Apple Silicon M1 for chess - Hardware and software issues and workarounds

[AlexChess]

Maybe is MY Mac mini M1 that has problems (but I don't think so... Have you checked the status of your Macmini's SSD?)
I have never experienced so many troubles with Mac mini 2010 (still perfectly working under my M1) and iMac 2013!

91° Celsius after only 10 minutes playing blitz games between engines, when using more than 2 CPUs (so 10-15 million Nodes/s are only a dream) T2 Chip blocks fan speed tuning also using utilities like TG Pro!

250 TB writed on internal *SOLDERED* 250 GB SSD and 16% used in 3 months!!!
Workaround: install Big Sur on external Samsung T5 USB 3.1 SSD

Frequent Kernel Panics (probably for overflow related to xpcproxy task) , also while doing nothing.
No solution yet. Searching on the web a lot of people are experiencing it.

Bluetooth Apple magic mouse often disconnecting and maybe crashing mac mini for interferences!
Having full charged batteries seems to attenuate the issue.

Wifi unable to connect to hotspots...
Workaround: reset all Wifi hotspots and add open DNS like 8.8.8.8 - 8.8.4.4

Since i like macOS but NOT soldered components, Apple's walled garden and crazy prices, I'm thinking to build a tower hackintosh with a powerful compatible Intel/AMD cpu still good for next 4-5 years and socketed SSD & RAM . But if I will learn how to compile all open source chess engines for Ubuntu ARM64 (ARM IS the future) I'll return to it like 12 years ago

Modern Times is right: not only CPU, but all components on the SOC and SSD are stressed with 91° Celsius FOR DAYS in a 15x15 cm box (fan increases from 1700 RPMs only when >90° )

[smatovic]

...
Modern Times is right: not only CPU, but all components on the SOC and SSD are stressed with 91° Celsius FOR DAYS in a 15x15 cm box (fan increases from 1700 RPMs only when >90° )
...

I killed one CPU-fan in my Thinkpad with chess eniges -> pro chess on pro workstations.

--
Srdja

[AlexChess]

...
Modern Times is right: not only CPU, but all components on the SOC and SSD are stressed with 91° Celsius FOR DAYS in a 15x15 cm box (fan increases from 1700 RPMs only when >90° )
...

I killed one CPU-fan in my Thinkpad with chess eniges -> pro chess on pro workstations.

--
Srdja

With chess engines tournaments (fan @crazy RPM) I probably killed my iMac 2013, too...

[jshriver]

Should be a good thread, just writing so I get pings on updates.

[AlexChess]

When I bought Mac Mini M1 I was conscious that I will be a pioneer. What I was fearing the most was to not be able to use apps out from the Mac App Store. Since I can still use everything despite the presence of T2 chip (Trusted Computing) , having enabled kernel extensions from Recovery and "Download from everywhere" with sudo spctl --master-disable from Terminal, I'm enjoying it a lot.

I'm using:
- Cutechess and a lot of ARM64 PI4 / Ubuntu 20.04 chess engines under Parallels Destkop 16.3 M1 thanks to cpeters and jshriver
- BanksiaGui and NATIVE M1 engines thanks to Acepoint (but I have finally learned how to compile most of them for myself)
- Arena Chess on Win 10 ARM64 under Parallels Destkop 16.3 (fixed engines repeating interrupted games reloading each engine after every game)

- Rosetta 2 x86 to Silicon M1 translation is wonderful. Almost all applications work stable and their speed is surprising!

I have solved my internal SSD issues using external USB 3.1 SSDs and fixed frequent kernel panics since I have swithed off my horrible Magic mouse and Chinese Bluetooth speakers and bought 2 Thunderbolt to USB adapters (5$ for both) to have 4 USB 3.1 ports. I'm managing high temperatures using less CPUs for long tournaments.

Mac Mini M1 is really fast, but I would suggest to sceptic pro users and dummies to wait next improved versions if you don't like to be beta testers. I repeat: I'm a 360° technology and chess fan and I accept all the issues that I'm encountering. I like Apple despite their hardware and walled garden limits, but also Linux and Windoz ...My observations were only to find workarounds with other lucky M1 owners

[jshriver]

Just noticed that Stockfish offers support for Apple arm64 now in their build environment

Supported archs:
apple-silicon > Apple silicon ARM64

[AlexChess]

On Apple M1 native I succesfully compile it using "brew install Stockfish"

[smcracraft]

My Apple M1 Mini (from CostCo) is my backup to my Apple MacBook Pro 2017 non-M1. I bought the former just because of the low cost and already having a screen, keyboard and mouse.

I play Leela exclusively on the latter though I would enjoy getting her up on the former. Anyone have Leela+BanksiaGUI up on M1?

Stuart

[jimratliff]

Should be a good thread, just writing so I get pings on updates.

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