I believe it's the reason you're seeing such a dramatic slowdown - because this "feature" is consuming the majority of your MacBook Pro CPU so it can apparently cool your system down and save energy. The concept behind Speedstep seems good, however, the way in which it works is quite bad - especially when it comes to kernel_task.
It does seem like you have a problem with your battery, although it's likely that it's only adding to the underlying issue which you've touched upon. Apple does not "sabotage" machines inĪn effort to get customers to buy new batteries. OS X will intelligently throttle CPU based on certainĬonditions in an effort to a) prolong battery life and b) avoid systemĭamage (through excessive heat). I have read somewhere that Apple does this " underclocking" intentionally, for safety or marketing (to buy a new battery) reasons.
I tried the interrock's (the 10th post) guide but it does not seem to work correctly and caused me a kernel panic related to the SleepEnabler. Moreover, the mouse speed significantly increases. By "VERY slow" I mean - games become unplayable (FPS drop from 60 to 6) and kernel_task starts using more than 500% of the CPU. Nevertheless, the main problem is, after some time, the laptop becomes VERY slow. Now, every time I plug-in the power cable, it starts straightaway (even without pushing the power button), turns off after a few seconds, and then starts normally. Recently, my battery randomly died and I had to disconnect it, otherwise, my computer would not properly turn on (MacBook Pro was restarting itself and turning off over and over again).