MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise

Hi there,

I would just like to comment and add my support to this thread. Having only had the latest 2019 Macbook Pro 16 inch for 3 days, which I purchased brand new from Apple.co.uk, I am somewhat disappointed with the excessive fan noise. Please bare in mind that I have fully specced my Macbook out bar the hard drive.

Please see specs below:

MacBook Pro 16 Inch 2019

Processor 2.4GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9

Memory 64GB 2667 MHz DDR4

Graphics AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 8GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB

2TB Hard Drive

This was purchased as part of my 4k video editing set up, I'd also like to point out that fan noise is occurring while i'm watching 4k video on YouTube with no programs running in the background. I started to run final cut pro and edit a 4k video with no colour grades and the fans were creating allot of noise, is this normal?

Purchasing a near £5,000 product from apple along with extras is a large investment in my equipment, I didn't expect to have any problems with editing on a near full spec MacBook Pro and experience loud fan noises. Having read some of this thread it appears it may harm my device over time which I am not happy about. Hopefully there can be a solution to this as I enjoy all apple products.

Many thanks for help on this subject.

Jack

Then return it (you are still within your 14 day return window), get a full refund and buy something else - an iMac or Mac Pro if you want to stay with a Mac, or select a Windows PC of your choice.

If “loud fan noise” is your primary concern, it’s the only solution.

Remember, we are only fellow users here, not Apple, and complaining here can do little, and what it can do very likely won’t be happening any time soon.

Keeping it and hoping it someday works in a way it was never promised to would be an exercise in frustration for you.

Get your refund and move on.

telling Someone to grab a refund when they likely exceed 14 days isn’t a solution to the issue, more so telling them to move on.

also you saying that there’s no Apple here isn’t truthful as a massive amount of comments get moderated if they rock the status quo.

its best we all call Apple and voice our concerns with these issues in order to have solutions.

currently, call Apple and go into the Apple store and show them this issue with their XDR displays

So you didn’t bother to actually read his post before responding?

JackVideo wrote:

…

Having only had the latest 2019 Macbook Pro 16 inch for 3 days

I also don’t recall anyone reporting this issue with their XDR display, and I have shown there are at least some displays to which you can connect and you will not have this issue.

I've switched from a 15" MBP 2019 bought urgently (my 9 year old 17" unfortunately died) to 16" MBP 2019 because of the annoying keyboard on 15" and the new larger screen on 16" closer to my 17". I had 3 x DELL U2515H at resolutions 2560 x 1440 connected to the 15" and it wasn't getting as hot as the 16" connected to only ONE OF THESE MONITORS!

When I was leaving my 15" with screen turned off it was completely cold when turned on back all 4 screens (including MBP). The 16" remains constantly hot and am sure it's not a good thing long-term as will shorten life span of this machine. It turns out the 15" 16GB RAM is handling better my external monitors without spinning the fans than much powerful 16" 32GB RAM one which is riddiculous! I spent so much money on it expecting to fix one major really annoying drawback such as crap

keyboard and they got me into a more serious one - overheating and loud fans! I'm fed up with Apple - can't return it because was stranded outside the country dur to COVID-19 until this month and the machine was sitting for 3 months in a sealed box and really wanted to start using it.. so many mistakes made by them too for such as high price tag.

The new 16" 2019 MBP runs on Catalina 10.15.5, 2.3 GHz, 8-Core Intel Core i9, 32GB RAM 2667 MHz DD4, 1TB SSD, AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 8GB + Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536MB

(someone mentioned using the lid open explains overheating - as far as remember the first graphics card is used - doing web browsing and coding only so not heave stuff at all).

[Edited by Moderator]

I don’t think the problem will be resolved anytime soon, if you check here: https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/apple-boot-camp you can see that AMD never updated the drivers for the Radeon Pro 5300 and 5500 and if the problem is a driver/software issue (like I think it is) it seems that AMD is not interested in fixing it since they didn’t update the drivers in 7 months.

