MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise

In my opinion (I have no Insider information) Apple has made all the Engineering changes they are going to make.

Their response to noise complaints appears to be summarized in this article dated 30 Jan 2020:

About fans and fan noise in your Apple product - Apple Support

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iTech23--

You'll get no argument from me. I have tried to be constructive and re-suggest any work-arounds users have discovered throughout this mess.

But if Apple has not made changes by now, I don't think any are forthcoming.

DavidLaredo wrote:

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.

There are no defects here, just a product running differently than you expected it to, for whatever reasons.

Are you telling me that getting my computer’s battery drained in less than 3 hours along with running super hot and noisy while doing absolutely nothing except being connected to a 1080p external display is not a defect?

Same here....

brought back the Mac to my dealer and got a another one. Waited for a week but the problem was the same

it took me days to get it running again with installing all my Software and Plugins.

Talked to Apple Hotline but they say it’s not a fault and after that they stopped answering mails :-(

DavidLaredo wrote:

Are you telling me that getting my computer’s battery drained in less than 3 hours along with running super hot and noisy while doing absolutely nothing except being connected to a 1080p external display is not a defect?

Your MacBook Pro is not intended to run a modern external display on battery power (except maybe an iPad in Sidecar). Anything that happens, including draining the battery in only three hours, is not a defect.

Conventional wisdom when designing display systems was that Memory speed had to be fast enough to keep up MOST of the time, but could occasionally "miss", as long as it was only occasionally. Threshold of visual perception was closer to 1/6 second than 1/60th second.

You could always allow an occasional under-run (when data was not actually sent to the display when it was supposed to be) because the blank scan-line would only be there for 1/60th second, and would not occur in exactly the same scan-line next refresh period.

Then we started to use these systems quite literally for producing Hollywood Movies. Then it had to be perfect.

If I had my best fantasy, it would be to ask Apple to give Users a setting that allowed "good enough" display quality for daily use (with some under-runs allowed) in exchange for lower power requirements and less heat generated.

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

Conventional wisdom when designing display systems was that Memory speed had to be fast enough to keep up MOST of the time, but could occasionally "miss", as long as it was only occasionally. Threshold of visual perception was closer to 1/6 second than 1/60th second.

You could always allow an occasional under-run (when data was not actually sent to the display when it was supposed to be) because the blank scan-line would only be there for 1/60th second, and would not occur in exactly the same scan-line next refresh period.

Then we started to use these systems quite literally for producing Hollywood Movies. Then it had to be perfect.

If I had my best fantasy, it would be to ask Apple to give Users a setting that allowed "good enough" display quality for daily use (with some under-runs allowed) in exchange for lower power requirements and less heat generated.

What are you talking about? Is it a hard job for this machine to put a few million pixels on a cable? A $30 Raspberry Pi can do it without a sweat..

My old 13” MacBook Pro Retina early 2015 did it and without being as noisy and hot as this one. And I’ve tried windows laptops that do it as well. Pushing millions of pixels to an external display is no hard task, as somebody else mentioned even a raspberry pi can do it.

Why you guys keep defending a product that is clearly defective or has engineering flaws? And I’m no amateur I’m a software engineer who knows pretty well how all the internals of the computers are supposed to work. The behavior of this computer is just unacceptable.

My main concern is that given the amount of stress the computer is put to, to just display something in an external display will shorten the lifespan of the MacBook, and then after 2 or 3 years I’ll have to spend another 2K+ USD to get the new one with “better thermals” just as what they just recently did with the so called “magic keyboard” which is not even a new feature, they just “fixed” what they broke with the flawed “butterfly keyboard”

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

The subtle distinction, and the reason this machine works "better" with Windows, is that they are not demanding perfection, i.e., no missed scan-lines.

No dude, there is no missed scan lines.. Please stop defending this crippled machine in stupid ways.. I've been using Windows and MacOS daily, just because some of my software requires GPU and some work in MacOS. I prefer carrying single machine.. I design embedded systems and driving a Full HD and even 4K does not require high bandwidth of RAM.. iGPU does it with shared memory!

What Windows drivers are doing is just turning down the parts that are not used.. It looks like AMD does not care MacOS as much as it cares Windows.. BTW, bootcamp drivers are old, and also full of bugs.. If I use GPU, it consumes as much as MacOS consumes..

This machine has totally wrong design.. I'll sell this machine as soon as my MacOS need is over, and buy 1/3th priced cheap Lenovo laptop.. With Ryzen, cheap laptops are not bad.. I can use them as "disposable" devices..

You can, but the Discussions software has a bug that makes it more difficult than it should be.

Here's the process:

1) At the top of the page, you will see a black box with a check mark that reads "Following."

2) Click it and you will see it change to a white box reading "Follow."

Here is the important part:

3) Press ⌘R to reload the page, or click the ⟳ icon to reload the web page

4) If the box remains white, you are unsubscribed; if it turns black again, go to step 2.

Note it can take several attempts before this may work (and by several, I mean sixty or more, but it will eventually work.)

By what definition do you define "normal?"

If it's what the device does, and it doesn't conflict with what the specs say the device will do, why is it not normal?

A violation of your expectations? Sure.

A violation of the published specifications? In no way.

Once again you are calling a machine defective for not meeting your particular expectations of what it should and shouldn't do despite it never being promised anywhere in any Apple specification or ad that it can do what you want it to.

"Imposter?" That doesn't even make sense.

Also I Would like to add that if apple launches a model capable of driving two 4K ext displays or one 5k or even 6k display then my expectation is that it will Still have a lot of headroom to also run apps on that Setup. If the fans Already go up upon connecting the ext displays, that performance is less than is to be expected normally.

Since you believe the machine can't drive the displays the specs say it can, why don't you try it and if it fails, you can prove Apple is lying in their ads.

Personally I don't care what temperature it reaches, as long as it doesn't reach thermal shutdown. That means the machine's thermal management is working properly.

I don't care about CPU temps either, for the same reasons.

For example, if the fans were at full blast whether it's driving one or four monitors, it's no big deal. You don't know whether there is headroom or not, so why speculate?

As far as Rossman goes, being anti-Apple and criticizing their engineering is his thing, it's how he draws viewers and makes money.

If it was so easy for Apple to do what he suggests and it would be so wonderful, he wouldn't have a business.