MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise

What it’s doing doesn’t matter, there is more involved than that.

A comparison I’ve made before is a pickup truck with a V10 is going to use more fuel and generate more heat driving 25 MPH to the store than a 4 cylinder engine will. It doesn’t matter that it’s not taxing the V10 at all.

So 200 pages later, you still trying to convince everyone that this is imaginary problem? Funny that you found a new post that you can copy paste to everyone... just one question - AMD states that this happens with multiple monitors running different resolutions... why does it happen with a single external 1920x1200 monitor (regardless of the connection interface)?:) Also a question you avoided answering 50 pages back, but lets try this again - why running a single 2560x1080 @ 60hz results in 20w and running SAME ONE MONITOR in 160hz results in 5w? Will you avoid answering this question again because it doesn't align well with your story?

It is not correct and needs some change from AMD side and also on Apple side. AMD will not risk flicker if analyzing the power consumption and adjust accordingly.

However, Apple can also enable the choice of using the Intel Graphic Chip for external Monitors which would allow silent operation.

I know the mechanism of maintenance vs new developments. This case is not a case to avoid. It can not only come to a legal case if due to hot temperatures the expected lifecycle of components will going to be reduced. It will also become a reputation risk (for the complete MacBook series) if the flagship has the weakness of too much heating. Nobody will complain when the power is used (Final Cut for example) and the fans sound like a 747. If the fans are noisy while idle this let consumers loose trust.

Modern engines can deactivate cylinders if not used and reduce power-consumption.

With all the notebooks from Apple before it was not such a severe issue. I had many of them. It can be tackled and resolved.

Stop coming up with random thoughts as to what Steve would or would not have allowed.

He approved both the G4 Cube and PowerMac G5, the latter of which you may remember even needed to be liquid cooled.

itunestux wrote:

With all the notebooks from Apple before it was not such a severe issue. I had many of them. It can be tackled and resolved.

It's easy, just reduce graphics performance until the MBP is no longer competitive in the marketplace.

No other MBP had this much graphics performance, a level which the market now requires to be competitive.

MBPs won't sell and Apple will lose money, but hey, they'll be quiet.

To be honest, this is likely one of the biggest factors in the shift to Apple silicon.

There is no need to reduce the performance but just to give the user the choice which GPU to use. Built in or strong from AMD. Will be the same with Apple silicon.

I agree there is a marketing driven GPU performance competition. But nobody would disagree to offer the choice to use the built in Intel instead of the GPU also to increase battery power (another factor of marketing).

That depends on whether the performance of the internal GPU driving an external monitor was acceptable to Apple.

Yes, they've done it in the past, so there's a reason they haven't restored the capability.

William Kucharski wrote:

denizcan wrote:

It's the same mistake Apple made in the past: lack of testing.. Do you remember a few years ago it was possible to login to system with root username with empty password? The same is happenning here..

Why do you think anything was due to "lack of testing?"

You can go through the specs all day and will find none for fan noise.

Further, I mentioned previously that Windows 10 laptops fire the fans up just as much if not more performing tasks like bringing up the Settings menu.

Were Apple to just set the fans permanently to maximum speed at boot from now on; it still wouldn't violate the published specs, and that's what testing reveals - failure to meet the specs.

I'm more shocked that people think a system with this powerful a GPU should be silent.

I am shocked you do not get why it is not related to powerful GPU but to driver.. Really, how do you explain 5W consumption at 144Hz, 20W at 60Hz? Wrt you, driving 144Hz would require less power?

I am also shocked you still defend with specs.. In 2020 a system is expected to run silent, no body cares it is written in specs or not..

You should check your Windows install.. Our devices do not ramp up the fan unless you do something.. If you install chrome, it is doing some nasty stuff like scanning applications etc.. You will find some background process is doing something.. If you disable it, your latest PC laptop with our without external monitor would be nearly or as silent as a MB without external monitor.. Sometimes more silent than MBP 16..

As I said in the earlier notes, I can spot MB16 in the office my eyes closed when people are out of lunch.. It is the mosty noisy device in the room, even more noisy than a recent desktop tower.. I am writing this from Turkey.. We do not have large budged to buy latest/gratest stuff.. Most of the laptops are mid range devices..

Why do you think anything was due to "lack of testing?"

Because in 10 mins of testing with external monitor reveals the problem.. It's that beyond dispute. An ordinary tester would report it..

There are many bugs in MacOS that's apperant and lurking around for years.. For instance, try hiding the menu, and resize the window to the top of the display.. You will find sometimes it will drop the top of the window when you access the window. Sometimes it will not allow you to resize the window to occupy all the vertical space.. You should close and reopen the application to restore the correct behaviour.. I can list a lot of this kind of bugs..

I really do not get how this can happen.. They design the hardware, write the software.. I begin respecting Microsoft BTW. They do not know on which hardware their software will work and has lesser problems day by day..

denizcan wrote:

Because in 10 mins of testing with external monitor reveals the problem.. It's that beyond dispute. An ordinary tester would report it.

Even if reported… is it a problem?

Bugs are, by definition, when something doesn't operate as intended or designed to.

If this aspect of operation was indeed how things needed to operate for the performance levels intended, it would have been closed as "not a bug."

For instance, try hiding the menu, and resize the window to the top of the display.. You will find sometimes it will drop the top of the window when you access the window. Sometimes it will not allow you to resize the window to occupy all the vertical space.. You should close and reopen the application to restore the correct behaviour.. I can list a lot of this kind of bugs.

Have you reported them to Apple?

Don't just assume; no one else may do the same operations in the precise order you do and therefore they may be unaware of the issue.

For example, I just got confirmation of a firmware bug I reported to a vendor whose firmware has been installed on their device since early 2019. Literally no one had ever tripped over it before in a reproducible manner.

I am not sure why there are members that just use a single metric to evaluate this problem (i.e. performance and heat dissipation). As far as I am aware, a Macbook Pro is a PERSONAL COMPUTER, so the personal aspect matters. Apple invests millions on designing something that is high performance but also pleasing to the user, in many ways, its looks, its materials, its peripheral feelings, etc. So Why is this a problem that should be settled with a simple... "this computer does what it says it does, it computes a lot of stuff, and gets warm and dissipates heat well"... while now acknowledging that part of that heat dissipation is clearly affecting the way the user interacts with the machine. I find quite shortsighted to use a pure engineering approach and disregard the human factors from this conversation. If a lot of people say that they have issues with the usability of this machine, then this is an issue that must be attended. I would highly appreciate that the members that are obsessed with the engineering-only solution, stop being so unreasonable, and stop bullying others that mention their honest and fair usability issues, and try to understand better the failed human factors and design aspects of this machine.

If you want to take that approach, I could say that you're ignoring the "Pro" part of the name, where people use these computers not just for personal reasons but to get a lot of work done each and every day.

Much of that work involves heavy lifting from the GPU, such as editing video, producing animation or other tasks.

No one is "bullying" anyone here except perhaps adding perspective to posts that wonder aloud how Apple could release such as useless machine, where "useless" is because the fans spin up.

A high end sports car doesn't fail its human factors usability mission because the ride is so rough you never want to get into it anywhere but a racetrack.

"A high end sports car doesn't fail its human factors usability mission because the ride is so rough you never want to get into it anywhere but a racetrack."

Well said - it certainly doesn't rev its engine by itself to 3000+ rpms while stationary...

This whole car analogy has been brought up over and over again and has constanty been demolished over and over again.

The MacBook Pro 16 is not a luxury car, or a sports car, or even a car, it's a tractor with straight pipes being sold as a car.