That also depends on whether it is, in fact, seen by a problem by AMD.

They may well consider it "works as designed," we simply don't know.

Note also that updates for most of their other drivers came more than seven months after release.

For example, their iMac Pro drivers were updated May 1, 2019 and late March 23, 2020, or 327 days apart.

By that math, they aren't due to update the MBP 16 drivers, released November 20, 2019 until October 12, 2020.

I'll quote alexktz from the macrumors thread who tested his 5600M machine with 2 external monitors with OPEN lid:

"The TLDR is that no matter what configurations I tried I couldn't make the GPU exceed 12w at idle. The exact same configurations with the 5500m model resulted in 20+w as we all know. Two monitors seems to be the sweet spot for energy usage but there's not much in it really."

12W (or 24% TDP) is now very acceptable for 3 total displays at idle. So is it really worth paying $800 just for having a silent desktop experience? Maybe not, but less wattage means lower temps and better longevity. The impressive GPU future-proofing helps when thinking the added cost, but I'm not sure if future-proofing is the better term considering the ARM macbooks are coming soon...

I would have much prefered AMD releasing a software fix for the 5300M and get the base 16 refurbished, but I need a macbook pro now..!

I connected my monitor to 5 different computers and when I setup the refresh rate to 144 hertz from 60 hertz they ALL consume more wattage no less (you can google that too and you will see the same results), but with the Macbook 16-inch changing the refresh rate from 60 hertz to 144 herts drops the wattage consumption from 20+ watts all the way to 7-15 watts, so I think it's definitely not normal behavior.

And what you mentioned about the drivers it's only true on Bootcamp, for windows they update their drivers almost every month.

How did you change the refresh rate? I am not able to do it no matter what settings I choose i.e. for native display there is no such setting as refresh rate shown even in scaled. Then for my external display it's greyed out all the time no matter if it's set to Default for display or Scaled - it's always set to 60 Hertz and changind resolutions from 2560 x 1440 to any lower won't enable it. The three monitors I have are Dell U2515H.

12W maximum for two monistors sounds very reasonable, although I've been suffering for so long maybe it's just more a step in the right direction than a true 'fix', it's probably still ramping up the memory clockspeed to maximum.

iTech23 wrote:

I don’t think the problem will be resolved anytime soon, if you check here: https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/apple-boot-camp you can see that AMD never updated the drivers for the Radeon Pro 5300 and 5500 and if the problem is a driver/software issue (like I think it is) it seems that AMD is not interested in fixing it since they didn’t update the drivers in 7 months.

And that driver is super buggy.. I whish there was an option to force Windows use iGPU.. It's that buggy..

I am having identical issues with my 16" Macbook Pro. It tends to overheat on its own, but really overheats in the 160-180 degree range when connected to an external display, even with CPU usage <10%. Its resting temperature while connected is 130-150 degrees. When disconnected from the display it remains over 100 degrees which is still out of range.

Apple, please help!

I've installed Turbo Boost Switcher Pro, turned off Turbo, slightly lifted my MBP 16" using tiny rubber stands and it helped to bring down fans while idle with one external monitor from 2600+ to below 2300 RPM (average temps 145.4°F/63°C) so I pretty much don't hear them now which is comfortable to work. The top is still hot but not super hot. I still have to connect the other two Dell U2515H monitors to see how it handles 3 external in total. I only do web browsing with 15 tabs open on average, some you one youtube video spikes slightly 2480 RPM and 63°C.

Chambion wrote:

I am having identical issues with my 16" Macbook Pro. It tends to overheat on its own, but really overheats in the 160-180 degree range when connected to an external display, even with CPU usage <10%. Its resting temperature while connected is 130-150 degrees. When disconnected from the display it remains over 100 degrees which is still out of range.

Why do you consider that overheating? Intel for one doesn't.