MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise

Have you contacted Apple Support directly about what you are seeing:

Contact - Official Apple Support

Even for those with fan issues, an idle machine will not drain power as you describe unless you are doing something; in fact an idle machine should be going to sleep.

Note that your experience is not a universal one.

There's something about your particular configuration that is causing your issue to be more extreme, whatever it is.

I'm sure Apple Support could walk you through it and at the very least could suggest some steps to take.

I've reported that I have connected mine to every monitor I own and though 20w of GPU power is used, I don't see battery drops like you report and my fans never exceed 2400 RPM at any time.

What steps have you taken to try and resolve your issue?

In my home, without the AC in "silence" it measures as 45 dB and with the AC on it's 54 dB.

That's as silent as any environment I've ever been in outside a recording studio.

Regardless of the environment, however, as I mentioned in my case with my monitors the fans don't exceed 2400 RPM. I've posted proof of that.

AMD's response seems to indicate it's not a software defect but rather the system is working as designed.

At this point my best advice is to remind those bothered by the fans that they should be sure to contact Apple Support directly as that is how engineering resources are allocated:

Contact - Official Apple Support

I also will state that newer Dell and HP laptops seem to run with their fans in high speed mode a lot running Windows 10 without an external monitor attached.

MittWaffen wrote:

Sir most people won't detect these issues within 14 days. Alot it's months after they see the pattern.

That's not accurate; many people have detected the issue immediately if it is extreme for them.

What I will say, is the vast majority of people here have shown there is some form of engineering issue be it software hardware combined with these units.

So, what is Apple currently doing? Are they offering repairs, attempting repairs. Have they made a statement?

As always, the best advice is for each person experiencing this issue to pursue whatever action they want to directly through Apple Support:

Contact - Official Apple Support

Apple has told some users they are aware of an issue, but at present they have not instituted a service action of any type; once again directly working with Apple Support is key.

Also has AMD made a statement on the matter?

Not as such, but on other message boards they have explained why it is necessary to drive VRAM at the high power/speed they do:

Multiple displays with different resolutions, refresh rates, timings and or using different display adapters/connections requires more resources from the GPU, this can move the GPU up into the next memory clock state to compensate and avoid issues such as flickering or corruption.

If all displays are identical, using the same resolution, refresh rates, timings and using identical display adapters/connections then the GPU may be able to run two or more without moving up into the next clock state. It can vary from Bios to Bios and GPU to GPU, but the expected behaviour is increased clock speeds so this is not something we can change.

https://community.amd.com/thread/214891?commentID=2793350

Note yet again that I don't say what I do to diminish anyone's experience, but rather because people make statements that all one needs to do is plug in an external monitor and fans will spin up to 5500 RPM and the machine will become unusable, and that's demonstrably inaccurate.

Again, if you are experiencing the issue, contact Apple Support directly:

Contact - Official Apple Support

While it is of course possible your support rep didn't offer you the ability to send it in, it's something Apple has always offered, especially throughout COVID. If you click on the link:

Contact - Official Apple Support

you are offered the choice to send it in or to take it in, if your local stores are open.

If your local stores are closed, Apple can't do anything about it, it's usually at the order of your local government.

MittWaffen wrote:

Hopefully AMD revise their drivers, but after almost a year -- I think it's best we voice our concerns here so their addressed properly.

This is a user to user forum so that Apple users can help each other with technical issues. As such, posts here will not get anything "addressed properly."

The proper channel is to contact Apple Support directly:

Contact - Official Apple Support

Note also that AMD has a support forum of their own where they often respond directly if you'd like to raise the issue there:

AMD Drivers & Software Community Forum

This MacBook is the "Muscle car" of Mac Notebook computers. Because it is so very capable, and the drive is very fast, it is easy to give it tasks that consume lots of system resources. With this Mac, it does not slow down the way an ordinary Mac would. Instead, it takes ridiculous amounts of work in stride, but that can cause it to heat up.

Most egregious of these is running a third-party Anti-Virus scanner. These add-ons read all your files, unrelentingly, looking for patterns found in antique windows viruses. when complete, they read them again. This heats ups your Mac, and provides no additional protection over the very good protection already built into MacOS. You should not run third-party anti-virus scanner on your Mac.

But in a similar way, if you run third-party File-Snyc-ing apps such as DropBox, BackBlaze, and others, they can have the same effect. Because they are merely ported from a different Operating System, they do not take advantage of built-in MacOS tools that immediately show which files have changed. So these ported Apps, just like Virus scanners, read your files non-stop, and when completed, they begin again. If you must run such Apps, run them only on-demand, not at login.

