MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise

As I’ve mentioned there are multiple PC laptops that are louder fan-wise just using the internal screen.

Right now the best way to protect yourself from “fan noise” in an MBP 16 is to opt for the Radeon Pro 5600M GPU.

wealthandnecessity wrote:

I can see the 16" MBP is still an overheating nightmare product by Apple. Yikes.

Still no fix in sight. *sigh***

If your laptop is overheating, Apple will fix it. Take it to them and they will get you a new mobo or whatever has overheated. If you mean fans are coming on to cool the laptop, then I think your machine is probably not overheating.

So to be a little helpful. I'd love to share with you a fan profile that I found which could be helpful, because I'm working with it, and it's pretty convenient and makes the MacBook a lot more usable with external display !

I've got 2 external displays, one connected to a usb-c hub via HDMI, one connected to a usb-c to HDMI official adapter from Apple.

The problem with modifying fan profiles with TG PRO is if you lower too much the fans under a certain temperature, the internal Mac system will automatically "throttle" the CPU and the computer will become very noisy and unresponsive for a few minutes.

To overcome this problem, I used the fix "cpu throttling" from TG Pro (set to 90 % ) but this isn't the only thing to do, you need to make a custom fan profiles which's more progressive.

When writing this mail, I'm also loading a project with Logic Pro and my fans barely go to 3300 RPM which's pretty good to me.

All Fans to 35 % when Highest CPU is above 60°C 

All Fans to 45 % when Highest CPU is above 70°C 

All Fans to 50 % when Highest CPU is above 77°C

All Fans to 60 % when Highest CPU is above 80°C 

All Fans to 75 % when Highest CPU is above 85°C 

All Fans to 88 % when Highest CPU is above 90°C 

All Fans to 100 % when Highest CPU is above 95°C 

Check use Auto Boost instead of Auto Max (to activate custom fan profiles)

Check CPU Throttle fix : Temporarily increase fans when needed to keep the cpu speed limit at least 90% to avoid throttling.

My logic project has finished loading and I'm currently at 3036 RPM.

Clamshell mode.

To me, it's pretty convenient that way.

Hi All,

It's been long a coupled of months doing work off my 11 inch 4GB RAM MacBook Air 2011 with 3 Dell 25" monitors attached 2x via USB DisplayLink + 1 x HDMI (a lot more comfortable to work with than the new 16 inch one). Hopefully it was worth the wait and Apple is on the right path to restore my confidence in their products one day.

I just spoke to my Apple business rep about purchasing the new M1 chip MacBook Air or Pro (really happy that I got rid of the 16 inch hair dryer sitting on my desk after one month of use and decided not to invest further long-term in Intel + 5600M).

I've looked at specs and must say am a bit disappointed how little differences is between the new Air and Pro such as both have only two USB-C ports (not a very pro thing), same native and external screen resolutions, no difference really in cores if one upgrades Air to 512GB SSD plus other not very insignificant to me improvements to sound and battery. However, the big pros for me are the Air has NO TOUCH BAR and NO FANS!! Hence decided to get this one as a temporary machine before Apple release a new MBP 16 inch M? chip version. This time I will let others test before forking out so much money again in order to avoid the same mistake I did with the current Intel 5500M model.

Now, the business rep is now saying when I purchase through my business account apparently there's a different return policy and "change of mind" no longer works so beware. I'm still awaiting answers to when the policy changed and whether it's a result of their recent thermal design problems and subsequent wave of returns.

Keep safe and let's hope we won't have to participate in such long forums again in future with the new products.

David

I think what they mean is one monitor with a maximum resolution up to 6K or multiple that add up to to the same resolution but will test with my 3 Dell 2515H (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00P6O3YYO) monitors once my new Air arrives and will let you know. Still, the new Pro 13" model with more space inside but only two USB-C ports is a bit of a nonsense and pointless IMHO unless I'll find out when the Air is pushed enough to hit some kind of CPU throttling (if such thing exists in the M1 chip) because thermal limitations, normally handled by fans, kick in.

I'll be using with the new Air my ex. MBP16's Satechi Type-C Dual Multimedia Adapter Dual 4K HDMI, USB-C PD, Gigabit Ethernet, Micro/SD Card Readers, USB 3.0 - Compatible with 2020 MacBook Pro/Air and More (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07RH8L9GV). This adapter should allow to connect:

HDMI1: 1 x Dell 2515H monitors via HDMI 2K (4K capable at 60Hz).

HDMI2: 1 x Dell 2515H monitors via HDMI 2K (4K capable at 30Hz).

USB1 port: 1 x Dell 2514H monitor via Display Link driver

USB2 port: powered externally Kingston USB hub with 7 USB 3 ports to handle:

: K-USB1&2: two 2.5" HDDs

: K-USB3: mini pen drive for Time Machine frequent backups (Air's SSD capacity in case it dies)

: K-USB4: Apple keyboard with USBs

: mouse connected to keyboard's USB etc.

