MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise

Thanks for this info: apart from the OTT fans, (which cannot by any measure be called normal for a laptop despite what some have claimed ) I also noticed some odd screen behaviours you described

I have returned the second one and although I much prefer a larger screen I can probably manage without so thanks to your report will go with a 13” instead.

All the same it’s disappointing

My experience is as many others on this thread.

I have a MBP 16 8-core i9 with 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD and the AMD Radeon 5500 4GB graphics card. Up to date MacOS. My daily usage is Microsoft Office for Mac (Word, Powerpoint etc), Microsoft Teams, Outlook for Mac, Chrome with multiple tabs open, Safari, Monday, Mail, Apple Music. No video editing. No coding. No graphics editing.

I initially used it without an external monitor - delightful. Low heat and fan noise unnoticeable. Then decided I needed an external monitor. Bought a new Philips 346B1 ultra wide 34 inch monitor connected via USB-C. Lid open on the MacBook Pro as I use the keyboard, Touch Bar and speakers. Since then the experience has been unacceptable. Heat is noticeably high, hot to the touch and regularly over 75 degrees C. Fan noise heads to around 5,600 on both sides. via iStats I see that the Radeon GPU is consuming almost 20W vs less than 5W when not connected to a monitor. On Microsoft Teams video conference calls this is very noticeable to colleagues on the other end of the call. And it's very noticeable and annoying to me.

I have AppleCare+ so called Apple Support. Reset SMC, Reset NV-RAM. Reinstalled Catalina. No difference.

Apple support escalated to engineering. They called me back this week and told me that engineering had advised them that this was "expected behaviour". Well I'm sorry but I do not accept this at all. It can not be acceptable for a laptop marketed as being able to support two 6K displays to ramp up the heat and fan noise to these levels with a single monitor connected.

I now need to take it to an Apple Store for the Genius Bar to take a look. But I have no intention of accepting this "expected behaviour" nonsense. Right now, I'd like to exchange it for a 13 inch or, if the 16 inch with 5600 GPU is proven to be OK, perhaps that. I will continue to escalate until this is either fixed or I get an exchange. As someone with Apple products all over the house and with all of the family using them too, I am normally firmly on their "side" in general, but this experience with the MBP 16 is just not acceptable.

Every computer, including desktops, will slow processors to manage heat; that in fact is Intel's design philosophy.

You say the 13" outperforms the 16; do you have proof it throttles less than the 16 when "driving two 6K displays?"

Digital Finger wrote:

Thanks for this info: apart from the OTT fans, (which cannot by any measure be called normal for a laptop despite what some have claimed )

You have not been around enough laptops; there are many PC laptops that exhibit similar behavior, as did the MacBook line (not Pro) when driving an external monitor.

Running Photoshop on a MacBook connected to a 24" monitor would generally result in it reaching actual thermal shutdown (complete with warning message) within about twenty minutes.

William Kucharski wrote:

You can say the fans were “about to start screaming” but the temperatures and fan speeds were all completely stable.

Yeah, stable at 60-65°C and 3000RPM when idling. If you bother to appease demands from others, at least do it properly. Use the external display for 30 minutes, then take a screenshot.

What I see in your 5min screenshot is just like everyone else, your dGPU consumes 19W+ with a single monitor attached. NO ONE is reporting 1900RPM fan speed when their dGPU is consuming 19W+.

You obviously took the screenshot just before the fans were about to ramp up.

William Kucharski wrote:

This portion of the discussion has gone way off topic, but if Apple released updates daily i and most others would simply shut off automatic updates.

You should shut off automatic updates anyway.. I had many problems in the past with auto. That's why I wait a few days to check if an update to the update is released..

Not as much as off topic as "it's heating because of high performance".. As I said before, there is no middle ground in your discussions.. I do not say Apple should deliver daily updates.. However, 30 days without update is a little scary.. MacOS is not that "secure/stable".. From that idea, I conclude that this heating issue will not be solved..

I am absolutely sure the problem is software related as Windows runs happily.. Windows is forced to use dGPU and connecting an external display or not does not cause raise in the power consumption.. (I translate for you: running cold)..

Will see..

I think you overstate the security risks inherent in macOS, but that's your opinion; really security updates aren't needed much more than monthly, especially when compared with Windows.

Apple has been wonderful in the past with patching zero-day issues, and the rest really aren't that big a deal.

Once again, you don't like my results, so you disregard them.

People have said time and time again that as soon as you plug in the monitor, or after five or ten minutes, you have fans blowing at 5500 RPM; I did not.

If you look at what I posted, it had been running for over 15 minutes running full screen audio and fans were under 2000 RPM.

Look at my iStats Menu screen shot.

Not idling, running full-screen HD video, I've said that each and every time now.

My GPU was consuming 19w. It also was stable and remaining cool with the fans under 2000 RPM.

Your conspiracy theories are tiring.

Dear William,

i dont know what kind of Software and drivers you are using. Do you have the problem that the fans go wild when you only start ProTools or Logic or Finalcut with a small project ?

or even when running Zoom or YouTube ?

and I mean, running only internal, not with an external screen.

sorry for bad english

Mathias

No, I don't.

From everything presented here, it seems to be an issue with using certain interfaces to drive certain monitors, but not when using others.

The results above were playing YouTube videos at 1080p for 30 minutes using Safari in full screen mode on the Dell while using Safari to read Apple Support Discussions on the laptop screen, then closing that window and taking the iStat Menus screen shot.

Vanilla macOS 10.15.5, no special extensions or drivers.

Recently bought 16" MBP, fan runs constantly and machine gets really hot when connected to external display, despite not very high cpu usage. Problem disappears when not connected to external monitor.

Is this fixable and will they fix it? If not, machine goes back.

thx.

mzee62 wrote:

Recently bought 16" MBP, fan runs constantly and machine gets really hot when connected to external display, despite not very high cpu usage. Problem disappears when not connected to external monitor.

Is this fixable and will they fix it? If not, machine goes back.

thx.

If you don't feel like reading this entire thread, at present the consensus is it might be fixable, but if it annoys you, return your machine as it may or may not be fixed anytime soon.

Thank you

hmmm

sometimes I think it may has something to do with German OS and/or Audio drivers and USB Dongles and Permanent Copy Protections like ilok, Waves, etc

i also wonder why Zoom and FaceTime is making Noise

Hi William,

It's great to see some data from you. This really suggests there are some extraordinary variations between identical models. I have exactly the same spec as you and my power levels are pretty much exactly the same as yours. I've been running about 8% CPU load for the last 30 minutes, but my fans are at about 3200 RPM. If I do some YouTubing, as you describe, they're at around 4500 RPM.

Not only that, your CPU temps are higher than mine (you're at around 65°C, mine are around 61°C). Similarly for the GPU (yours is around 63°C, mind around 59°C). So for some reason, your machine is able to operate at lower fan speeds in the presence of higher internal temperatures than mine.

I also think your data suggests there is not much point exploring differences in display configuration. What matters is the power levels (however they happen to be reached) and the ability of the MBP16 to get rid of the heat. There seems to be a significant difference in the ability of your machine to get rid of the heat compared to mine.

Software fixes to get the power levels of the GPU down would be nice (and would help a whole lot), but I think your data points to a more fundamental problem. There is something physically inhibiting some MBP16s from getting rid of the heat effectively.

I just found that when the computer has a second screen, the fan will increase to 3000+ rpm, which makes it very noisey. otherwise it is very quite. I will change the HDMI cable to see if it is the cable's problem.

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