MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise

William, is not true that you have to choose between performances and a normally working machine.

I have a 2019 MacBook Pro 15.6” with i9 at 2,4ghz 32GB of RAM and 1tb SSD with a good graphic card and this works perfectly. Same price as the obviously broken 16’’ model.

Or you can search for whatever other brand such Lenovo to have even more performant machine without overheating or fan noise.

Please, stop saying that problems are performances. Problem is clearly a poor design and a known issue they are trying to ignore because will cost them too much money.

I would bring back for full refund as it is defect (and will not fixed). In one of the earlier posts the model with the 5600 did not produce the heat in certain cases (and allthough more powerfull). I would try that out - if the 5600 has also the defect I recommend to bring back as well take the money back and try the MB Air.

Exactly the same issue on my MacBook Pro 16" with Radeon 5300M.

Also, I have MacBook Pro 13" 2015 with no such problem. I used to connect 2 external monitors at the same time + internal screen = 3 screen with no problem. Now I can't use all my monitors without driving me crazy because of the noise.

I tried 2 usb-c -> HDMI adapters and 1 usb-c -> display port adapter. They are the same.

Does this affect the 5600M GPU too?

I am about to upgrade my 2014 15" MBP to a 2019/20 16" MBP and will be hooking it to an XDR Display as well as either a 27" Thunderbolt or 30" Cinema. Some people have said this bug does not happen with 2 external displays, but that does not make sense.

I don't want to deal with the heat and noise this seems to have problems with. One other option seems to be running it in clamshell mode which would be ok but not ideal.

My alternative is to buy a loaded iMac and hook it to the XDR then buy a 13" MBP for when I need portability but then I have to deal with transferring data before/after each trip.

Thoughts?

Grant, I agree with you that Intel promised a smaller and less power-hungry chip and Apple was probably counting on that, but I think it also a problem with this specific AMD GPU, I had the previous generation MacBook Pro 15-inch with the same i9 processor and the Vega 20 that is almost as powerful as this one and I never had this problem and it had the same exact i9 2.4GHz 8-Core processor, so I think it's a bad combination of intel CPU and AMD GPU.

But I also think that if AMD put some time and effort on this issue, they can release a software update to address this issue (or partially address this issue), but it looks like they don't care about this issue at all. The don't update the drivers for this specific GPU since November last year when it was released. They release updates for the other GPUs (for windows) almost every month.

I also think Apple can partially fix this issue, I'm still using 10.15.4 because they did something on this version that works so much better that any other version (I tried them all, even the ones that we can't mention here).

I mentioned this before, but just as an example on 10.15.4 when watching the Avengers video on Apple website (on the MacBook Pro section) the GPU uses 21 watts but when using 10.15.6 it uses 29.9 watts.

Sometimes I use an app to monitor the stock market and it uses 13 watts on 10.15.4 and 21.7 watts on 10.15.6.

I run the tests on the same machine, the only difference is a different version of macOS.

I'm not sure why people think that companies should release driver updates monthly or on some schedule - really they are only needed if there is a bug that needs to be fixed.

I realize that many believe this issue to be a bug on AMD's part, but AMD has also stated in other forums that they aren't willing to reduce VRAM speed as it could result in flicker. You can accept that or not, but ultimately it's their GPU and they know what kind of experience they want to provide.

If they feel they got the driver right, there is no need for them to release an update.

Power usage isn't as simple a calculation as "look how much more power this version of the OS uses" as you would need to take into account what background tasks, if any are also being used and whether tweaks have been done to improve performance for certain functions at the cost of higher power usage.

I drop by here now and then to see if there has been any new development that would help me with this constantly hot MBP 16 ; I can see the only new is more people complaining about their MacBook Pro 16 requiring too much power when connected to an external monitor.

If I knew now what I knew in November of last year when I purchased mine, I would most definitely not have purchased it.

