16" M1 Max Macbook Pro high GPU usage (20%-100%) at random during routine activity

Eric--F,

Thanks for the info about the activity monitors and how to contact the app developers. I am not sure about contacting the app developer (Parallels) just yet. I am not convinced that Parallels is the problem (directly). I am leaning towards a macOS-Hardware issue in management of the graphics memory.

UPDATE

I am on the road this week. And, three days running, I am not having this problem. Good, you might say. But, not really . . .

A history of systems configurations - - -

15 Aug 2022

--- Brand new machine

--- MBP M1 Max + Monterey 12.5 or 12.6 + Parallels 18.0.2 + Windows 11 for ARM + 2x Dell U3014 32" monitors

--- Works fine.

--- Initial issues with monitors disconnecting when the machine went to sleep. Ended up being a known issue with the hardware talking to older DP monitors. Work-around executed.

--- Initial issues with the Windows 11 for ARM64 (this is Beta software, after all) where Chrome, Excel, and DWM would consume memory in a manner that appeared sympathetic to each other. Eventually the Display Manager would freeze. I found errors in the Syslogs. Though the freezes could take up to 30 minutes to happen after the first error. I would classify this more as memory mis-management than memory leak. As long as the memory utilized by each of these three processes stayed under 1GB, the VM would run solidly. Problem seems to be gone since late October. This is why I have been running Activity Monitors.

Thru 18 Dec 2022

--- MBP M1 Max + Monterey 12.6.1 + Parallels 18.1.0 + Windows 11 for ARM + 2x Dell U3014 32" monitors

--- Works fine.

--- Patched all software as the updates became available. Pretty much weekly for Windows 11.

19/20 Dec 2022

--- MBP M1 Max + Monterey 12.6.2 + Parallels 18.1.1 + Windows 11 for ARM + 2x Dell U3014 32" monitors

--- Assumed to be routine patches. As I have done since getting the machine.

--- High GPU utilization, at random. Adverse affects on use of the VMs. Sluggish mouse movement, sluggish scrolling, pauses in work. This does not affect anything running in the on-board monitor. This will be an area to test when I return from my travels.

26 Dec 2022

--- MBP M1 Max + Monterey 12.6.2 + Parallels 18.0.2 + Windows 11 for ARM + 2x Dell U3014 32" monitors

--- Still fails. This rollback rules out Parallels being broken. Unless it is a fundamental flaw in the Parallels 18 release.

30 Dec 2022

--- MBP M1 Max + Monterey 12.6.2 + Parallels 18.0.2 + Windows 11 for ARM + No external monitors

--- Third day, Problem Solved! Do not use external monitors. Unfortunately, that is not really a solution.

So the question now . . how do I get hold of the OS developer to see what we can do to diagnose this condition?

I am not real fluent in the graphics processing part of this hardware. I have read something about shared graphics memory. The implication was that this was a chunk of the on-board system memory, not its own separate physical memory. That makes it accessible to the host OS and the guest OS at the same time.

When I get back from my travels . .

= I will plug both monitors in and see if the problem shows up, again.

= I will plug in one monitor to see if the problem shows up.

= I will plug the cables into different ports to see if the problem goes away.

= Run one VM on the on-board monitor while having both monitors plugged in. See if the VM running in the on-board monitor has the problem. A hybrid of this travel-mode and what I run in the office.

= Investigate "Automatic Graphics Switching". Should not be an issue, HT202043 says, "If you connect an external display to your Mac, your computer uses the high-performance graphics processor until you disconnect the display." Not sure what the "high-performance graphics processor" is for this machine.

= More reading into how the MBP M1-series graphics system works.

= Contemplate reloading Monterey 12.6.0 to see if the problem goes away.

You thoughts and suggestions are appreciated.

UPDATE --

Wednesday afternoon, I started going through the above tests.

= One external monitor with VM on it, other VM running in the on-board monitor -- yes, GPU excursions.

= Two external monitors, one with VM, one without, other VM still on the no-board monitor -- yes, GPU excursions.

= Two external monitors, both with a VM running in each. -- yes, excursions until 1647 hours. Then, no more excursions. It is almost 48 hours later.

From my notes about the excursions:

= They were happening every 10-15 minutes.

= They lasted 3-5 minutes.

= There was nothing notable in the Event Logs for the VMs or the Mac.

= I did not find anything odd running (in the process tables) during the excursions.

= Only the screen operations on the external monitors were affected. The on-board monitor was never affected by the excursions.

= The next test was to see if the macOS screen/desktop on each monitor was affected by the excursions. Alas, the excursions stopped before I could try that.

I did get a copy of Monterey 12.5 to reload.

We will see how the weekend goes. If the excursions come back, I plan to do the following:

= The above mentioned test.

= See if the VMs are affected if running on the on-board monitor while the two monitors are connected. In the middle of an excursion, move the VMs to the on-board monitor. This could be really entertaining.

= Reload Monterey 12.5