn&#x27;t there be a better way to get the required permissions than asking the user to put their login password in a plaintext file?

There are some hints that a “Pro Mode” might be coming in macOS[1] that unlocks power in exchange for fan noise, etc. I wonder if that could be extended into a “battery saver” node like iOS has that does effectively the opposite?<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;9to5mac.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;01&#x2F;13&#x2F;macos-beta-hints-at-future-pro-mode-to-boost-performance-on-portable-macs&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;9to5mac.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;01&#x2F;13&#x2F;macos-beta-hints-at-future-pr...</a>

I’m not an OSX expert, but it seems like you should be able to make a compiled binary to do this and then give it setuid permissions, avoiding the need for a password. At least that is how I would do it on other unixes.

Out of curiosity, can you not get some of these benefits by simply running your fan more &#x2F; at lower temperatures and instead sacrifice a bit of noise instead of the performance?