MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise

I've been a VAIO Z user the last decade. I even bought the VAIO Z flip during a trip in the US (when was not Sony anymore and you could only buy them in the US). I loved it but decided to buy a MacBook Pro to get rid of the troubles of power supply being inadequate in the VAIO Z flip when used at high CPU.

So I went ahead and bought the best (at the time) MacBook Pro, thinking I would stay with it for years and be happy. Haha, so bitterly funny in retrospect.

My MacBook 16/64GB RAM 5500/8GB RAM cannot drive an external monitor no matter what. It throttles to the point that CPU is at 1 Ghz, practically making a 4.500 EUR machine equal to an i386 (or slower).

I cannot connect any external monitor (tried 4 different monitors, different cables, dongles, output resolutions of the monitor etc). After 30 seconds to 2-3 minutes (not timed it) it just slows down to unbearable. Apple Genius Bar tested it and said the fans are working fine at high speed but not good at low speed so we must change them (>150 EUR since Apple warranty is 1 year)

I just wanted to have an external 1080p monitor to record a couple of tutorials. If my 4500 EUR machine cannot do that, I will just give it away to someone (or throw it out of the window after I take my data). My Raspberry Pi 4 with 8GB RAM can drive 2x 1080p monitors even if an app is using >90% all of its CPUs.

Extremely dissapointed; Needless to say I won't buy an Apple device >1000 EUR again (or one at all). If I want issues I can stick with my Windows machine.

PS I've done all nvram / smc / reinstall / praying to aliens / voodoo rituals. None helped

Now I have RPiPlay installed in my raspberry pi and I use airplay to do my video without laptop throttling. Still no monitor can be attached.

Interesting. After reading this, I unplugged my external Monitor (a 27″ Apple Cinema Display, connected via an Apple adapter the match the USB-3 port on the MBP (a 16″, 2,4 GHz 8-Core i9 with 64GB RAM) to the plug of the screen, an 'old-style' thunderbolt connector) and the fan went silent.

I switched to using a different USB-3 port on the MPB to connect the screen and also moved the power supply plug to a post on the other side. Not sure if any of this cause the fan to run loudly, but now the MBP runs relatively silently for a while.

So I got my Apple TV 4K today so I solved (+200 EUR) Apple's problem by using Airplay. I can now have an external (1080p) monitor without my laptop throttling CPU.

Very unhappy - not gonna mention a mass action on the topic because moderator will delete this message like last time (not cool either).

A temporary "pain-reliever" would be to run Mac OS in "Safe Mode" by holding the "shift" key during bootup. Then you won't experience any throttling because dGPU will be disabled. This is only useful if you desperately want to use one external monitor with your expensive 16" MacBook Pro and don't have any heavy software to work with. This is not a solution in any way, but I thought it might be interesting to share :-)

Yet another dummy workaround: I installed AirServer on my Xbox One X and connected it to my external monitor. Then I connected my MacBook Pro to the AirServer using AirPlay. No throttling, but still only 1 monitor can be used. Again, this is not a solution! Just thought it would be interesting to share...

@chilltec probably because it's a design issue: when dGPU starts working, the whole MacBook becomes so hot that the OS needs to cool it down by throttling the CPU using kernel_task to prevent the hardware from burning out. I believe a major software update can still fix this, but it probably would require fixing a much more fundamental issue in the GPU driver than just handling processes. I'm not a kernel expert though, just speculating...

Based on my issues with throttling on the 5500M equipped systems, and after extensive investigation from Apple's engineering team, they agreed to a refund of my 5500M equipped pro.

So, I've ordered another 16" system (2.4GHz, 64GB RAM, 8TB SSD, 5600M) and ran it identically alongside the 5500M equipped model, hoping that the 5600M system would solve my problem.

Testing was performed with the following:

Catalina 10.15.7.

Left side: Apple first gen USB-C to HDMI adapter connecting to a Dell U3017 at 2560x1600, OWC Thunderbolt 3 dock (no display outputs used on this).

Right side: LG Ultrafine 5K Thunderbolt adapter, Apple 96W power adapter.

Lid open, so three active displays.

I plugged in the 96W power adapter first and verified this was being used as the power source (the LG panel can provide 87W).

CPU throttle test performed as follows:

OBS 26, single scene, recording to local disk with one 1080p60 video capture source (via Elgato HD60S+)

Adobe Lightroom with photo export from raw images to jpeg.

Without the CPU intensive resources, I see the GPU sitting at around 10W with all three displays active on the 5600M, but on the 5500M it shoots up to the 25W or so. With a zoom call running, the 5600M sits at around 10W.

With CPU/GPU intensive resources, the 5600M sits at around 20W, whereas the 5500M sits at around 25W.

CPU performance throttle occurs in both situations - it takes slightly longer for the 5600M system to enter this state, but with the GPU pulling 20W+, in both cases, I see the CPU get pegged at 1GHz with 90+ CPU core utilisation, and CPU temp not exceeding 70W (i.e. the throttle cause is not temperature related). The 5600M was able to manage the encoding just fine without the lightroom export, whereas the 5500M system hit 1GHz throttle with just the encode running.

With just a Zoom call running, the GPU sits on around 15W with all three displays active. Running a Lightroom export in the background sends both systems into throttle in less than a minute.