Readers would be happy to look over a report of what is running and using up resources on your Mac. This little "Discovery" Utility, Etrecheck, was written by a senior contributor here to do one job -- create a report of what is running on your Mac and how its resources are being used.

Using EtreCheck to Troubleshoot Potential… - Apple Community

However, it would probably be better for you if you posted your report on a new thread, as this one is already hundreds of pages of posts deep.

Already 242 pages on this forum, no official statement(s) acknowledging problems from Apple, few days spent on looking for older MBPs without any thermal or throttling issues (even looked at 13 inch Air though wouldn't be too happy to go back to such a small screen and fewer ports for what I do), a machine that would last 3-5 years for such a high price tag - am left with no options but to post this:

Unhappy loyal Apple customer considering switching to PC Dell XPS 15 after numerous of design faults in MBP

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251938000

@emmanuelfrombruxelles And how many watts does the dGPU consume? Clamshell or not?

@itunestux Does your "external USB to double HDMI adapter" happen to use DisplayLink? If yes then this solution use CPU instead of the dGPU and has downsides. Your external displays will run one frame late and the mouse can have a lower refresh rate when playing a fullscreen video.

@EngagingExposures Waiting for your screenshot, I believe you but I'm looking for evidences of the 5300M / 5500M running 2 displays at low power.

As the Mac ecosystem is currently set up, design decisions like this one are made by Apple. Your only vote on this issue is 'with your feet'.

That is, "If you don't like it that way, you can leave or buy something else"

If you would like to change the design for your preferences (reduced noise in exchange for flickering) you can submit product feedback:

Product Feedback - Apple

veryupsetmacbookpro2020user wrote:

I am looking of finding ways to claim refund.

Since you have apparently been working directly with Apple Support, they are also the people who can best assist you in obtaining a refund.

Contact - Official Apple Support

Just bringing some awareness to the community that the new M1 Air and 13" Pro can drive the internal monitor and

"One external display with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz" [1, 2].

[1] https://www.apple.com/macbook-air/specs/

[2] https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-13/specs/

Thanks for posting that.

this is the one that makes that picture even more interesting:

https://www.apple.com/mac-mini/specs/

Because the M1 Mini also supports a second display up to 4K over its built-in HDMI port (but maybe Not over ThunderBolt?)

The Big Question was whether you could close the clamshell on the M1 MacBook Air or the M1 MacBook Pro 13 and connect a second display (in place of the built-in).

My current guess is NO, because there is not enough ThunderBolt bandwidth to support it, and those models have no direct HDMI out.

This was already noted by: Grant Bennet-Alder Dec 21, 2019 11:53 AM -> here

Another quick way to tell if performance or temperature problems are used by "too much stuff" in the background is to restart in Safe mode, and see if the game problems occur in Safe mode. (Hold Shift at startup, and be prepared to supply your username and password, even if you normally auto-login.)

Safe Mode loads a very small set of Apple-only extensions, not including graphics acceleration, and NO third-party extensions. Screen re-draw will be wonky and slow, but ultimately correct.

That article has nothing to do with the topic under discussion. It does nota apply to the 16-in model or to fan noise. It was related to the 13-in model not knowing its battery's "full point", and shutting down prematurely (because it had never been fully charged in the first place).

The advice we were giving informally was to charge overnight then do an SMC reset.

The article specified clarified you should run the battery below 90 percent, then stop all activity and allow the computer to charge overnight, then in the morning do a software update.

The advice is likely now moot (and the likely reason the article was removed) because of the finer control of battery operation introduced with "Battery Health Management" introduced in 10.15.5, and described here:

About battery health management in Mac notebooks - Apple Support

.

Yes of course,

look here i did:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250878229?answerId=253617890022#253617890022

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250878229?answerId=253663851022#253663851022

at the end i ended here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250878229?answerId=254456289022#254456289022

other People buy an expensive eGPU also possible - i prefer the DisplayLink Solution for my workload, if i were a movie editor it looks different

I am done with this issue - on a daily work load i am running with externel 34" Monitor by 1800 rpm's on the side where the cable is connected, and on the other 1600 rpm even with YouTube and stuff

If i would do GfX Stuff - the AMD Radeon Pro 5500M is there and can do the job, but not for normal display stuff

kind regards

greschor