MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise

I am wondering "that solved it for me" means. I tried so many different displays but none of them solved the problem for me. I recently bought a Dell UltraSharp U2520D 25 Inch QHD (2560 x 1440) LED Backlit LCD IPS USB-C for a different MacBook Pro. Immediately after plugging it in, the dGPU consumed ≈20W. But that is not a Thunderbolt 3 display. When I connect my iPad Pro via USB-C and use it as an external monitor, the dGPU power consumption stays low. The WIFI was switched off. Your and my observation, and reports that eGPUs solved the fan problem would point towards using Thunderbolt 3 in general doesn't have the problem of the dGPU burning 20W. I would be great to hear form other people using a Thunderbolt 3 display.

BTW, can you send me a link to your monitor or check the model number. I am not finding your exact model.

Besides this, I agree with you that it is unacceptable that Apple sold such flawed or even defective units. That is definitely not what you expect when you buy a high end model like the 16'' for over $3.3k. I already went through the typical Apple support calls reported by others. They first state they never heard about the fan noise problem. You then go through the reset procedures. without success. Install some of their software and allow them to download 500MB of system information. Then you wait days until their "expert team" determines that there is nothing wrong with your machine and that this is normal behavior. I wanted this in writing, but Steve refused to send me a written statement. I am pretty sure they know about this problem since a long time and maybe even before it went on the market. A sign for this is that the fans are switched off when you use Siri. The fans were obvious so loud that Siri did not work reliably.

They may be aware or not. I agree with Grant Bennet-Alder, as I’ve also posted, that everyone with this problem should take it to to the Apple support. They are willing to listen to you. Try the solutions they suggest. Finally they will escalate it and the more people do this, the higher are the chances that it gets noticed.

Of course it could be a charade, but if I was Apple and had to pay support staff to listen to this problem, I would take a look at it. Support employee time is money.

Take a DisplayLink adapter and you will be happy for many use cases. I did the same. When I am on the way MacBook is strong - at home I use a DisplayLink which lets the MacBook stay calm - unless I do heavy processing and fan is expected.

Grant, your replies are not helpful, and I am wondering how you got your >100,000 points. Definitely not for your recent comments here.  They are not helpful.

I agree that everybody with a problem should contact Apple if they have a major problem, even if you don’t expect that they will help you. It puts more pressure on Apple to address the problem. In this way you are helping the community. 

Many of us here and other places already went through the process that Grant suggests with the same result.  They told us that the fan noise is “expected behavior” when you connect an external monitor. I wanted this in writing, but they refused.  Steve from Apple support even suggested to me to go to this forum to seek help. No help from Apple. That’s why I am here. 

My first question and my comments got magically deleted and I had to rewrite them. Only after I posted them again, my first version suddenly appeared again. I now write my comments first in a Word document and copy them over so that I don’t have to write them again when they magically disappear.

Again, I am here to hear if anybody found a solution.  I no longer expect the Apple engineers to offer one.  That is why I said at the end of my first post that it seems that the Apple engineers need some help.

From the many reports and comments I saw at different locations, there is no way they don’t know about the problem. After thinking about it, there is almost no chance that they did not know about it when they introduced the MPB 16'' to the market in November 2019.  Do we believe that none of the engineers came up with idea to plug in external monitor and did not notice the loud fan noise?  Of course not.  I am pretty sure they knew about it. Therefor the Apple support comment that this is “expected behavior”.  We did not expect this behavior, but they did.  They already knew it.  At least on my Macbook Pro, the fans switch transiently off when I use Siri.  The fan made obviously already so much noise during the testing that it affected Siri’s function.  To introduce the MBP 16’’ to the market despite the problems was probably rational business calculation. How many customers and reputation do we lose over how much money will we make with it.  Now they just try to minimize the financial damage to them.

Back to solving the problem!

So far, it seems that only a few things worked for people

1.     Buying an eGPU

That is an expensive solution, and I am not sure you gain much by having an external graphics card that burns over 500W and has three big fans. Maybe people that did that can leave a comment here of how it worked for them.  I looked into this solution and there is quite a history there too. 

2.     Somebody above reported success by buying a Thunderbolt display.  That is not a cheap solution either but would be at least a solution for some professionals (if it actually works).  What speaks for this solution from my side is that if I connect my iPadPro as an external display via sidecar using a Thunderbolt cable while switching WiFi off, there is no problem.   The dGPU uses only 0.1W and the fans stay calm.

3.     ItuneTux above reported using a DisplayLink adapter and that this solved the problem for him. Maybe he/she can give us more details about this solution.  Which model exactly?  How much? Is the quality oaky?

