MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise

LucaPipolo wrote:

Yes. Of course I contacted them. I did more than 10 calls. And they finally decided to refund me because this defect that you call feature.

I never said it was a feature, I said it wasn't a defect.

Don't quote me as saying things I never said.

If this is like an external graphic card over USB - which leaves the internal AMD Radeon 5500 stayed untouched. However, defect in concept require to have a separate external device to the work without unacceptable noise.

Adxyal wrote:

Sad to see that Apple seems not to have given any answer for this issue that was identified back in previous decade !

Are you working on it? What is the plan? With Big Sur? can you at least give some information? roadmap?

This is a user to user forum and as such, Apple is not here.

Further, Apple doesn't announce plans or what they are or aren't working on.

silvann wrote:

I have the same issues on my 16-inch MBP when using an external display.

I didn’t have any heat issues with my 10 year old 15-inch MBP and that exact display.

Why would you think an ancient machine that is much slower and less capable can be directly compared to a modern top of the line product?

Because the modern top of the line product isn't doing what the ancient one did well? Would seem a pretty obvious reason. If an ancient one can connect to an external display without being noisy, we expect the modern one would too. Please William, why can't you accept that is natural. Why do you continue to try and justify this just because yours is working? Please, just feel happy that yours is and leave the others in this thread to try and work out how to fix our problem and discuss it. You have made your point many times - don't continue to do so. We've heard you, thank you. No more please.

These comments are fairly amazing ! I have been a big fan of Apple computers for more than 25 years, but when they do something wrong, let's face it and ask them to things right!

As a consumer, and with a machine at that price, you can deserve to have :

• a silent computer when you are not requiring much horse power and doing simple daily tasks
• a powerful computer for heavy load tasks that you would need from time to time and in which case you can tolerate the fan noise

Anyhow - any advice is welcome - as far as I am concerned I have tried everything I could find and did not manage to make it silent with an external monitor... what would it take to give the option not to activate dGPU when you connect a monitor?

silvann wrote:

William Kucharski wrote:

If faster clock speeds and higher capability were inseparable linked to more heat and noise my laptop should sound like a booster rocket compared to my first 16 MHz desktop computer.

It's through major thermal engineering decisions that it does not, and Intel and AMD have been working to keep power/heat down as best they can.

That is accurate and I have to apologize but I must correct you‘re sentences. I am sure you agree to avoid the other user of this forum start believing your assertion that one cannot hear fans with 2‘400 RPMs. You can even easily hear it from 3 feet distance in a room with 33dB.

I feel sorry if you cannot hear even with your head on your MBP. I am sure it was powered on and running at that time.

No way to use with external displays for a broader audience.

What I still miss from you is constructive proposal how to tackle. With e.g. Xprores or external GPU or USB HDM displaylink adapter. To deny the issue is not yet helping to resolve.

itunestux wrote:

That is accurate and I have to apologize but I must correct you‘re sentences. I am sure you agree to avoid the other user of this forum start believing your assertion that one cannot hear fans with 2‘400 RPMs. You can even easily hear it from 3 feet distance in a room with 33dB.

I would wholeheartedly disagree, but really, unless you're in a recording studio most offices and homes have more than 33 dB of background noise at all times.

I feel sorry if you cannot hear even with your head on your MBP. I am sure it was powered on and running at that time.

Cute snark, yes, my head was on the MBP while it was playing HD video full screen on the Dell and viewing this forum and stubbornly refusing to drive the fans any faster because it was handling the thermal load just fine.

No way to use with external displays for a broader audience.

That's simply not true; several people have reported finding a combination that does not cause fan speedups, and others don't mind the fan noise.

I get you can't find a combination that works for you though.

To deny the issue is not yet helping to resolve.

I never "denied" the issue, but I will chime in when phrases like "there's no way" or "defect" are used, because they're inaccurate.

There have been several suggestions floated throughout this thread of actions to take, one of them being to use mDP if possible because HDMI is all but guaranteed to require the VRAM be driven at full speed.

If your monitor has a mini DisplayPort connector, use USB-C to mini DisplayPort adapter and cable to connect from your Mac to the monitor.

There are many available; this is the one I used in my testing:

Amazon: USB-C to Mini DisplayPort Adapter, ITD ITANDA 4K Thunderbolt 3 to Mini DP Adapter Cable for Apple New MacBook 2017, ChromeBook Pixel Samsung S8(No Thunderbolt 2)

I just bought a MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019), with a 8-core i9, 32GB of DDR4 memory and an AMD Radeon Pro 5500M with 8GB. With nothing installed, as soon as I plugged it into my Samsung 24" monitor running at 1920x1200, the fans ramped up to maximum and stayed there. I can hear it in the next room.

I could use advice on what to do

1) I could wait for Big Sur. Does anyone running a beta version have feedback on whether this issue is fixed in Big Sur?

2) I could return it an get a similar machine with a 5600M. Does anyone have feedback on whether it has the same issue?

3) I could return it and go back to my 2017 MacBook Pro that doesn't have the issue even with two monitors attached.

If fans spinning at 2400 RPM are noisy to you so be it, but you also won't find any other high performance laptop that suits your needs.

"Heats up" depends largely upon your monitor and its connection method.

You make it sound like the issue is universal, and I (and others) have posted data that shows it is not.

If it bothers you and you are within the 14 day return period, feel free to return your machine for a full refund.

Same here. 5000+ rpm just watching a twitch stream.

I've tried TB3, HDMI, and DP monitors. 4k, 2k, 1920x1080.

I can't believe this. SMDH. Unacceptable.

Watching the same twitch stream. The EXACT same twitch stream.

With the same monitor - on my 2015 MBP - whisper quiet.

I get it that the machine is more powerful. I accept and acknowledge

that faster silicon results in greater heat. I do not accept that watching

a simple streaming video on a 5 year old MBP is perfectly silent while my 2019 16" MBP

sounds like the deck of an aircraft carrier actively engaged with an enemy.

I'm having the same issue. I had nightmare of contacting apple support and they are not helpful at all. Support engineers keep interrupting me and not listening at all.

After escalation I was requested to send laptop to their factory free of charge. But I'm not sure if apple will find something before.

I'll make sure to record couple of troubleshoot videos and share them on youtube before I send it.

Case: ***

[Personal Information Edited by Moderator]

You keep saying defective yet you refuse to listen to any of the reasons you are told why it is that way.

I understand that the solutions offered did not work with your configuration, but that doesn't mean they didn't work for others.

It's not playing down anything to note the issue isn't universal.

Interestingly enough, full throttle is exactly how modern computers and CPUs with "Turbo Boost" are designed - they run at as fast a speed as possible until they need to be thermally throttled. This provides optimal performance for quick bursty tasks at the possible cost of longer-lived ones.

Likewise AMD's explanation is they would rather have higher clock rates, meaning more power and heat, than risk ever presenting flicker to the viewer.