MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise

savita88 wrote:

After quite few months of using this "flagship" Macbook Pro 16'' i9 8 Core for $4000, reading all the other people's experiences, trying everything available to reduce the fan noise nuisance (resets, turbo boost off, fan controls etc.), I must say that this laptop is almost unusable. How can Apple think that a "professional" creative work can be made sitting at some "hair dryer" machine making a constant terrible noise at your head whenever a professional application is used (FCP, audio software etc.).

Unusable for you; perfectly usable for hundreds of thousands of others.

What kind of audio work is your friend doing such that his mic is picking up the MacBook Pro's fans and how? Are they actually using omnis rather than a cardoid which would be much less sensitive if the MBP is behind the mic?

For people I know using it for video editing, the fans are quieter than the HVAC system in their office or home.

I'm not saying the fans aren't annoying to some, but they hardly make the machine unusable.

For photographers I know, they often have music playing at levels that completely drown out any noise the MBP would even be capable of making.

You are in wrong profession dude.. You seem to answer the question but just create noise.. You should be a politician..

Well, not a problem for me as I wouldn't use my Mac with a 1080p display.

Then why do you bother to discuss? BTW: People DO USE Windows machines.. Mac's are 1 out of 10.. With other products catching up in design estatics, we will see less Mac's for sure.. If the Apple's mentality is like yours, then we are wasting time on discussing those problems..

If minimizing power consumption is your goal, that's fine.

..

hat's not a horrific statement; I doubt you would purchase a Ford F-350 pickup truck that gets 8 MPG when your goal was something as fuel efficient as possible.

You really write without understanding.. I would use F-350 if I need to, but I would not use it to commute between office and home.. If a device can idle at 5W instead of 20W, it SHOULD idle at 5W then.. What's wrong with that? That monstrous device uses nVidia Optimus, iGPU handles display output, if a high performance required it is passed to eGPU than the surface is moved into the iGPU's RAM..

Funny thing is if I use eGPU with 2019 MBP16, it consumes 100Wh battery at the same speed with that old machine's 56Wh battery.. So for me there is no difference in battery life.. Oh your response will be: Use other one than.. I DO.. I bought this shiny junk for iOS..

I like the sound of class A audio amplifiers that suck 1500w at idle, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, and I don't shut my audio gear off (nor any of my computers, actually.)

Good for you.. I whish you shared that earlier.. Because it would be impossible you to understand consuming responsibly.. Fortunately not everybody is like you, or at least most do not have resources to pay for it. That "I don't care" mentality reflects itself onto the coding as well.. I am 43 years old, and the computers are 1000, maybe 10000 times faster than the ones 30 years ago, but the software works at the same speed because of "I don't care"..

millions of people use their devices daily with absolutely zero issues whatsoever, whether it is from Bluetooth or any other part of the system

Try installing bootcamp, try using bluetooth headphones.. Especially Airpods Pro.. Then try using Magic Mouse.. When you open magic mouse you will hear garbage from earpods.. I have tested this MacBook Air's, MBP 13 2017, MBP 16.. Same problem..

About zero issues.. No dude, there are lots of issues related to dongles, software, T2 chip, reboots, loss of display etc.. Apple deletes the comments.. I've seen it with my eyes.. It took 3 years Apple to recognise keyboard was crap..

Can you imagine you could logon the system with credentals "root" with empty password..

Airpods Pro has a frequent problem: one side connects, other side does not connect.. You have to place to the case, wait, remove it back..

I use menu bar hidden, frequently window manager forgets that and resizes the window as menu was visible..

After 5 years, iPhone still have vulnerability with notifications, problem with BLE stack promising to wake up an App when it sees a device but forget it.. 5 years ago we discussed the problem with support for 3 months, then we found work arounds, we told the support, instead of filing a bug report about the system they threathen us with removing the app from the store..

I can go on listing the bugs, but neither you nor Apple will care.. The difference between Apple and Microsoft/Google is, they care problems and fix them.. Apple hides..

@Savit88 if you are in the market for a new laptop with similar performance (and superior GPU performance) I'd opt for the new Dell XPS 15"/17"s or if you're feeling brave a Mag-15 (or whatever they call it in your local region) which has a ripper of a graphics card and should still run quietly for work use.

The new Asus laptops with the Ryzen processors look really good as does the new Microsoft SurfaceBook 3 but I can't vouch for them on noise from my own experience.

All these laptops have significantly more powerful GPUs than the Radeon in the MacBooks and will generally run quieter under normal use like audio editing. You will compromise on sound output and microphone quality if that matters but if you're working in audio I doubt you rely on your laptops equipment.