Hi

this is of course an inherent flaw that can’t be fixed without changing the whole MacBook Pro 16 design.

would cause millions of dollars to Apple.

use your warranty and get a refund: you won’t be able to use those MBP16 without using display link or Egpu, which is not possible fir you I guess as you would be forced to buy one egpu for every MBP16.

get a refund, and buy MacBook Pro m1.. if it fits your needs. And if you are angry at Apple, then buy a Windows laptop.

Can you send a screenshot that includes the configuration of your computer and iStats results similar to what Dogcow-Moof

posted recently? That would be really helpful and get us beyond whether 2400rpm are annoying or not. I am particular interested whether the Radeon High Side uses less power when when you use an eGPU. As we just learned, this is not true for using a mDP adapter.

Thanks for sharing. Same issue here with the 16-inch. Never had any issues on the 2015 Macbook either.

I reported it and after long phone calls and doing a lot of tests Apple says it is normal behavior. They didn't want to confirm that in writing though, only on the phone.

romain89 wrote:

Absolutely not a software issue, otherwise believe me, it would be fixed.

It's a hardware DESIGN issue. There is not enough space for the components to cool down and it's worst if you use the discreet GPU because that's the main culprit : the d-gpu draws too much power and heats too much !

It's not a design issue.

The CPU and GPU draw generate a set amount of heat, and the fan works to cool down the interior for the amount of heat generated.

You don't like the speed the fan needs to run to do that.

Dogcow-Moof wrote:

What has been relayed to you is what AMD has said on other forums regarding their GPUs:

You can feel free to accept it or not, but they're the ones who would need to make any changes and they feel it is working as designed.

So Apple should maybe set their computer in a way that would allow them to use external display for simple task without using the dGPU ...

Note also the dGPU only drives external monitors and the onboard GPU drives the laptop screen, so clamshell mode shuts off the internal GPU, reducing the heat generated somewhat.

So if the lid uses the internal GPU, and I can honestly believe you, can you explain me why the power consumption of the dGPU drops from 18W to 5W as soon as I close my MBP? There is an issue here and that's it. If not and according to what you said, there should be no impact on the dGPU power consumption by closing the laptop.

Have you tried to connect your laptop to a new type of monitor i.e. LG 27UL850-W 4K HDR with a USB-C cable without any adapters?

I've never seen that, ever, on mine.

Have you contacted Apple Support directly?

Contact - Official Apple Support

I am not an expert in fans either, but I know that the minimum fan speed on my mac is around 1750rpm and the max around 5500rpm, so I would manually set the speed between the two, around 3000RPM.

If my GPU or CPU was overheating, I would go back to automatic mode until it cooled down.

Hope this helps you.

I agree that it is very difficult to focus, especially when working on critical listening materials pertaining to my career. I had "updated" computers recently in hopes of making my job easier...these 16" MacBook Pros are a complete joke. I'm on my second one now, upgrading to an i9 on this one, with no difference at all. I've currently got a 32BG RAM 1TB SSD i9 in my 2019 MacBook Pro running OSx 10.15.7. These fans just NEVER stop and it is SO loud and HOT!....Even at my CPU load at 1% load...crazy! And I randomly get CPU overloads, again on this MacBook too. I can't afford to keep sending these back and trying again. This needs fixed!

Latest update in my noisy MBP 16" saga ... I have now spent a lot of money on trying to sort this out, and have made some progress with the help of this thread. My machine (i9, 5500M) is now pretty quiet under normal usage (browsing etc.) with two 4k monitors connected in addition to the built in display:

• Dell U3219Q connected via USB3 cable to a port on the LHS
• LG 27UL500 connected via DP through a Caldigit TS3+ which is connected via TB to a port on the RHS

Right now the fans are running at around 2300 rpm which is totally fine for everyday browsing etc., but unfortunately when running Logic Pro (the main reason I bought this machine!) it spikes up significantly and for even a simple project with a few tracks it runs around 5000rpm. This is too loud for detailed editing and definitely too loud for recording in the same room.

At this point I'm just going to live with it, disconnect the external monitors when recording and wait until sufficient time has elapsed to justify a new machine. Given that this is my 11th Mac (first was a Mac SE in the late 80's) and my house is full of Apple stuff I guess it will end up being an M-series machine anyway.

I tried this in the Apple store - Apple certified cables, monitor etc. They opened up safari and played a 4k video, fans shot up to 4,200 rpm.

They then buttered me up saying "The fans are dissipating the heat, as expected". I pointed out the noise of the fans (slightly hard to hear because of the noise of the store) but they acknowledged the fans were at a high speed, none the less.

They then took it for a few days and it came back "working within specification".

So no luck.

I likened it to a car where the airbags go off when you hit a butterfly.

Yes the airbags work, yes it works in a "collision" - but it's stupid.

The guy had a laugh, and said I'm best off returning it to the store I bought it from as Apple cannot do anything further for me.