I’ve been using Macs with Apple Silicon for music for a couple years now, so don’t remember exactly what I used to manage power, but what I remember is that a) I had some scripts that only suppressed throttling and such when I ran certain applications, and b) none of that actually killed my laptops. Maybe they didn’t last as long as they could have lasted otherwise, but it’s not like they died after a few months (well, there was one problematic machine I mentioned, but it generally wasn’t good with heat management).
So while running laptops hot should be done with some caution, it’s not all super scary, and certainly can be done in a practically balanced way so you can get both performance and reasonable hardware longevity.
In general, it would be nice if Intel/AMD figured out a way to make their CPUs more modest in terms of heat, or if someone managed to come up with an ARM architecture powerful enough to run Windows at high performance, I really wouldn’t mind going back to Win from Mac OS.
I suspect/hope in my case it will not cause any issues.
I use the relatively benign setting Frank suggested.
Although this laptop CPU spec maxes out at 5.2, it is only running at an average on 4.23 CPU with Throttlestop.
In contrast, with a very similar Lenevo Thinkpad that caps out at 5.0 CPU, it runs at an average 4.36 CPU WITHOUT Throttlestop. (Solely using the Ultimate Performance Plan).
I don’t know why the (slightly) newer “problem” laptop was not reaching into the plus 4.2 CPU range with the UltimatePower plan deployed. I think it may have used to because the crackling only started recently (I never bothered checking average cpu in the “problem” laptop before the crackling started).
Perhaps more importantly I only use the laptop for GP and only for rehearsals. In fact I turned off Throttlestop when I did a Windows update (and I think I will make a practice of turning it off if I am not running GP, like updating or installing plugins, etc. going forward). Also, it is always used indoors in a room temperature environment on a cooling pad.
No, never.
In my case, all my MIDI and audio devices are USB bus powered from the laptop. Without having to reboot, risk of sudden shutdown, reconnect issues etc. I can survive up to 30 min of power outage on stage.
That speeds up recovery of band live performance after accidental blackouts. Surprisingly, the keyboarder with that laptop is the first ready to rock.
Blown main fuse, unauthorized photographers or groupies on stage falling over a power cord, dripping drinks into mains sockets, floods from rain flowing over the stage, unreliable electric power from diesel electricity generators, I had it all.
To each their own, of course.
Personally, I’d trust my $200 UPS power supply up more than a $25 laptop battery.
It also serves more than just the laptop.