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I am trying to test algorithms by running simulations on my MacBook Air (2019). It takes time to run instances of the algorithms, and if I the execution up by algorithm instance, each instance takes about 2 hours. Now I have tried running all my instances over night, but I get some errors in my results. Assuming there is nothing wrong with my code, could the laptop be slowing down the further into computation it gets? I impose a time limit on the runtime of the algorithms, so could the first instance be run faster than the 10th because of the CPU temperature differences? There could be something wrong with my code. I haven't looked into it yet in detail. The question I am asking is do problems such as my computer slowing down like described above actually happen. Is this kind of stuff something I need to worry about, or can I just be agnostic to my machine and only worry about the code.

Zephers
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  • MacBook Air is a thin & light machine whose max turbo is much higher than its sustained clock speed on a high-power workload. See [Why can't my CPU maintain peak performance in HPC](//stackoverflow.com/q/36363613) for another example of an even more low-power CPU with clock-speed drop off. (Over the course of minutes, not hours.) Is that the kind of slowdown you're seeing? Laptop heats up -> clock speed scales back some. If so, your question is a duplicate. – Peter Cordes Feb 10 '20 at 20:37
  • Does this answer your question? [Why can't my CPU maintain peak performance in HPC](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36363613/why-cant-my-cpu-maintain-peak-performance-in-hpc) – Peter Cordes Feb 11 '20 at 02:49

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Simply put, Hardware will always effect software run times.

Also, yes it feels like when you run it overnight your algorithm is likely timing out.

Lastly, yes if you have code in C (not sure what language you are using) and you are not releasing memory back to the computer (garbage collection), you could easily be running out of memory. This also will reev up your CPU increasing its temp.

Hope these things help.

Sweet Chilly Philly
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