MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise

I'm using USB-C Display Port, the reduction in power is very minor really and for me the temperature doesn't seem to change when lowering the resolution.

I also added a connected Ipad into the mix with sidecar as an extra screen and it doesn't raise the temperature anymore.

No dispute, he does a great job and we are grateful for his work.

Sorry, DPJ, but we do not need to create our own YouTube videos if we pointed out that he missed an important point in his video regarding our problem. I shouldn't have to fight hot air from my computer and a loud fan because I plug in a 4K monitor with the lid up.

I think I may shoot my own video for this, and demonstrate specifically what happens so you can see it.

Thanks for spending your time posting here; I can't help but notice that you didn't try to replicate our issue as I requested, but you do contribute by posting notes like the one above.

You really add a ton of insight for me, and set a high bar for altruism by helping people on the discussion boards. Keep up the good work!

Bryce that is very good news, as it means to me this machine doesn't have to run with the fans over 2K when the Radeon is running at over 20 W. I appreciate your running it for over 10 minutes, as my machine would never stay quiet for that long. The only way I can get that result is to run with turbo boost off which is a small price to pay at this point.

Could you quote the user? Because I am the user that has 2 TS3+ docks and they both work just fine. There is no loud or runaway fans when having two 4k screens connected.

Is this is clamshell mode? The other users are reporting that it is working normally when in clamshell mode no matter how many monitors are connected but it overheats when the lid is open.

If you see no difference in heat/fans when the lid is open and connected to 2 monitors, is this because you are using the newer OS and that has fixed the issue or maybe your device is resilient to this problem?

fmorga wrote:

1- Fan Noise and Heat issues at MacBook Pro 16 Inches. 

2- All Models are affected. 

3- It looks like all MBP 16 are defected. 

4- The issue appears connecting external device to the USB-C. In special external display.

5- Issue is affecting by all kind of display 4K, Full HD.

5- Several test shown it is a hardware issue. (Test running with windows software shows same results).(Latest software updates have not improved the situation). Other users could consider a software issue.

6- The best action is to report to Apple. https://www.apple.com/feedback/

7- Till now Apple has not reported any issue.

8- It is a worldwide issue and not an special Lot of computers. From Poland to USA, Germany and Italy.... worldwide is reporting the same failure at fan noise and overheating at just browsing.

9- Some test shown the issue is in relation with the GPU. 

10- Apple support can not inform if the issue is resolved. 

11- It is recommended to return the MBP within the 15 days period of guarantee. 

12- All the users that have contacted and followed the indications of Apple support, for example : restart in safety mode and so on.. have not observed any improvement.

13-Bunch of people is waiting for a solution or communication from Apple in order to buy a new MBP. (Three months gone).. 

14- Several people reported that computer work almost properly with no external connections. 

15- Fan loud Issue improve if you close the lid. 

16- Some people reporting better behaviour if you connect MBP to a dock.  Some people reporting that there is not improvement even with connection to a Dock. 

17- Some people reporting the fans goes crazy just connecting external hard drive. This was my case connecting hard drive through a hub to the USB- C. Please confirm if still the case. 

18- Media reports: 

19- If I missed something, just added to the summary. Thank you

You have two 5s on the list

I already showed that not all models are effected. There is some 16" MPBs that are having issues as people have shown, but there are a lot more that are not having the fan issues.

Why is that not on the list for balance?

Ignoring that these are isolated incidents will make it harder for Apple to trackdown. Why? because saying that ALL are having the problem means they can test ANY, and when the problem of runaway fans doesn't show up it makes it look like you're just crying wolf, when there is a real problem with some people's devices.

Apple uses my 16" to get info when there are complaints in forums like this. When there is a problem they reached out to me and have run tests to see what it looks like inside with all of the data. They comeback and ask me if I want to test a certain patch before it's released to beta and can say yes or no. Guess what? The problem I had initially when I got the 16" (would freeze in when put in clamshell mode when connected to a thunderbolt dock) has now been fixed with 10.15.3.

Only a few people have put anything out here with real information rather than just "All models are affected". Having more numbers on the list has less meaning as most are just blanket statements that should be in paragraph form.

This could be narrowed down to something like this:

Some 2019 16" Macbook Pros are having issues specifically heat related without the system being taxed by user engagement. Here is what is known:

1. When external monitors are plugged in directly to computer the temperature increases - some as high as 90C. For some users unplugging it returns the temperatures down, for others the temperature does not drop nor do the fan speeds and required a reboot. The power usage increases from .08 - 7 watts to 20 watts on the Radeon High Side (RHS).
2. Those having a dock (TS3+) have demonstrated a power increase from .08-7 watts but that appears to be the difference between using the Intel integrated graphics vs AMD GPU. The fans did not increase much if any. For some users it did not seem to quiet the fans.

Too many issues being brought up will make it like throwing darts at a wall without a target. If there are other issues such as connecting an external drive causing fans to increase, they should be in a separate thread because of all the variables so this one can get solved, whether through software/driver updates or replacement hardware.

davidbenda wrote:

Somehow every time I call to report the problem, I'm told it's the first time they hear about the problem.

Apple first responders are trained to be friendly. They are generalists, take calls about ALL Apple products, and can only "hear about" what literally comes over their headsets during a day of calls. There are hundreds of agents. Even though you think this issue is a huge disaster, the likelihood that a particular agent has:

a) heard a similar problem recently AND

b) can connect the dots to suspect it might be the SAME problem they heard about earlier, ... is quite slim.

