MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise

So over in mac rumors we've gone into the hbm2 and ddr6x power usage, what it seems like is this is a hardware related problem according the the testing we've done.

Gddr6x isn't stepped as well for low power situations and it's very power hungry.

We measured a 3.8x power usage increase vs hbm2, along with the gpu itself having a very unforgiving power stepping most likely to allow system stability.

Currently the solution we have discovered is to pay the 800 dollar premium for the 5600m, apples engineers are said the fan noise is working as intended on the 5300/5500 along with the power usage, whole the 5600 works perfectly

It's crazy if Apple engineers really think this is ok, the laptop has so much performance built in but it stumbles on itself with the ridiculous cooling requirements due to a hardware design defect.

And this is ok with Apple?

ntompson wrote:

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 actually think the difference might be the display; I suspect fan speeds aren't purely decided by current temperatures but rather heuristics that predict future temperatures.

I suspect, but do not know, that the key is Mini DisplayPort in conjunction with the fact that all of the monitors I have available to test with are of lower resolution than the built-in screen.

William, can I just double check with you. Do the fans on your MBP 16 inch machine (you do have one don't you?) become loud and your computer becomes very hot to touch when simply attached to an external monitor? And if so, are you OK with that?

I've got the same problem with my 16" Macbook Pro. The fans get quiet only when I switch Turbo Boost off and disconnect my external monitor and don't open any apps.

Unfortunately, I'm past the 14 day return window. Just chatted to Apple support and they said they can't do anything about it.

I got a 16" with i9 and 5500m, and I can confirm that it quickly heats up and gets extremly noisy, so nothing new from my side. I'll send it back, but I wonder if the 16" i7 with the 5300m would handle temperatures good enough, and by good enough I mean basically silent when not under heavy load like 4k video encryption etc. I read a lot and know that is also has thermal problems, just not as bad.

A test case for me would be simple games like Disco Elysioum (Steam) or Sonic Racer (Apple Arcade). Both turn my i9 into a noisy turbine. (Fun fact: Sonic Racer works fine and nearly silent on my 2013 13" MPB with i5 Dual-Core...) So if anyone with an 16" i7 and a 5300m could try one of these games and let me know if they run without fan noise, that would help me a lot!

Tim, to your knowledge, is that also the case with the 16inch MBP with the 5600 Radeon graphics? I've read elsewhere that this version does not have the heat / fan noise problem but there is a significant premium price to pay for it of course.

My 16inch MBP with the 5500 Radeon graphics is regularly a noisy hairdryer with my average use connected to a monitor, so I'm in the process of escalating with Apple as I simply don't accept the "expected behaviour" line. I'm pondering moving to a 13 inch as per your experience, or the 16 inch with 5600.

you have no idea how many laptops I have been around, however I will say they have all been Mac

I have met with problem denial from Apple more than once , having to waste hours phoning and being fobbed off only to find later it has been accepted as a problem. So yes that is normal.

I know PCs are no better but that has never been the yardstick by which I measure whether anything thing Apple is a problem or not, or is normal or not.

my family has owned every mac ever made so I know what is and isn’t normal. Problems are normal, that doesn’t make a specific problem normal behaviour for a specific machine.

Of The two 16”s which I returned one was for one speaker being faulty the other was for behaviour mentioned in this thread which the first did not have.

I know what is normal.

For what it's worth my experience has largely been similar to yours, despite all the problems Apples customer support has kept me hanging around for more up to the point I might legitamitely pucker up the exorborant price they want for the 5600 HMB2 version (if I can find someone to offlad by current jet turbine to that is).

A known issue yes but it clearly affects different users in different ways, from theoretically annoying to not at all.

It's still the best and highest performance MBP I've ever owned and I have zero complaints in the way I use mine.

As you've standardised on the 13inch MBP as a result of your testing, did you select any specific configuration. I'm considering the top end model with the 10th gen i5 processor as a potential replacement for my 16 inch MBP hair dryer.