MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise

One thing that I have noticed with 10.15.5 is when i put the computer to sleep it continues to use power.

I will pull my MBP out of my backpack at 8 pm after leaving work at 5pm and it will be warm. The battery will be down to 79% when it was 100% at 5pm. By morning it would be at 50%. I did not have this issue with 10.15.4 and earlier. I tried the first stage of SMC reset but it didn't seem to do much for that issue.

I keep powernap disabled for this very reason. It's funny but it is still not fetching email just like powernap should work but it still keeps the computer warm. Something is working that shouldn't be - for me.

That was happening to me before 10.15.4. In my case 10.15.5 is way worse than 10.15.4, so I will keep using my computer with 10.15.4 and I will keep the partition I created to install the betas with 10.15.5 and wait for the next update, with every update they fix something but they break something else......

Just to add yet another voice to this: I had the exact same problems as widely discussed here.

Browsing in Safari with Xcode opened caused the fans to run at ~3500rpm (lid open and a 4K screen connected).

Ultimately I sold the device and got a 2020 13" 10th Gen i5 instead. It handles the same workload dead silent and since I don't do anything GPU intense I noticed no downgrade in performance.

That is very interesting on your results. I watched a YouTube reviewer video showing that it was even louder than the 16" when connected to an external display and ramped up much quicker on fan speeds. (my 16" does not have that problem as it runs about 50-60c when connected to 2 external 4k screens)

I saw this video as well but decided to try it nevertheless. I don't mind if the device is using its fans when it's busy like in the video, but the noise with low or medium workloads is something I cannot tolerate.

@tchino in April

Could someone double check if this error occurs on other people?

Run the following command on Terminal to open log of the display devices:

log stream --predicate '(process == "WindowServer")' --level debug

On my Mac this was being spammed (20+ times per second) when Display scaling on external monitor was maximum:

2020-05-28 00:29:06.640922+0300 0x53d      Debug       0x0                  311    0    WindowServer: (CoreDisplay) [com.apple.CoreDisplay:default] [DEBUG] - On display 0x04280c06, surface is not detached, CoreDisplay is detached (0x00000000), DetachCode = 0

The fix for this was to adjust external display scaling towards Less Text until it stopped spamming. This also reduces the CPU use of WindowServer. This error was occuring also when the lid is closed. I thought I found a fix for the problem for high WindowServer CPU use and thus a loud fan noise.

My computer has been really loud when I use Teams and was wondering what might cause the problem. Today I had the logging enabled and noticed that when I open Microsoft Teams or Google Meet with the video on the error above starts to appear again, but only when I the window is moved from the external monitor screen to Macbook Pro's display. When I move the window back, the (debug) error stops spamming.

So the problem is kinda back, but only when using Teams / Meet :) I think also other software might trigger the problem, but could what does the debug error mean and what causes it?

I hope this might help or raise ideas on anyone else?

I can confirm that this happens on mine too (16" + 4K monitor connected via TB3 to DP)

In clamshell mode, the spamming is gone only if the resolution of the external monitor is set to look like 3008x1692 or 3360x1890.

When using it concurrently with the internal display, there is constant spamming in any resolution, but it is greatly reduced if the external display is set to one of the two resolutions mentioned above. It seems that the internal resolution does not make a difference.

I also am getting something like that:

2020-05-27 19:24:04.295906-0400 0x54e      Debug       0x0                  260    0    WindowServer: (CoreDisplay) [com.apple.CoreDisplay:default] [DEBUG] - On display 0x04281106, surface is not detached, CoreDisplay is detached (0x00000000), DetachCode = 0

I'm just upgraded to the release 10.15.5 and only running mail and Safari without an external attached right now and on battery.

I'm going to send in a feedback report.

Do you guys use feedback? Apple engineers contact me fairly regularly when I send in reports.

Just updated to latest for MacOS - sad to report this update has been the biggest regression yet to performance, GPU power draw is now at 29W on idle with multiple monitors connected.

In a way I'm hopeful that this might be abothced attempt at fixing the issue.

For what its worth the overheating issue occurs in boot camp so it’s unlikely a macOS specific issue.

out of curiosity has anyone tried running their laptop connected to a Pro Display XDR or an lg ultra fine monitor?

ahmedfromreservoir wrote:

For what its worth the overheating issue occurs in boot camp so it’s unlikely a macOS specific issue.

out of curiosity has anyone tried running their laptop connected to a Pro Display XDR or an lg ultra fine monitor?

In MacOS system consumes 33W, in Windows 19W.. So it is much better in Windows.

William Kucharski wrote:

denizcan wrote:

It's so annoying that my 2015 gaming laptop creates a lot less noise than MBP16.. Does Apple use their products in house?

By the hundreds of thousands, including many tens of thousands of MBP16s, most of them connected to external monitors during the day.

So Apple employees are OK with unnecessary power consumption and annoying fan noise..

BTW, do they use their machines with 5K display? Because other than 220DPI, the fonts of MacOS are garbage.. I cannot tolerate the choppy fonts on external monitors so I prefer not using it..