MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise

I've been battling with this issue (and following this thread).

Catalina 10.15.6

Model Name: MacBook Pro

Model Identifier: MacBookPro16,1

Processor Name: 8-Core Intel Core i9

Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz

Memory: 64 GB

Chipset Model: AMD Radeon Pro 5500M

VRAM (Total): 8 GB

Displays:

27UK600:

Resolution: 3840 x 2160 (2160p/4K UHD 1 - Ultra High Definition)

UI Looks like: 1920 x 1080 @ 30 Hz

Connection Type: Thunderbolt/DisplayPort

The situation for me is absolutely recreateable.

If MBP is opened and a 4K monitor is attached externally, the Radeon High side draw jumps to 19-20+ watts.

If MBP is closed, the Radeon High side draw falls to 6-8W.

The iStat menu graph is pretty revealing.

With virtual classes starting back up, zoom sessions are nearly unbearable - due to the fan noise.

I have a case opened with Apple support. They suggested SMC reset (check), erase the boot drive and reinstall Catalina (check),

boot to Safe Mode (check).

I'll update if I get any answers from Apple Support.

vinamra07 wrote:

So it that the case happening with 5600M?

Some have reported the 5600M does not experience this issue because it uses an entirely different VRAM architecture, HBM2, rather than GDDR6.

This brand new architecture is both faster and somewhat more energy efficient than driving GDDR6.

However no specific claims are made by Apple for power consumption with the 5600M (AMD actually lists the "maximum" (TGP) power draw as being the same for the 5500M and 5600M), so I couldn't say for sure.

Your best bet would be to order one and try it, and if it doesn't suit your needs return it within the 14 day window.

Hi RICHD101, I had the MacBook Pro 15-inch 2019 before buying this machine with the exact same configuration with the exception on the video card, the 15-inch had the Vega 20 Pro and the 16-inch has the AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 8 GB and I never had an issue with the 15-inch version, I sold it because I always buy the best Macbook available and then keep it for 2-3 years and since the 15-inch version has the previous gen keyboard that has a lot of issues I didn't want to risk having to deal with that, now as you can imagine I'm really disappointed that I sold it to buy the 16-inch.

And some people in this forum keep saying that the 5500 is way more powerful than the previous Pro Vega 20 and that's the reason we can't compare both machines but is not true, is just a little more powerful (less than 10%), check attached screenshot.

But with that reasoning, the Radeon 5600 that is more powerful than the 5500 should run hotter and is not the case.

This is taken from their website:

"The first Geekbench Metal listing of the AMD Radeon Pro 5500M is now available, and it looks like it offers a good upgrade over the Radeon Pro 560X found in the mid-2018 MacBook Pro 15. However, those who already have the end-2018 MacBook Pro 15 with a Radeon Pro Vega 20 might have less of an incentive to upgrade from a GPU standpoint."

I stand when I say that this is a bad combination of Intel CPU, AMD GPU and a software/driver issue.

Right now, I'm in my home office and is at 32 dB (check attached screenshot), in my office is always around 33 to 36 dB (with the the door closed) but if I connect the MacBook Pro to an external monitor it goes straight to 59 dB (check attached screenshot) and it can go almost to 70 dB, just by connecting an external monitor, if I do the same with the MacBook Pro 2019 with the Pro Vega 20 it stays at 32 dB.

We have tried more than 50 Macbook Pro 16-inch in total and ALL of them have the same issue, but the 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2016 don't.

So if you are a long time Macbook user like we all are in this office when you buy a new Macbook you expect a similar behavior as the previous versions, with some small changes of course, but going from a completely quiet machine with fans running at 1800 RPM to a vacuum machine with fans running at 4500 RPM just by connecting an external monitor is not acceptable.

I don't care what type of memory the video card has or that Intel failed to provide a better CPU, they failed to take all that in consideration when they released this machine.

[Edited by Moderator]

I believe you want power on the RIGHT:

the orange component on the extreme right is the power chip.

In the center positions, the AMD graphics chip is diagonally-mounted on the LEFT, Intel CPU Rectangular on the Right

This screen from SwitchResX will start to give you an idea of the complexity of all the different timing issues around fetching data from display RAM and getting it onto the display:

Many of these are hold-overs from CRT displays, but if the display asks for them, and the computer does not supply them within these limits, the display will flicker.

William Kucharski wrote:

Or pick up a monitor like the Dell U2717D and a USB-C to mDB adapter and you can use a second monitor all day without issues.

There is nothing special about this monitor.

2560 × 1440 that draws 18W on the dGPU no matter how you connect it, even while closing the lid.

For some reason connecting it with HDMI uses 60hz while DP and mDP uses 59.88hz, but I saw no impact on the wattage.

You must be doing very light tasks on your machine for not noticing fan noise with the monitor. Browsing emails or chatting in Slack with a video opened on the second screen is enough to go over 3000RPM when the dGPU is at maximum VRAM clock.

I gave up with the 16" and I'm now on an iMac 2013 running three 2560 × 1440 total displays with zero fan noise with the same tasks.

I know comparing a laptop to an iMac is not fair, but if you are looking for a quiet two / three screens experience, the 16" is still not up to a 7 years old iMac for the job, at least with the 5300M/5500M. It blows the iMac out of the water in terms of performance but the added noise is very noticeable with an external screen.

The only exception is apparently to use one Magic monitor, either a 1080p@60hz or a 1440p+@144hz monitor and close the lid. Somehow it gets the right VRAM timing, consumes only 5W and now can enjoy a quiet and powerful desktop working experience.

