MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise

ahmedfromreservoir wrote:

I just have sincere doubts the midtier and lower TDP Radeon 5500M that Apple chooses to use can be that much hotter than an RTX 2070.

But that's just it; AMD's GPUs use entirely different silicon and layouts and implementations of GPU features than NVIDIAs, and so they may indeed have wildly different thermal characteristics, depending on what each vendor chooses to emphasize in their silicon.

AMD Radeon™ Pro 5000M Series

I got my 16" at the end of November. I've not had the fan out of control issues but I have had the issue where it could not go into clamshell mode if it was connected to a thunderbolt dock (CalDigit TS3+). As soon as it was plugged in (while the computer was closed) it would go into a state of "seizure" where the mouse could be moved but the screen was unresponsive. The keyboard would respond with the caps lock light. After about 30 seconds it would reboot.

10.15.3 came out and fixed that problem.

For the fans, mine can usually go up to 300% in Activity monitor before they kick on. They will progressively increase as the cpu usage increases - up to 1500 %. This is in programs that are seriously working such as FCPx or Affinity loading massive art boards.

It's much more efficient than my 2019 15" and much more powerful. There have also been times when I hear the fans kick on and I'm not sure so I check and I see that a safari or chrome page has decided to take a bunch of resources. I just kill it and they are back down.

Since 10.15.3 I can say now that I finally recommend this laptop and Catalina.

brycesteiner wrote:

I got my 16" at the end of November. I've not had the fan out of control issues but I have had the issue where it could not go into clamshell mode if it was connected to a thunderbolt dock (CalDigit TS3+). As soon as it was plugged in (while the computer was closed) it would go into a state of "seizure" where the mouse could be moved but the screen was unresponsive. The keyboard would respond with the caps lock light. After about 30 seconds it would reboot.

10.15.3 came out and fixed that problem.

For the fans, mine can usually go up to 300% in Activity monitor before they kick on. They will progressively increase as the cpu usage increases - up to 1500 %. This is in programs that are seriously working such as FCPx or Affinity loading massive art boards.

It's much more efficient than my 2019 15" and much more powerful. There have also been times when I hear the fans kick on and I'm not sure so I check and I see that a safari or chrome page has decided to take a bunch of resources. I just kill it and they are back down.

Since 10.15.3 I can say now that I finally recommend this laptop and Catalina.

**** you got me excited, sadly I'm already on 10.15.3 with the issues you had.

Maybe it's time to send mine in for warranty, if you haven't had issues at all makes it more likely this is an issue witha few of them.

Has anyone here had success with Apple warranty on their macbooks fan issues?

Intellinto wrote:

Well, if you use your Macbook for commenting on posts as everyday use then ofc. it's silent. But i dont get why you are here if you dont have any issues.

To dispute the notion that this is a model defect that makes the product unusable and find out whether the same issues exist on other platforms that use as similar as possible a GPU.

Which is hilarious because Im sitting here commenting on my MacBook with the fans blaringly loud, I’m jealous that yours has no such issue 😅

What you’re doing is not helpful, I’m glad you have no issues with your MacBook but many people here do and we are trying to find a way to resolve it, not debate if it’s normal or a product defect as we have made up our minds based on our experiences.

Not exactly. In my opinion there is a defect causing abnormal power draw when external monitor is connected. But the nature of the defect is unknown to me, it either might be software or hardware related.

hatemal wrote:

I use iStat menu.

Thank you for that!

I just installed that and replicated your scenario (except I just had one external monitor running at 1080p connected because why not?)

I found that my GPU (Radoen Highside) was using 18.8w compared to yours being just under 9 when connected to the external monitor, so likely that's where the heat is coming from.

This reaffirms the theory it's the GPU causing the heating problems, will take it up with Apple support now.

I did some investigation and discovered the abnormal power draw of the 5500m ONLY occurs when there are two displays running at once, this includes the MacBook display.

So if I shut the lid on the MacBook and connect to one external display even at UHD it only draws less than 5W, the moment I connect a second external display or open up my MacBook lid it jumps to 20W.

I thought this might be a red herring, as in the macBook uses only intgrated graphics when only one display is connected so as an experiment I ran four 4k HDR videos on the screen, sure enough the power draw of Radeon highside went up as expected and caused the fans to speed up indicating that the MacBook was using the Radeon graphics.

So if any Apple engineers are reading this, my semi grounded theory is that the Radeon 5500m is buggy and its power usage disproportionately spikes up when powering more than one display.