There will only be an article describing the problem [so that all can say "Aha"] when the solution(s) are posted.

What Readers are trying to attain in the process of "Contacting Support" is not recognition on the face of every first responder, but rather a growing list of Bug Reports that remain un-solved after your call. DO NOT tell them you are OK with what is happening. INSIST that your problem is not solved, and they need to either send you to a specialist and/or file a Bug Report. and if you have a moment, file a synopsis of your issues on the product feedback pages:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/

Engineering works from the Bug Reports and excessive numbers of Repair Returns/Exchanges to decide what problems get priority for solving.

Hi, did you talk to Apple today? Because another user said that he talked to Apple and they told him that they know about this issue and they are working on a fix.

Also, did you see this: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250991137?page=6

It seems that people is starting to get kernel panic on the 16-inch, a few of them already sent them for repair.

Agreed and there's too much speculation day after day here without any facts. In fact there have been no reported Mac laptops that have fried due to overheating or a circuit problem since the Powerbook 5300. Apple's thermal protection prevents that. If anyone has a "fried" 16" MacBook it may be due to a bad logic board out of the factory. I would say it's highly doubtful that connecting it to external display would do that. I'm certain that Apple uses their own 16" MacBooks with external displays (since they advertise them that way) and if they were faulty to a point of frying due to them overheating Apple would've put out a statement by now with a possible recall.

I think you delete the apps that are telling you the power draw of various system components and just sit down and use your computer normally and don't worry about it unless it goes into thermal shutdown.

Once again, unless you are comparing a different computer using identical components, you can't directly compare power draw or other statistics.

Thank you all for your advise.

i wish everyone the best with their issues!

I will post my results of my Apple visit on Saturday 🙏

I found the following on gearslutz:

not sure if this might bring any light to the

fan issue:

On my full maxxed out mbp 16" with Radeon 5500M 8GB its pretty easy:

- some apps force to run on the AMD GPU. On my machine these include Logic, Ableton, Cubase, Serato DJ Pro, Native Access. There may be more, but I havent checked everything yet. You may observe this, when looking into activity monitor: click into the energy tab, there will be a 'Yes' if an app is forced to run on the dGPU. You will also notice a massive increased power consumption, when looking into iStat Menus (you need to separately download the sensors add-on from the Bjango homepage to monitor power consumption). For most apps, iStat Menus shows 15-20W power consumption for the 'Radeon Highside' as soon as some elements of the GUI are animated. As this wasn't enough insane, Serato DJ Pro tops out at 25-30W for literally doing nothing graphical demanding. When no GUI elements of the demanding app are animated, the AMD GPU idles at 6-8W.

- connecting one of my external 4K monitors forces everything to run on the AMD GPU. In activity monitor the GPU utilization (could be found in the window menu) changes from internal to the Radeon. iStat Menus shows a power consumption of 18-20W for the 'Radeon Highside'.

- when the AMD Radeon completely idles and everything runs on the Intel GPU, it consumes 0.15 to 0.2W. 

The AMD GPU sits together with the Intel CPU on the same heatpipe. They share the same thermal budget. Those 20W the Radeon consumes, heat up the CPU and will force it to throttle down sooner. And/or will ramp up fan speed earlier and stronger.

I dont know if it makes a huge difference if you have the 5300M or the 5500M with 4/8GB on your 16" macbook. Theoretically the 5300M and 4GB should consume less power. 

My opinion: Apple should drastically reduce the power consumption of the AMD GPU. Sacrificing 20W on a laptop for doing nothing more than moving the locator in your DAW is absolutely unacceptable. This light workload should not trigger to ramp up all shaders and VRAM at full frequency. We are not playing heavy 3D games here. Its even worse when using an app like Serato DJ Pro: In addition it also has an insane CPU demand and together this leads to draining the battery, even when the charger is connected. When playing from battery only (fully loaded) whithout charger, game over after no more than 1 hour. Thats 100% what the DJ wants, shutdown due to battery drain...

Alternatively app developers should rethink if they force their apps to utilize the AMD GPU (dont know if it depends on which API for graphics they use). Most Apps should run fine on the Intel GPU. Well Serato is another kind of beast. Even when disabling CPUs turbo boost it stresses the CPU more than using the AMD

I just experienced this the other day while running my external LG ULTRAWIDE 34”

While running a very light session of Logic PRO X.

Computer got hot and Fans ramped up.””

https://youtu.be/9DtpHesTWGU

prior this happening my computer and fans run hot and fast with or without my external monitor when running Logic

i have an appointment at the Genius Bar tomorrow.

EDIT: Sorry for the last post. My mistake. I had the Graphic app opened in the background... It was because of that app that the AMD was active. Anyway, 5W seems a lot for such a simple project... nothing fancy.

People have said before it's due to the way the dGPU is wired, apparently the way it is setup the intel graphics can't run the external monitor.

If you need an external monitor it's probably best to hold off until the issue is fixed, I'm sure most people here would agree. Alternatively you can use an iPad with sidecar but it's not really a decent substitute for a proper external display.

It seems widespread, I haven't heard of anyone that doesn't have the issue where it instantly draws 20w+ power and heats to a 20/30c+ extra when connecting a monitor and that's when idle.

Some people have had success using eGPUs and docks with the machine in clamshell mode.

The thing is when connected to a monitor you can't really use the machine for anything strenuous without it getting seriously hot. I can work using basic apps with the monitor and it goes up to 70c+ thats with the CPU just using less than 3% if i want to do anything that will really use the CPU or GPU I have to disconnect the monitor otherwise I don't know what will happen...