MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise

Re: battery issues:

That computer is a battery-CAPABLE device. It is not optimized as a battery-operated device.

Your computer performs best when connected to AC power. It can use the full output of the Power Adapter AND when doing especially challenging work will also freely "borrow" power from the battery. In some cases, the charged state may even decline during stressful work.

When used only on battery, your computer has no extra cushion of power, and will perform more slowly. However, for ordinary non-stressful tasks this may not be objectionable (possibly not even noticeable.)

In general, you should ALWAYS connect AC power when it is possible to do so, and only run on batteries (which will be somewhat slower) when no AC sources are at hand. There are three micro-controllers cooperating on battery and charging issues, and your Mac will NEVER over-charge.

PinStudios wrote:

You do audio editing yet you don't hear your computer @2500rpm even with your head on it? Not trying to troll here - but did you ever had your hearing checked? 2500 produces sound that is easily picked up by the iphone located 3 feet away from the computer. And iphone isn't really good at picking up quiet noises. I have quite damaged hearing (diagnosed) and I can hear 2500rpm (it's not annoying though).

Perhaps on your unit. I could put my head directly on mine during the time it was operating as the post above mentioned it was and heard nothing.

My hearing is fine, but thanks for your concern.

You avoided my main point again where without any tinkering this computer can perform with a much higher load, much better than it does with a low load :) I mean 144hz vs 60hz and 20w vs 5w. What it can't perform is remain silent on 60hz mode. And yeah, i've heard your story about screen tearing when 2 monitors of different resolutions are in play - that's not the case. The broken thing can't drive single 1920x1080@60hz without sounding like a vacuum cleaner. Yet it can drive 3440x1440@160hz as if it doesn't care. Definitely "not defective".

It's all a matter of tearing. What you define as acceptable the manufacturer does not, and ultimately it's their call.

You also obviously must have a very quiet vacuum if a MBP ever sounds like one to you.

Number 5 would be - get a faulty hardware returned under the lemon law. And for people who can't do that because they live in a place that doesn't protect the consumer - wait for apple to lose another action lawsuit and say "few percent of users were experiencing issues, therefore we replace their motherboards". That wouldn't be anything new. What is new however is people defending defective hardware as if their life relies on it.

My life isn't dependent upon it, you and others just keep claiming the machine is defective despite not failing to meet any advertised spec and on the basis of assumptions made upon single use cases while ignoring data provided as to why design decisions were made.

As I said, ultimately it's up to you to decide what you want to do to address the issue.

I still feel it's the best and most powerful MBP I've ever owned.

My previous six top-end MacBook Pros worked just fine plugged into external displays without excessive noise or power usage. So having one out of six not behave this way is hardly expecting something magical. It’s a defective design.

iTech23 wrote:

Something magical?? Then the new M1 MacBook Pro is doing magic and the previous MacBook Pro with the same i9 intel chip and the Vega 20 was also doing magic.....

Completely different architectures and capabilities.

Neither the M1 MBP nor the Vega 20 MBP can do what the 5500M MBP 16 can at the speed it can, regardless of what you are actually asking it to do.

Hello everyone, I don't know how many people are still interested, but I just wanted to share my recent findings using SwitchResX.

My setup:

• MBP 16" 5300m
• 4K monitor (LG 27UD68-P) via USB-C -> DP
• 4K monitor (DELL U2720QM) via USB-C -> USB-C

Even in clamshell mode, this setup will cause ~20W in Radeon High Side because the 2 monitors are different.

I found 2 ways to get around this. First, you will need to use SwitchResX to match the Pixel Clock, Front Porch, etc of the two monitors. Then,

• Rotate one or both of the monitors 180 degrees - this will reduce Radeon High Side to be ~7W at idle

OR

• Turn on HDR on the DELL - this will also reduce Radeon High Side to ~7W.

Lastly, if you match the external display to the internal display using SwitchResX, then low wattage with lid open is possible, *BUT* the image on the external display would be a 16:10 image squashed into a 16:9 frame and is not aesthetically pleasing.

DisplayLink displays work fine for slow-to-change data like your program listings.

I would qualify what you wrote about LAG, as you do not appear to be using these displays for full-motion Video. if your data are at all sensitive to frames-per-second rates, then DisplayLink displays are not a solution.

Absolutely Not for gaming.

It's hard to know what's go on inside Apple. I don't doubt there are people who are quite aware of this issue.

Perhaps these are the people monitoring this thread. Perhaps these are not the right people to address this issue in real way. Perhaps these people even want to bury the issue.