Please look into it or hire me to look into it! I'm not a systems programmer but willing to learn :D

I had two configurations with MBP 16. 1) i7, 32gb, 5500 4gb; 2) i7, 32gb, 5300 4gb. And everywhere there was the same problem when connecting an external monitor. You are very lucky that you have no problems. Now I'm completely confused, I don't understand what the problem may be.

After following this post for almost a month, I did my best to do my own research about that issue.

I own the base model and also have these issues.

I can confirm that I have the same issue. While I'm using an external monitor and the MBP 16 screen, the watt usage of the GPU rising to almost 20 watts, what leads the MacBook pro to overheat (Which directly makes fans work more intensively). The temperatures in the idle state are around 60-celsius degrees.

BUT, while I'm connecting the MacBook pro to 2 monitors, and use the MacBook Pro in clamshell mode, the watt usage of the GPU is in the right range, and the temperatures too.

I know it does not satisfy any of us, but for now, I highly recommend everyone to use the laptop in clamshell mode with external monitor or even with 2 if needed. At least until the problem is resolved.

All we have left to do at this moment is to report the problem to the support/send feedback and hope the company will behave fairly towards those who have invested the most money for this product.

hatemal--

The link you posted is for Adobe support page concerning:

High CPU usage due to CEPHtmlEngine

The article says it was published March 2019. It includes links to download some fixes and tediously "Install" them by hand into the images for four Adobe products.

¿Has Adobe incorporated these fixes into current releases yet? what versions?

I have Adobe Products installed, Photoshop and Light-room but not running, also I have UAD Mk2 Audio Card over thunderbolt and I though this might cause the problem because they still did not updated the drivers for new version of OS so I turned it off as well. Now when on battery and two additional monitors turned on working in vscode and having browser opened with three tabs, fan becomes louder. When I turn it on power It becomes really loud very quickly. Even after turning of all the applications fan keeps raging until restart ... So for now I just run everything on battery and than recharge ... and I have to restart from time to time to cool it down. I just wander if I invested in better graphic card would it be nosier or with less noise ? Overall impression with my MBP 16, it looks great, keyboard feels great, I like the OS env but with the 32 Gbs and i9 I expected to be able to run quite a few programs simultaneously without feeling I am sitting in the data center. You can imagine what happens when I open my DAW (ableton) where i push the cpu to the edge ...

davidbenda wrote:

BUT, while I'm connecting the MacBook pro to 2 monitors, and use the MacBook Pro in clamshell mode, the watt usage of the GPU is in the right range, and the temperatures too.

For me that's not the case, I find it's only when there are two displays running I have issues:

Just MacBook: https://i.imgur.com/ZkHIUE6.png

Just external display in clamshell mode: https://i.imgur.com/ioceNWL.png

Two external monitors in clamshell or one external monitor with the lid open: https://i.imgur.com/9z03ocQ.png

I wouldn't be surprised if we both have the same issues just to varying degrees.

Hopefully Apple are aware, I know traditionally they don't acknowledge issues and just silently fix them so hopefully they do that again.

ahmedfromreservoir wrote:

Hopefully Apple are aware, I know traditionally they don't acknowledge issues and just silently fix them so hopefully they do that again.

No, no, no, no!

Apple Movers and Shakers DO NOT troll the forums looking for issues. They are perfectly happy with their products -- otherwise they would have delayed them and not shipped them at all.

Senior Contributors have tried to pressure Forum Management to pressure Engineering to look into issues, and the results are always the same:

Unless and until a large number of users report their issues through Apple Support, Engineering is not yet even acknowledging there is an issue.

PLEASE contact Apple support using your usual method, or use the "Contact support" link at the top of every forum page. Make sure they know this is a Problem, and do not let them go until they agree that you DO have an outstanding issue, and will file a report of the issue.

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

ahmedfromreservoir wrote:

Hopefully Apple are aware, I know traditionally they don't acknowledge issues and just silently fix them so hopefully they do that again.

No, no, no, no!

Apple Movers and Shakers DO NOT troll the forums looking for issues. They are perfectly happy with their products -- otherwise they would have delayed them and not shipped them at all.

Senior Contributors have tried to pressure Forum Management to pressure Engineering to look into issues, and the results are always the same:

Unless and until a large number of users report their issues through Apple Support, Engineering is not yet even acknowledging there is an issue.

PLEASE contact Apple support using your usual method, or use the "Contact support" link at the top of every forum page. Make sure they know this is a Problem, and do not let them go until they agree that you DO have an outstanding issue, and will file a report of the issue.

I should have clarified I will be contacing Apple support with my issues and probably sending it in to get looked at with my firmest request they run with multiple dispalys attached and not to just run whatever benchmarking tools they normally do.