MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise

Turn off true-tone and fixed issue with that one project which used 240% of CPU and that made the fan spin. That is why I said that everyone does something else with their MacBook (not everyone here is a programmer), but this is what helped me.

Just try to have a look at your activity monitor, you might find some background process which is overusing CPU.

I am a software engineer in one of the big tech giants, and I have several Macs (iMac Pro and MBP 2018 at work, MBP 2017 15” and MBP 2026 13” for personal projects)

and I tried all the work arounds that mentioned here and in other places, yet the 16” version still the noisiest MBP I had by far.

with that said, there are people who said the issue isn’t persistent with the AMD Radeon 5300

As mentioned; several people said they don’t have the problem with the AMD Radeon 5300; so that might be your case. And the issue is bit mix of software and hardware and till Apple figure it out, none knows the real root cause.

for your question about my rams, ai have several machines, and it goes as follows

MBP 2017 15”: 16GB ram, quad core 2.9 i7

MBP 2016 13”: 8GB ram, quad core i7

MBP 2018 15”: 32GB ram, 8 cores i9 (this one super noisy as well, but I can justify its noise as we literally burst our machines at work)

iMac Pro: 64GB ram, 8 cores (can’t recall the rest of the specs)

for the 16” I tried they were all 64GB ram, 8-cores 2.4 i9

Just a little update, I am back at home with my Dell 4K display connected and it does not make any loud noise anymore! Finally 😀.

So in my case it was all about faulty/bugy software I was working with (fsevents + node.js) and true tone, because true tone off helped as well.

I have the same issue with the fan ramping up quickly and running constantly; I am running a Parallels VM and thought it was caused by OneDrive’s syncing my files but now I have noticed that the fan is running high and loud whenever I touch it.

I installed turbo boost switch pro which has helped keep the noise down, but spending over $4k on a machine to listen to fan noise when the CPU is at 2.5% is not ok. As of now, I am 6.3% CPU with the fan running at 2970 rpm, with no turbo boost.

Since I have seen others who have mentioned that their new 16” MBPs are running quiet and cool under more load, I have to assume this isn’t normal.

16 MBP 32 GB RAM, 8 GB GPU 2 TB

I have tried connecting an LG usb-c 4K monitor (with usb-c <-> usb-c cable) and Radeon is still consuming around 20W of power in idle no matter the resolution, closing laptop lid etc. When I disconnect the monitor, consumption immediately drops to 5W for radeon until it switches to intel GPU.

So apparently this is a bug in Radeon drivers or Radeon graphics itself. I wonder if they even test their products at Apple or just release them hoping they will just work...

Apple trains its first responders to be polite, friendly, and helpful. When you ask the first responder "Have you ever seen this problem, do you know what this is?" They will answer in a friendly way, whether they PERSONALLY have seen a problem that appears, in their experience, to be identical.

You are NOT asking the question you likely intended to ask, which is more "Has anyone at Apple ever seen this before and know what it is?"

If they were completely honest they would say they did not know. More importantly, they will not know until this problem is thoroughly studied in Engineering and the reason for the problem is discovered, including exactly which Macs are affected, and a solution is propagated back throughout the company.

All of that takes TIME. It will not be a top priority for Apple to do this Engineering work until MANY users report it as a problem. And it takes a formal contact with Apple Support (not just a posting on this User-to-User forum) to get them to tally the results, recognize that there is a problem here, and start an investigation.

To everyone reading these postings:

If you have not reported your specific details and sought a solution from Apple Support, please do that as soon as possible. Unless/Until there are MANY formal reports of problems that are still unsolved, Apple (as a corporation) does not yet know that this is a serious problem. You can use the "Contact Support" link at the top of any forum page. Being selfish helps everyone.

When i connect an external Display to my Macbook Pro 16 the battery will last max. 2,5 hours (internal display off)! My old Macbook Pro 15 Late 2013 made it the whole work day on battery connected to this external display.

The terminal command pmset -g rawbatt tells me, that the macbook pulls nearly -4000mA* while connected to a external display! Crazy!

*without external display its arround -900 to -1200mA

I am on my 2nd MacBook Pro 16" due to fan noise issues. The turbo boost app certainly does help for those desperate for a solution but we are all very disappointed after having spent 4k on a high end laptop to deal with this problem.

At first I purchased the I9 16" and had the fan issues, when I tired to connect my brother's 15" I7 MacBook Pro and it works perfectly fine so I returned the I9 and got the I7 thinking it would solve the problem. The I7 has the same issue. Fan noises for no reason.

Truly don't know what else to do.

APPLE Please help

I went with the 5300 not wanting to complicate things. Weirdly the temp is much cooler then the I9 but the fans are still running. On my I9 the temp was usually bw 70-78. Now it is bw 57-67.

Hoping they come out with a software update.

Without the external monitor it runs perfectly quiet.

I just received a MacBook, 2.6 i7, 5300. Whisper quiet and no fan issues. I've opened a multicam 4k project and rendered a project. MacBook gets hot when doing that but the fans have not been an issue so far (I've had it for 2 days).

Yes, it's definitely a problem with the Radeon (hopefully just a driver or software issue) but they need to fix it SOON! because this is a Pro machine so it's expected to be connected to an external monitor.

Yes, the problem is definitely when connected to an external monitor, I used mine (i9 processor with AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 8 GB) for almost 6 hours today without an external monitor and it worked perfectly fine, the minute I connected the external monitor the machine started getting hot and the fans went crazy.

For the last couple of days I was not able to work as expected because of this problem. Apple needs to fix this problem SOON because it's affecting my work.

Hey everyone! 

I have been following this thread for a while as I plan on getting a 16” MBP myself soon. To those of you who had a chance to compare the standard i7 and i9 configurations, do both of them stay silent without a monitor attached or is there any difference? 

I am mainly interested in low to medium loads like fairly basic 4K video editing (with just 2-3 layers), would be okay with fans kicking in during export, that’s expected, just would prefer to not have them heard during the editing process. 

Thanks!

Hey everyone! 

I have been following this thread for a while as I plan on getting a 16” MBP myself soon. To those of you who had a chance to compare the standard i7 and i9 configurations, do both of them stay silent without a monitor attached or is there any difference? 

I am mainly interested in low to medium loads like fairly basic 4K video editing (with just 2-3 layers), would be okay with fans kicking in during export, that’s expected, just would prefer to not have them heard during the editing process. 

Thanks!