-w not working on Apple Silicon?

[mg_hash]

Hello,
I'm running hashcat v6.2.6 on a new Mackbook Air M2.  I know this is not great hardware for this, and I'm Ok with that.  My question is about using it to it's maximum capability.  According to the docs, this (-w 3) should do a good job of maxing out the system, but it doesn't seem to work as expected on an M2.  Top is showing the system as mostly idle while hashcat status is saying it's maxed out

Load Avg: 0.89, 0.82, 0.84  CPU usage: 12.3% user, 5.95% sys, 82.0% idle 

Hardware.Mon.#1..: Util:100%

Is this a symptom of not feeding work in fast enough (wrong combination of wordlist size and number of rules), a known issue with Apple Silicon, or something else?

This is my command line:
hashcat -w 3 -O -m 1000 secrets/enabled.secrets -a 0 --potfile-path working/hashcat-rockyou2021-onerule-ntlm.pot -r rules/OneRuleToRuleThemAll.rule password-lists/rockyou2021.txt

Hashcat status:
Session..........: hashcat
Status...........: Running
Hash.Mode........: 1000 (NTLM)
Hash.Target......: secrets/enabled.secrets
Time.Started.....: Sat Jul  8 10:32:35 2023 (1 day, 21 hours)
Time.Estimated...: Sat Oct  7 04:22:37 2023 (88 days, 20 hours)
Kernel.Feature...: Optimized Kernel
Guess.Base.......: File (password-lists/rockyou2021.txt)
Guess.Mod........: Rules (rules/OneRuleToRuleThemAll.rule)
Guess.Queue......: 1/1 (100.00%)
Speed.#1.........: 55135.0 kH/s (320.42ms) @ Accel:4096 Loops:256 Thr:32 Vec:1
Recovered........: 2612/187879 (1.39%) Digests (total), 640/187879 (0.34%) Digests (new)
Remaining........: 185267 (98.61%) Digests
Recovered/Time...: CUR:0,0,6 AVG:0.23,14.04,336.88 (Min,Hour,Day)
Progress.........: 16609319321600/439828837126805 (3.78%)
Rejected.........: 0/16609319321600 (0.00%)
Restore.Point....: 318504960/8459060239 (3.77%)
Restore.Sub.#1...: Salt:0 Amplifier:37120-37376 Iteration:0-256
Candidate.Engine.: Device Generator
Candidates.#1....: 07747165625cg -> 0774847215
Hardware.Mon.#1..: Util:100%

Thanks,
michael

[Chick3nman]

Your Util is 100%, how much were you expecting? To be clear, hashcat is a GPU focused tool and should be using your GPU, but you are checking CPU utilization numbers to compare with.

[mg_hash]

Your Util is 100%, how much were you expecting? To be clear, hashcat is a GPU focused tool and should be using your GPU, but you are checking CPU utilization numbers to compare with.

Hashcat says the CPU is 100%, but top and Activity Monitor disagree.  According to description of -w 3, the computer should be nigh unusable, but I can't even tell it's doing anything.  

The GPU column for the process is close to 100%, so maybe that's what hashcat is reading

https://pasteboard.co/u60tP34sMkN2.png

[Snoopy]

you didnt get chick3nmans point

hashcat uses GPU per default, not CPU

so hashcat uses your GPU cores for computing and thus not using your CPU cores, which result in yeah not using your cpu, resulting in not showing any utilisation on your cpu

[do1984]

Your Util is 100%, how much were you expecting? To be clear, hashcat is a GPU focused tool and should be using your GPU, but you are checking CPU utilization numbers to compare with.

Hashcat says the CPU is 100%, but top and Activity Monitor disagree.  According to description of -w 3, the computer should be nigh unusable, but I can't even tell it's doing anything.  

The GPU column for the process is close to 100%, so maybe that's what hashcat is reading

https://pasteboard.co/u60tP34sMkN2.png

Like mentioned above, Activity Monitor relyies on CPU, not GPU. You can ser the GPU time though. Tools like Asitop can show you the GPU usage, power, etc.

Like in my example here, 100% GPU utilization.
https://pasteboard.co/bjv5jQdtHt0V.png