From what I've seen the Dell XPS' NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Mobile is roughly comparable on benchmarks to the MacBook Pro 16's Radeon Pro 5500m, no idea about the 5300m.

The GPUs in the Mag-15 look to be slightly faster given that unit is designed specifically as a gaming laptop.

I agree completely that no one using a MBP for professional audio work would be using the built-in mic, or speakers, though the built-in speakers are actually not bad.

William Kucharski wrote:

Incorrect on microphones:

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/9d8a44b6-0a6d-4f6a-9f73-f1bee10f2c13

I would assume someone doing professional sound work would be using something like a Shure SM58 to provide a cardoid pattern pickup in association with a good preamp like a Focusrite Scarlett Solo, or even a USB Mic like the Blue Microphones Yeti which provides a cardoid pickup setting.

That's also a huge assumption for your part on the latter; good luck finding a computer that complies, as PC laptops have fans, too, as you will find out if your purchase one with a GPU as powerful as the Radeon Pro 5000m series in it.

Well, I can just smile on these arguments with this microphone etc. :) (just for your information, this is a cheap dynamic microphone for live performance, not for for any studio recording where condenser etc. microphones in completely different level are used ... I am a studio professional for the last 20 years, so I know a bit about these things and how they behave :)

For example Asus ZenDuo is so much more quiet than MBP. Unfortunately, after learning and using FCP a lot, I don't feel like learning a new video software any more ... and I also don't like Windows ... this is the reason I still use MBP, but it somehow disappoints me with every new release ...

True, the SM58 isn’t a studio mic, but every recording venue I know of that uses computers explicitly has their studios wired so the computer lives in the mixing room, not the studio where the mics are.

William Kucharski wrote:

True, the SM58 isn’t a studio mic, but every recording venue I know of that uses computers explicitly has their studios wired so the computer lives in the mixing room, not the studio where the mics are.

Yes, of course, the studio is not a problem, there the computers are placed outside of the studio room. I am talking about occasional field recordings etc. Also about making some music videos on MBP, home editing etc. Where the rude hair dryer is super annoying ...

That's quite strange as I do not experience that in FCP unless I am doing something very processor intensive like filtering multiple streams of 4K video.

I do occasionally hear the fan spin up but it's far from objectionable, it's just a light whirr.

I had an Acer Ferrari laptop at one point that sounded like this; now this was annoying. 😮

https://youtu.be/n9dlwebb04Y?t=357

Thank you for your advice but that is not an option for me, as I do market research and require a number of screens available simultaneously.

This has been a very frustrating experience for many of us, I check back in occasionally to see if any progress has been made, and I see the same advice is being dispensed by you William. You are consistent!

I have this issue as well. I purchased my (same model) MacBook Pro in late December 2019. Right now, fan is on, at varying speeds and volume, while load is low and cover is closed. I am using LG monitor.

Greg

People will argue that the machine is doing what it's supposed to and that the smoking hot video ram and the power of the machine is why it behaves differently than the previous MBP's and why you can't compare them to this new one.

Tim, as for your fan issue, someone presented a curious solution, they said every professional photographer they know plays very loud music, perhaps you can get some fan drowning specific playlists out to your clients.

Does anyone know if there has been another update after 10.15.5? I could have sworn there was a supplemental update yesterday that I installed. I wonder if that addressed any of these issues...

Also, it's not surprising that the machine behaves the same way with the XDR display.

gboser wrote:

I'm curious how you know what resolution most people run their external monitors at?

I am using 1440p, an 8 years old Asus PB278, connected through Apple's USB-C adapter..

I am satisfied with this monitor. It is old but can still compete with todays high end monitors. However, if MBP worked with 4K well, I could have replaced it with a new one, even with a UltraFine 5K..

BTW, the sad thing is that this Apple adapter does not work well with other devices, cheapo noname adapter works with all..

denizcan wrote:

For instance if you boot into MacOS and than Windows, Airpods Pro becomes unreachable to Windows.. You have to remove and add back the device..

This is normal, even though the bluetooth chip shares the same MAC address accross Windows and MacOS, a different link key is stored on the OS during pairing. You can either follow the steps of the last post in this thread or use this tool or this one.

I have the 16" base model and I'm experiencing overheating and fan noise issues when connecting the computer to an external display even after restarting the computer and with zero apps running. This is unacceptable.

I'd like to return it but im outside the returning time window. Besides the point is that apparently this is a generalized failure of the Mac rather than some isolated case. Paying more than 2400 USD for a computer with such defects and, furthermore, getting no fix or response from Apple even after 7 months and numerous reports its not just wrong but outrageous.