That's why I suggest to contact Apple directly, ideally through multiple avenues.

Have you, raffi2, contacted Apple support? It's easy. Have you sent feedback.app.com? Again easy.

Having worked in tech, I can tell you numbers matter. A higher number of complaints will raise the profile of any issue.

I'm not saying Apple will necessarily respond. So, on the one hand we may be SOL. On the other, folks buying Apple's flagship laptop -- especially loaded versions -- will often be folks doing serious work that directly or indirectly benefits Apple. Apple's senior management may not want to alienate these folks. This is doubly true when those laptops don't work as a reasonable person would expect with Apple's flagship display.

Hi, 

Trust me its not any better with an EGPU !

If you are investing in an EGPU then you are probably a pro user with a configuration something like this.

Tb1 port - tb hub

Tb2 port - external ssd 

TB3 port - EGPU 

Tb4 port - external ssd 

All those devices generate lots of heat on the board and will cause the MBP to overheat and fans kick in constantly. For the EGPU especially even using the very best Apple pro tb cables (the black braided one) the data throughput is huge.

So you can except lots of overheating issues. And this results in throttling and data bottlenecks and it becoming very slow and unresponsive.

Also you will experience several panic crashes per week from the powerplay failed to resume problem. It just happened to me on a brand new replacement mbp from apple last night. 

Also you can expect very very poor battery performance even on a light load. I am not sure what causes this specifically - constantly being powered or just maybe poor battery power flow management and the fact that its intel!

Other than these 3 main issues you can also expect just general crashes / random artefacts on the screen during boot up and system preferences changes / caps key to reverse function on unlock / sleep wake issues, either it wont sleep or cycles in and out of sleep / apps crashing / EGPU disconnect problems, if you need to take the MBP off the desk and try to disconnect the EGPU then it doesn’t work most the time a random Apple News widget will be using it and there is no way to turn it off as it is built into the edit widget section and the last thing you can look forward to is daily SMC resets to keep all of these issues at bay for a few hours and there is even an issue doing the SMC reset! Sometimes the MBP can become totally unresponsive for upto 20 mins after doing one, and nothing can get it to life you just have to wait.

This list is not exhaustive and sure there are other widely reported problems that seems to plague custom MBP with higher specs and some that are engineering flaws.

So after nearly 10 months 2 visits to store 1 replacement and countess apple support calls I would advise to pass on it for now. Even with a top spec MBP 16 “ that sells for around £5500 you can be sure to be frustrated with not only your investment decision but also the way apple handles it. After submitting logs 8 times using there capture data tool they have not gotten back to me once with any diagnosis. 

So, can I recommend it - hmmmm 

My set up is 

MBP 16” 64 GB 4 tb AMD 5600M with an LG ergo 32 UN880 display, 3 x 4 tb Glyph atom ssd raid drives, Pluggable TBT3 UDC3 dock, Razer core X Chroma with Radeon 5700 XT and all connected using the Apple TB Pro cables

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).

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.

enyamada wrote:

• I read most of the almost 280 pages of this thread. Out of the 280 pages, 100 were basically produced by a single guy saying "there's on problem at all", "it's by design" and similar bs.

Or you don’t like technical details that differ from your desires.

Fact is, there are ways to avoid the issue by using certain configurations and the GPU maker said the driver was working as designed.

I posted that when I was using a mDP adapter into the monitors I have on hand, my power usage remained at 18 watts or below, such that no matter how long I ran the test, the fans never “ramped up” for me.

I suspect Grant had the same experience.

I've been noticing that my MacBook Pro 2019 - 16" (8-core i9) is also going berserk with its fans and temperature for basically doing nothing at times. I just connected it to my UHD display, and the MacBook Pro has been in an uproar.

I basically have a couple of windows open (terminal, files) and this tab of Safari. I've had the system for less than 4 months now.

Am I supposed to put the MacBook Pro in the freezer?! 🤣

It's a combination of the adapter and the monitor.

I used an ITC Itanda USB-C to Mini DisplayPort 4K Adapter that cost me $13 at the time, and a $9 mDP to mDP cable to connect to a Dell U2717D monitor.

Since Monterey is out now.. I guess the forum wont auto censor me anymore?

Goto settings - battery - battery/power adapter and enable low power mode, and watch all your problems go away guys.

I disabled it on power adapter and have turbo boost available, but GPU still behaves.. so yea..

Not true. I got a phone call from a very smart/competent Apple Support person after posting here.

Never had anyone as good as him on a support call, not with Apple or any other company.