At this point, I can only hope for Apple to find a fix, or someone to put enough pressure on Apple to pay us or replace our machines with something that isn't defective.

dcristof wrote:

At this point, I can only hope for Apple to find a fix, or someone to put enough pressure on Apple to pay us or replace our machines with something that isn't defective.

A product is not defective because it doesn't operate in a manner you don't like.

Apple could disable software control altogether and just have the fans fire up at high speed from boot, and that wouldn't make the MBP 16 defective in any way.

If you want to warn people it runs hot, or fires up the fans in a way you find unacceptable, that's fine, but it's not a defect per se.

This computer is the "Muscle-car" of notebook computers, with more compute power and more graphics power in one small package than ever seen before in a MacBook Pro. In every configuration, it can drive its own 3072 by 1920 display and up to TWO Apple 6K displays at 60 Hz.

When you push it hard, it does what you ask it to do, but it may not stay silent while doing so. That is not as convenient as you might like, but that is NOT defective.

It does not overheat in "idle," though it may use more power.

Once again, comparing to older computers is pointless with their slower processors and less-capable GPUs.

To use the "muscle car" analogy, if you put a car that has a 8L V10 next to a car with a 1.2L 4 cylinder engine, and start them and let them idle, the V10 is going to generate a lot more heat and noise and waste a lot of gas as compared to the four cylinder car because of the capability it has of going faster at full tilt.

I agree. But our "muscle car" has a low-power integrated GPU. Why can't I use it with an external display? I don't want to run "8L V10" for most cases where "1.2L 4 cylinder engine" is enough. Especially in IDLE.

Almost right. The VRAM speed is not required to significantly change if you're moving from 1600x1200 to 1920x1200. But the consumption does. Which shows wrong calculations. And comparison with other notebooks shows that this works. However, there are also worse models. But never for the price of a MacBook Pro.

I'd see it as well as a defect. The thermal management of the macbook was redesigned and obviously produces more noise - but only which monitors attached and unfortunately in resolutions most user need. This was a mistake - the mistake can be called a defect and be fixed.

I had macbooks for such a long time - but only the newest model has this defect.

If it's a defect, which specification is it failing to meet?

It literally doesn't matter what an old MacBook did or didn't do - they're like Smart cars in a Ferrari world.

The thermal management was redesigned, which is why in most cases the MBP 16 can handle the extra heat properly - the fans spin up but the computer does not shut down or otherwise go into thermal runaway.

As far as timing goes, I've posted this quote from AMD before:

Multiple displays with different resolutions, refresh rates, timings and or using different display adapters/connections requires more resources from the GPU, this can move the GPU up into the next memory clock state to compensate and avoid issues such as flickering or corruption.

If all displays are identical, using the same resolution, refresh rates, timings and using identical display adapters/connections then the GPU may be able to run two or more without moving up into the next clock state. It can vary from Bios to Bios and GPU to GPU, but the expected behaviour is increased clock speeds so this is not something we can change.

https://community.amd.com/thread/214891?commentID=2793350

Lucapipolo,

Thanks for the insight ...

Ive been waiting for a fix for the 16” for 10 months ,it’s very loud under very light workloads regardless of whether or not it’s hooked up to an external monitor and very hot to the touch ( fans ramp up to 4,500 rpm while running light loads / Logic Pro X ).... like most people disabling turbo/While in clamshell mode is the only work around especially while running an external monitor.

Having to run it in clamshell mode just to run quieter takes away the luxury of having more screen real estate to work with ( big disappointment)

is the 2019 mbp 15.6” i9 2.4 Noticeably quieter ? While attached to an external monitor while keeping mbp 15.6” display open?

I wouldn’t mind downgrading my 16” 2.4

8 core19 32 gB 5500m 8gb for the smaller 2019 15.6” i9 If it allows me to ‘not ‘ have to run it in clamshell mode while hooked up to an external monitor.

so tired of all these work arounds and third party Software it’s been a very bad experience.

TIA