Not what I expected when I saw this:

Sorry William but this laptop has been super disappointing from a UX/UI Designer stand point as well.

I mainly run Skype and Sketch and the fans go crazy and it runs insanely hot. This happened last week on my brand "2nd" new laptop. This happened on my first 16" Laptop and Apple sent me a new one. Same ongoing issues and the troubleshooting articles send are useless.

MacBook Pro 16" (2019 model, built in 2020) with the 5300M:

The laptop is on battery power & "idle" i.e. without any specific applications running. Total power consumption is around 10-15 watts (and again, remember the 100Wh battery):

An external display (28" 4K UHD, no scaling, USB-C to DisplayPort 1.2 & 60Hz exactly) is connected to any port on the MBP, the power consumption immediately jumps to & hovers around 40-50 watts on idle:

If I then close the clamshell and keep the external display as-is attached, the idle power consumption drops to around 20-25 watts, which is expected as it's pretty much the base load (first screenshot) plus the expected load of the dGPU:

When the laptop is idle with an external display, anything less than the 25 watts is pretty understandable, 40-50 watts is not.

Sure:

I just finished processing videos for the news here:

I had no issues - as I rarely do. It processes them in seconds compared to my other MBP. This is a few minutes after FCP and Handbrake processed the videos.

[Link Edited by Moderator]

I suppose my screens are fake then?

This is my laptop hooked up to an external display (not clamshell). At work I use dual - 4k in clamshell. Neither options use the high wattage unless I am doing heavy work such as exporting video from FCP or big files in Affinity. Right now it's only 48 degrees C. Without the screens connected it can go down to 39 degrees C.

I believe there situations which trigger it and there are situations that don't.

I really think Intel and AMD are the reason Apple made the M1. They don't have control of the parts of the systems they don't make, and Intel and AMD don't care about Apple's customers.

Yes. Bought it in 2019, with 64 GB of memory and 4TB HD. As I am not doing any graphics intensive work, I decided against the 5500 and hey, the Apple 30" Cinema HDs worked fine for me all the while. No such luck with the 16" workhorse. I am getting the dreaded kernel_task slow-down at the worst possible moments. Kernel_task sees to it that overheating is combatted with "no operations" sent to the processor, so it rigorously slows down the system.

Good and easy answer usually. Brings the workhorse to a crawl.

Hi All,

I can confirm DisplayLink (DL) has no visible lag issues (I was the one who complained it as well while working on MacBook Air 11" 2011) on my brand new MacBook Air 13" M1 with my old DL Startech hardware capable of 2560x1440 resolutions at 60Hz on two Dell 2515H monitors. My third Dell 2515H is connected via UGREEN USB-C PD adapter's HDMI port at the same resolution and refresh rate. While it's working almost perfectly the only thing left that's letting me down at the moment is lack of screen rotation functionality for M1 machines. Therefore, am still awaiting to use it properly with my two DL displays . There's also issues with long wait for driver updates which is still a pain in particular when significant changes happen on Apple's side.

While it's stating M1 can handle one external monitor am surprised I'm able to run 4 monitors on the Air M1 and 2 of them natively? I tried connecting two monitors to Satechi dual HDMI adapter before or one to Satechi and another directly to Air's USB-C port and only one would work. However, I just got a new ASUS ZenScreen MB16AEC portable USB-C powered monitor and it's working as a second native display whether connected directly to latop's USB-C or via USB 3.0 hub. My 2 other Dell 2515H monitors are using DL hardware devices so the ASUS has absolutely no physical DL hardware attached. This has puzzled me but am very pleased that now got 4 monitors running at the same time (one unfortunately still in vertical awaiting screen rotation as there's not enough desk space to change to Horizontal) :) Also, another 2 ASUS portable are arriving today or tomorrow and will plug them into my 7 x USB 3.0 powered Kensington HUB to see if it handles them too.

I can say I'm finally very happy with the current dead silent, super cold (I've never felt any significant heat above function keys no matter what tasks I do and 3 browsers running with multiple tabs that was normally killing my MacBooks), no screen lag perfect setup and hope apple or DisplayLink won't mess it up again.

All the best to all,

David

My results below. not running any CPU/GPU intensive tasks. Just by connecting an external monitor.

Monitor: Dell U2518D

Adapter: HDMI via USB‑C Digital AV Multiport Adapter

Fans speed: > 4K

Radeon High Side: ~20W (around 0.5W without external monitor)

I found this video that I hadn’t known yet. The video describes our problem, but what is more interesting are the comments underneath.

Two people claim that Apple gave them their money back (even after months of usage). The rationale was that the laptop can’t keep up with the advertised specifications—i. e. supporting two external 6K displays.

Connecting two 6K displays was possible, but only with very high wattage, causing heat and—most importantly—a throttled CPU. Fan noise may be subjective (even if many people agree that it’s too loud), but a throttled CPU is not.

I recently also took the customer support path (trying everything they asked for) and was finally asked to run that application that collects lots of data about your system. I was told this would be handed over to the “engineering department” and they would get back to me. I am still waiting for the response.

Anyways, I can only encourage anyone with this problem to contact Apple support and do the same. I think I spent 2 hours in the chat and on the phone. The more people do this and get it to the “engineering“ level, the more pressure is built (alone because we are using Apple’s resources to file the complaint).

On a side note, another comment underneath that posted video states that someone at Apple acknowledged the problem and said that they were working on a fix. I don’t know if it’s true, but I want it to!

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