: K-USB5: FREE

: K-USB6: FREE

: K-USB7: FREE

So, I should pretty much be covered including built-in in Satechi PD, Ethernet and card readers = it'll be even more convenient and quicker to disconnect all devices with one duo plug instead of 4 ports individually. We'll see how it works in particular remembering external displays' settings such as rotations, frequencies, resolutions & positions which were lost every time I disconnected them from my previous MBP16" on Catalina whether devices were connected directly to USB-C ports or through two tested adapters (including Satachi) which can be a real pain for those mobile workers often taking their machine away from their desk setup.

davidsadowski wrote:

I think what they mean is one monitor with a maximum resolution up to 6K or multiple that add up to to the same resolution ...

That is NOT correct.

Each additional display requires a display-generator/rasterizer. The M1 chip has only ONE for external displays.

You can attach ONE any size up to 6K, But you can NOT attach more using accelerated display Hardware. There is no more accelerated display Hardware available.

davidsadowski wrote:

...

I've looked at specs and must say am a bit disappointed how little differences is between the new Air and Pro such as both have only two USB-C ports (not a very pro thing), same native and external screen resolutions, no difference really in cores if one upgrades Air to 512GB SSD plus other not very insignificant to me improvements to sound and battery.

...

We don't have units to test, but many have been complaining on this thread, Apple uses TWO methods to control temperatures:

The first is speeding up the fans, and in some cases this will move them from 'silent', through 'audible' and on to 'annoying' and beyond.

The second is by controlling clock speed and using software measures such as forcing it to stay in kernel_task, doing very little that generates additional heat.

Punchline:

My guess is that the difference in the M1 MacBook Air will be that it will use All the well-known software methods to slow down and generate less heat when it starts to get hot. So it will APPEAR as less capable, but only when stressed. Whether Geekbench and similar testing is sophisticated enough to notice the difference remains to be seen.

I'm experiencing the same issue with my 16" MBP. Radeon dGPU consuming 20W while idle and just running one external display is definitely something wrong with config, drivers etc.

I believe that it could be fixed by driver + Mac OS upgrade.

@romain89 - thanks a lot for that, have installed TG Pro and will give it a go. I've been extremely frustrated with my machine (i9, 5500M) as it was bought primarily for production using Logic Pro, and it's usually loud enough when running with external monitors to be useless for vocal recording within a few m! (not great for a small home studio like mine)

Maybe we should all just switch to a new fanless Macbook Air:

Apple Silicon M1 Chip in MacBook Air Outperforms High-End 16-Inch MacBook Pro

https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/11/m1-macbook-air-first-benchmark/

(of course, I am only half serious, as there is no real-life experience yet)

Just installed Big Sur 11.0.1 and wanted to report that my 16" MBP with the Radeon 5500M 4GB GPU still runs at 18-20w on the high side when plugged into my LG 5k Ultrafine 5k. Fans are running at about 4200 RPM and CPU is steady around 68* C. In other words, Big Sur brought no improvement fan noise to the heavy power usage of using an external monitor.

I took a screen shot of my system report page for graphics on the 5500M before and after upgrading to Big Sur and found the only change was the EFI Driver Version went from 01.01.190 to 01.A1.190.

Looks like I'll continue to use this computer semi-permanently docked to my BlackMagic eGPU, which completely takes the load off the 5500m. Yes, it keeps the fans under control, but it drives me crazy I had to drop many hundreds of dollars for an eGPU to solve this problem.

Upgraded today to Big Sur.

Upgrading my Xcode.

And guess what?

LAPTOP is FREAKY hot. Like the ****.

But, fans are not starting!

Mouse started disconnecting, cannot close tabs in browser with command-w.

Installed fan control software and kicked fans to full throttle.

This is just crazy and I'm not udnerstanding how to reproduce that issue next time. Probably heavy load for the hard drive causing mac to overheat. It still super hot currently. Like never before. Maybe other issue is happening now. But let's see tomorrow in the office.

Of course guys. It's a HARDWARE problem. The graphic card generates too much heat when used.

If it was a software issue, Apple would have solved the problem easily in weeks.

Whenever there is a software issue, Apple solves it very quickly...

Nomatter Big Sur, or whatever, it will stay the same.

I think the only software fix apple could do, is under clocking the graphic card to makes it use less power ? We can always dream, they will probably never do it either...

romain89 wrote:

Of course guys. It's a HARDWARE problem. The graphic card generates too much heat when used.

I know that software can’t generate heat. But since some people had success by slightly adjusting the refresh frequency of their display (using software, not hardware) I was hoping that this is a driver issue that could have been fixed with the new OS.

silvann wrote:

Same here. No change, still ~19W for the GPU under macOS Big Sur.

I and others have explained why this is typically the case; AMD requires the GDDR6 VRAM to be driven at full speed by default to avoid possible flicker, and that takes a lot of power.

It's not surprising it hasn't changed because that fundamental fact hasn't gone away.

However, depending upon the connection methodology, that 19w apparently does not necessarily induce high fan speeds.