How to disable CPU performance throttling on iPhone

The Batterygate scandal took everyone by storm and Apple is still busy dodging its bullets. You can now wait for the upcoming inbuilt solution or you can try the following tutorial to disable iPhone throttling.

What is CPU/battery throttling?

Once your iPhone’s battery wears out, Apple deliberately decreases the device’s performance. 

Apple began throttling the CPU performance on the following models beginning from iOS 10.2.1 –

  • iPhone 6/6 plus
  • iPhone 6s/6s plus
  • iPhone SE

You can read more about this scandal here.

iPhone devices

This feature is also available for iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 plus on all versions above and including iOS 11.2.

If you own an iPhone 8/8+ or iPhone X, you are in luck. Apple will not throttle these smartphones until iOS 12 so you have still got a good few months to enjoy peak performance.

Is manually disabling throttling safe?

Poking around in the root filesystem of your device has its risks. With that said, this is completely safe to do provided you don’t edit any unrelated files or entries.

We will delete a few files that Apple places on your device to reduce its performance. Once you delete them, your device will return to its original performance and capabilties.

Here are the GeekBench results of a user who tried the exact same method.

Needless to say, there’s a significant increase in performance in both single-core and multi-core tests.Geekbench throttling test

You should only follow this tutorial if you satisfy these conditions –

  • Your device lags or becomes unresponsive at low battery levels.
  • You have an old worn-out battery.
  • Battery capacity is below 80%.
  • Battery wear is above 20%.

Remember, this tutorial is for all those users who own any of the affected devices. If your battery isn’t below 80% in terms of capacity, you don’t need to use this method.

However, it’s useless for those who use an iPhone 7/7+ because it doesn’t have throttling enabled on iOS 11.1.2 and below.

Requirements

  • An affected iPhone
  • iOS 10.2.1 or above
  • Root access (jailbreak)
  • Filza File manager

How to disable CPU performance throttling on iPhone

Step 1 Install Filza file manager on your iPhone. Here’s where you can install it depending on your firmware version –

  • iOS 10.2.1-10.3.3 – Download Filza from BigBoss repository via Cydia.
  • iOS 11-11.1.2 – Filza is not yet available for these versions via Cydia. You can manually install FilzaEscaped from this link to access your device’s root filesystem.

Step 2 Open Filza form your home screen.

FilzaEscaped

Step 3 Navigate to this location – System/Library/Watchdog/ThermalMonitor.bundle/[Device model number].bundle. Your model number looks something like this – N61AP. If you don’t your model number, download Lirum Device Info Lite or System Guard application from the App Store.

The colors are a bit off below since I am using Eclipse X.

stop iPhone throttling

Step 4 Open the info.plist file. Don’t forget to copy and backup this file to another location. If you remove it accidentally, here’s a backup copy of this file.

Step 5 Search for contextualClampParams and tap on the “i” icon next to it.

Step 6 Delete the following entries or values in that file –

  • lowParamsPeakPower
  • lowParamsSpeaker
  • lowParamsCPU
  • lowParamsGPU

If these entries are missing from your device, Apple isn’t throttling it.

Step 7 Restart your device.

Step 8 (Optional) You can also check GeekBench and AnTuTu benchmark scores of your device afterward. This will give you an idea about the performance boost your device gets after disabling throttling. If you notice little to no change, your device doesn’t have throttling enabled.

This tutorial might seem a bit daunting to some. If that’s the case, I suggest waiting for a proper Cydia tweak from a reputed developer.

For more jailbreak tips and tricks, give us a thumbs up on Twitter and Facebook.

39 Comments

  1. Hoggir March 2, 2019
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