Copy this on MacBook Pro, thermald 1.5. Took forever to figure out that thermald was the culprit. Unfortunately, thermald does not report its throttling activity to syslog on a default Mint 18.1 install, so there was nothing pointing in its direction. I don't want to stir up the debate about whether or not thermald's behaviour is right or not (perhaps there really are people who prefer a slow system over one that has its fans running), but at least it would have been nice if it thermald would inform users that it is crippling CPU speed. Then I would have simply disabled it immediately.
Copy this on MacBook Pro, thermald 1.5. Took forever to figure out that thermald was the culprit. Unfortunately, thermald does not report its throttling activity to syslog on a default Mint 18.1 install, so there was nothing pointing in its direction. I don't want to stir up the debate about whether or not thermald's behaviour is right or not (perhaps there really are people who prefer a slow system over one that has its fans running), but at least it would have been nice if it thermald would inform users that it is crippling CPU speed. Then I would have simply disabled it immediately.