So, the 5600M solves the three-displays-at-idle problem, but as soon as I load up either system, I'm in the same situation.

For high performance workloads when docked, it seems the only solution is to relieve the system of the power load of both the CPU and GPU and use an external Thunderbolt-equipped GPU. Have others had any good experiences with Thunderbolt dGPUs? They seem very expensive given their current technical capabilities in 2021 and the fact that they're not even supported on the new Apple Silicon Macs.

Indeed, it does appear to work but it's outrageous solution to buy an Apple TV 4k to (on a minimal level) partially resolve a serious design flaw of a very expensive computer.

Note that, if you mention anything against Apple on this forum, your posts are moderated and deleted :-)

Yay! No mention of a mass class action again from me, I promise!

I had similar success with changing from an old HDMI cable connecting through a hub to a USB-C HDMI cable connecting directly to the left side of the MacBook. I also moved the charging to the right side.

Fans are not winding up as much and CPU load is staying under 20%

This computer was built with a ninth generation 14nm Intel processor. The only way to meet the target performance was to make it a six or eight core processor. This processor generates an enormous burst of heat when it does Turbo Boost, and there is only one cooling rail shared by both the CPU and GPU. So getting Either side too hot ramps up the fans.

This processor was supposed to be an eleventh-generation 7nm processor, but intel is three years late, and is only starting to ship its tenth generation 10nm processors now.

Apple DID redesign the cooling system for this specific Mac. New, high-efficiency fans are used. But for some uses, that is still not enough.

Some of the best advice is to install Turbo Boost Switcher and turn off CPU Turbo Boost. This reduces the huge sudden overheating brought on by Turbo Boost, that simply does not translate into real-world performance gains.

For external displays, changing away from HDMI to DisplayPort family (or to DisplayPort over ThunderBolt or USB-C) will reduce the Voltages and slightly reduce the heat generated. It is a good thing to do, but it may not be enough to solve this issue by itself.

How to fix your 16-in MacBook Pro (Don’t return it!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkmdHVfk4XE

Tried everything (reasonable) that I read in these 276 pages, without meaningful improvements. I now settled for the AppleTV for my external HD monitor. Now pondering if I should buy an eGPU of wait for Apple to fix it.

Apple dont care of it, they say its normal. But it is not or used to be not! Its a PRO device but should not make loud sounds like a pro... Apple please check this issue. I think a windows mashine is not getting this fan noises..

I was in contact with Apple support for days, followed all the steps they said, and performed all the things they asked me to do (resetting SMC/ pram/NVRAM, re-installing Mac OS, trying 5 different monitors, 5 different cables, creating a new user, performance tests, resolutions, etc.).

We ended up at the point where the support agent said: "Your Mac has no hardware issue. If you have an eGPU, it may solve the problem. However, we don't expect you to have one". After I refused to buy one (as it's out of my budget), the support agent said: "Bring it to an apple store, and they will run a fan diagnostics test and see if your fan has any problem. They will fix your computer".

I went to the Apple store (even though I was utterly confused!), explained the problem to them, they checked the case ID, and they replied: "We don't know why Apple sent you here. We can do nothing more than let our engineers look into hardware issues, and if anything is broken, they will order a replacement part and literally replace the part. For just checking the hardware, it would cost at least ~75USD". The conclusion was, since the Apple team already remotely connected to my computer and performed several performance tests to confirm that there is no 'hardware issue,' it means there is nothing they could do to fix this. Moreover, I will never pay 75USD for a design issue originated by Apple itself. I asked Apple's support agent if I can return the laptop and get another model? They said, "there is no such thing as getting a refund or getting another new model for such an issue."

My last chance is that, since a guaranty covers my laptop, I believe I should contact my vendor and ask for a replacement.

Regardless, I lost my trust in Apple products. Not because of a design issue (no matter how bad it is), as I understand no company is perfect, and it may be natural for a product to have a design issue. I'm disappointed simply because they were continuously denying it's a design issue, and refer it to a "strange problem"....pretending I'm the only person who has this problem! They also wasted at least 2 weeks of my time by doing random tests! I'm pretty sure such a horrible problem is already well-discussed in Apple's engineering team, and the company is well aware of this.

Why should you buy an eGPU (Apple's one is 4kg, huge and old GPU!) when this is clearly manufacturer's design problem?

For me, even paying 200 EUR to buy the Apple TV 4K (which I did) is 200 EUR more I should have paid for this faulty device. Like you, I was on the verge on maybe buying the eGPU but why do that? Makes my laptop unusable when I'm travelling (still with Covid I have travelled and lived in 3 different countries). It's ridiculous.

We should all make a fuss about it, not go buy eGPUs. There's the saying "don't spend good money after bad money".

I totally feel you. Same experience here, outcome was "your fans don't work well at low speeds but work fine at high speed" == "you have troubled us on the phone, you are now at the apple store bugging us more, let's change your fans for 120 EUR + VAT total 150 EUR or whatever and we will do a test also on the hardware since you'll bring it in".

They had "no idea of this issue" even when I showed them this thread and the other threads on other websites.

Highest expectations of this machine at purchase, reality has kicked hard. I am already gone back to a Lenovo t480 with 32GB RAM. My 13 inch MacBook Pro 2017 is not getting a refresh, I'm never buying apple crp again and I'm telling everyone about it. Not a big deal for Apple but it's the principle behind it, for me.