MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise

The rated TGP for the AMD Radeon Pro 5500M is 50w, so I'd be surprised if it was drawing 55, though I suspect it can draw that on a peak basis.

Regardless, rendering is an incredibly compute-intensive process, so the machine will draw a lot of power and will heat while doing so.

I agree with the termal design. The lifespan is not reduced but you do not get the full performance over the time as many tests showed. I cannot agree on the noise. 2400 RPM is very well to hear in a silent environment. And the fans of the GPU can very well go over 2400 RPM as well as in particular the subject and the many, many users are suffering from.

I get the feeling that saying it is not an issue is rather downplaying the problem than helping. If you‘d like to help then open another ticket with apple to help apple to understand the defect they (or their subcontractors) have made and to correct this mistake.

So the whole point of these threads are just the noise of the fans? I mean even I had developed in my mind that the hardware/software is faulty when it is consuming so much power with an external monitor. But if it is not effecting the performance or the life span, is noise the only concern? At 2400rpm the machine is quiet.

No idea of your room temperature, but my fans are usually at around 3k RPM, with 60 degrees on the CPU at idle no workload when screens are connected.

This is open or closed. No other laptop in existence does this (desktops either), it's a flaw in design, either hardware or software.

This is happening as well to me…

Just bought a new MacBook Pro 16'' from 2019 with Radeon 5500M 4 GB.

As soon as it get connected to an external monitor the graphic card just go crazy and start using 18W.

This cause an huge overheating and battery draining super fast. Not able to use the laptop more than 1h if connected to the external monitor, without any other app open and with CPU and RAM at almost 0%. In case the laptop is at 100% and with charger attached, the battery is anyway drained to 95/96%. Unbeliveble!

I tried different monitors (HD, Full-HD, 4k), different HDMI cables and different adaptors. Nothing change.

The issue is there, is quite evident and it's happening to a lot of customers.

I'm honestly quite upset of seeing thousands of people reporting this issue (as well on the AMD support forum) and Apple giving no answers about it. In addition, speaking at the phone with their support center, they were absolutely unable to give me a reply or a solution aside from "ah yeah, the model could have an issue. Return it and you will be refunded."

Is not about fan noise. Is about poor overheating and ridiculous battery life just to connect the laptop to an external monitor.

I'm an Apple customer since 10 years and I never experienced such a poor designed product.

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You have four possibilities

a) get used to the noise and accept be less productive and annoyed everyday

b) work with less efficiency and only the notebook monitor

c) buy a real eGPU (I did that for another 1'000 US$ with less noise)

d) buy a cheap external USB to HDMI graphic adapter (I did that as well and invested into two HDMI to DisplayPort Adapter)

It is super disappointing that I cannot use the internal AMD GPU nor have the Intel GPU running separate. Even smaller resolution would lead to no noise (e.g. 1600x1200 has only 4 watt consumption but 1920x1200 has 18 watt - same monitor)...

The fifth I cannot recommend: Buy a fanless Minix computer and work with e.g. citrix (incl. videocall-sessions), do surfing etc. with three monitors attached completely without any noise. But it is not a Mac.

Remember, if you go with an eGPU, the graphics card can use all 16 PCI lanes, but Thunderbolt can only utilize four lanes, so you’re not going to get the same performance as you would by running that graphics card in the PCIe slot of a desktop.

And I think I read somewhere that Apple Silicon Macs won’t support the eGPU.

Luca, I know you can read the entire thread if you want but there are actually people who use it with multiple 4k screens and does not have any problems. I for one, am one of those. I connect through a CalDigit TS3+ and it only draws 7 watts to drive both screens. I take my computer into work and plug in one cord and everything works great. I do believe there are many with problems, but many more love this machine.

@brycesteiner - thanks for your post, that gives me some hope, particularly as I was thinking about buying a TS3+ anyway. Would you mind confirming the spec of your machine? (Mine is i9/5500M).

Thanks!

Well man… happy for you. But I really do not get your point.

It's not me but thousands of people complaining about this problem. Buying another piece of hardware is not the solution after spending almost $4k for a laptop. It's simply crazy that a computer of that level can not be simply connected to an external monitor.

In this moment, only for writing this comment, with no other app open, the computer battery is drained from 100% to 70%… with the charger connected!?!

Perhaps many love this machine but that not a good reason at all for Apple ignoring thousands of people with a serious issue on a new $4k machine.

I need a stable machine to work and even if I use Apple since more than 10 years, I will need to buy a Lenovo (for less money).

Not happy at all with this solution, but at least I know it will work.

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I have the MBP 16Inch too, same problem as all the others:

Gets hot even with NO apps running (except Adobe CC Manager what is up when started).

I have one external Monitor with Displayport Adapter.

A Wacom QHD27 touch.

When monitor is attached, fan is very noisy, MBP is getting hot.

When I detach the monitor, fan is slowing down within a minute and everything is fine.

I think it's time for apple to provide a patch or setup a replacement program or a refund.

It is very annoying how apple products getting worse.

This is maybe my last apple, because I get the same problems elsewhere, but for 1rd of the money.

Fix the problem or replace the hardware - now. Time is over

Just bought 16". Fan is running all the time, so noisy, can't work, so disappointed. Didn't expect this to happen on $2k+ machine. I still have 2016 touchbar 15" which is most of the time quiet. I guess I'll have to fix its battery and keyboard and sell 16"

If you just bought it from Apple or many other retailers, you can return it for a full refund within 14 days of purchase.

Your older and much less powerful machine didn't generate as much heat, so there was less of a need for fan cooling, so you have to decide whether fan noise or the power of the machine is more important to you.

Thank you for stating.

Only the conclusion on the power is slightly too fast: the difference of power is not the reason for the noise but the defective driver in the new machine. The old machine would produce same level of noise if the wrong amount of watt would come to the old machine.

MBP with 5500 has a heat issue with external monitors. For surfing you may use: https://www.club-3d.com/en/detail/2412/

However, not happy not being able to use the MacBook capabilities. This was possible.