A research claims that plugging in a MacBook Pro charger on the left-hand side of the device can cause the laptop to run hot, potentially affecting its performance and making it noisy.
Modern MacBook Pro laptops have only USB-C ports on left side and the right side of the laptop and users able to plug the charger in on either side of the device.
However, research published on StackExchange claims that using the charger in on the left-hand side alongside other peripherals causes spikes in the laptop’s temperature.
The post shows that within four minutes of the laptop being charged from the left-hand ports, alongside a USB-C-to-HDMI adapter, the temperature sensor on the left-hand side of the laptop detects a heat spike. This seemingly causes a process called kernal_task to kick in, triggering high CPU usage and fans to start whirring.
However, when the charger is moved from the left-hand ports to those on the right, the temperature drops and kernel_task stops running within as little as 15 seconds.
Graphs published on the site show how CPU usage spikes every time the charger is re-applied to left-hand Thunderbolt ports.
The solution offered on StackExchange is to leave peripherals plugged into the left-hand side and the charger on the right. Plugging everything in on the right-hand side can also lead to temperature spikes, with fans kicking in to counteract the heat, although kernel_task does not kick in.
“In my case I had an unofficial PSU (Anker) feeding a Lention C13 plugged in to a left-hand side port on the MacBook. I'm now using the official PSU plugged in to the right-hand side of the MacBook and all is fine again.”
(Clarification: As readers have noted, not all MacBook Pro laptops have USB-C ports on either side of the laptop. The tests mentioned above were conducted on a 2017 15in Macbook Pro)
