MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise

RICHD101 wrote:

William,

It is irresponsible to diagnose anyone’s computer without physically 

diagnosing it. It is irresponsible to tell people who’s computers are running extremely

Hot and experience fans ramping up to 5000 rpm under light tasks that “

 it's handling the task in a way differently than 

you expect

i feel your answer might be misleading to less tech savy customers . Based on your answer should we all stop looking for solutions?

I'm not trying to "diagnose" anyone's system remotely, but rather note that fans coming on is the way the MBP is designed to deal with heat building up within the chassis and does not in and of itself mean the machine is "broken" or "faulty."

The fact that apparently I did not experience the issue with my Dell monitor and others have had no issues seems to indicate there is a particular combination of interfaces and monitors that seems to exacerbate this issue, but that, once again, does not mean the MBP 16 is defective in any way.

Whether there is a driver or GPU issue that causes greater power consumption or heat generation than necessary is something that remains to be seen.

I have no issues whatsoever with people experimenting to get temperatures down if that's how they choose to spend their time, and I have on multiple occasions urged those with such data to send it on directly to Apple Support:

Contact - Official Apple Support

and/or to send feedback:

Feedback - MacBook Pro - Apple

Both of those methods of contact are much more reliable in getting Apple's attention than posting here.

Just to add my voice to the chorus:

I'm disappointed that after upgrading from my mid-2012 MacBook Pro to the 2019 16" i9/5500M, my office is now a much noisier working environment. Merely plugging in my old 1080p monitor (DVI->USBC) causes the fans to audibly start spinning at a minimum of 3000 RPM.

I had grown used to having a virtually silent computer on my desk as a result of my experiences with my 2012 MBP, 2008 MBP, ... and going all the way back to my G4 powerbook. This MacBook Pro is distractingly noisy while it is doing virtually nothing other than extending my desktop to an external 1920x1200 DVI monitor.

I appreciate that this doesn't necessarily mean my Mac is broken. However I was hoping to use this computer for 5+ years, and if it's running this hot every day for 10+ hours, I can't imagine it will survive for that long.

What I find inexcusable is that Apple has already been down this road before. The 2011 MacBook Pro had this same exact problem. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4017927 Those of us who owned a 2011 remember that after about 3 years, the GPU got cooked. Fortunately, Apple acknowledged problems with the GPU, and offered an extended warranty replacement for that particular computer.

I upgraded from the 2011 MacBook Pro to the 2012 MacBook Pro *only* because it solved the problem of the fans kicking on when I plugged in my external monitor.

How ridiculous is it that this issue has come back in 2019, when powering a 1920x1200 monitor should be easier than ever? I can't stress how important having a silent work environment is to me. I may actually end up downgrading back to my 2012, much as I'd miss all the amazing things about this 16" computer.

William Kucharski wrote:

OK, I've been running a full screen HD video on the Dell screen for the past thirty minutes:

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/edf6e544-0cc8-4a39-bb75-a0472fcabdd8

The output from powermetrics:

**** SMC sensors ****

CPU Thermal level: 54

GPU Thermal level: 4

IO Thermal level: 4

Fan: 2126.82 rpm

CPU die temperature: 71.31 C

GPU die temperature: 70.00 C

CPU Plimit: 0.00

GPU Plimit (Int): 0.00 

Number of prochots: 0

Other info:

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/8b25b2fa-f08c-4c29-b4d3-224843f4a8fd

Shall I give you my 5 year old machines numbers? After 5 years of development we returned back to 20 years temperature wise.. If you are old enough you might remember computers creating constant heat at idle..

denizcan wrote:

What I want from my laptop is not that simple.. What I want is:

Being dead silent.. I moved all the noise creating systems outside of my room, and I want to concentrate on my job, not a hair dryer.. This so called "computer" is the only thing that creates noise in my room..

2. Nice keyboard (check)

3. Nice enough display (check)

If #1 is not there, I do not care the rest.. Really I DO NOT CARE!

Then you'd best investigate other brands of laptop that promise that, right in their specifications; the MacBook Pro does not and never has. Even the new Mac Pro is not completely silent in operation, and the fans in my iMac are always whirring perceptibly but softly.

The situation you describe with fans ramping up and the machine resetting is not thermal shutdown; that sounds like a kernel panic and is something you should discuss further with Apple Support directly as it may be a hardware issue with your machine.

Contact - Official Apple Support

Hi ryunokokoro, I just wanted to mention that I am also experiencing this on my Late 2013 15" rMBP.

If my memory is correct, it was working fine with an external 4K monitor until a major OS update, and then whenever the GPU was being stressed it caused the CPU to throttle down to 800MHz.

I am not aware of any concrete solutions, but you might want to check out this thread if you haven't already:

MacOS Sierra / kernel_task problem

denizcan wrote:

Couldn't you just share the info you gathered via command line, instead of saying "I don't have.."?

I did:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250878229?answerId=252862166022#252862166022

mcnuggetswithcheese wrote:

Hi ryunokokoro, I just wanted to mention that I am also experiencing this on my Late 2013 15" rMBP.

If my memory is correct, it was working fine with an external 4K monitor until a major OS update, and then whenever the GPU was being stressed it caused the CPU to throttle down to 800MHz.

If this "massive throttling with external monitors connected" issue isn't a bug that Apple plans to fix, then it feels as though they should stop advertising full support for external monitors. What's the point of connecting an external monitor if the second a core component of the device starts to act up, the machine grinds itself to a screeching halt?

mcnuggetswithcheese wrote:

I am not aware of any concrete solutions, but you might want to check out this thread if you haven't already:

MacOS Sierra / kernel_task problem

Looked into it but there was nothing there for me. Thanks for the reference, though!

Guys I did a Catalina vs Mojave test on my Late 2013 Retina MBP 15" w/ 16GB RAM and Nvidia Geforce GT 750M w/ 2GB RAM.

I tested idle w/ built in display only vs idle w/ ext display at 1920x1080 (FullHD, 1080p, 60Hz). See attached screen shots.

Catalina: 20W built-in display -> 39W w/ ext display, 69 deg C, Fans around 3800RPM

Mojave: 9W built-in display -> 30W w/ ext display, 64 deg C, Fans around 2000RPM

Same hardware, same test, different OS. Two interesting observations:

1. The Geforce 750M draws identical power for both OS's: about 20W
2. Under Catalina CPU temp = 69 deg C and the fans ramp up to almost 4000RPM. Under Mojave CPU temp = 66 deg C and the fans stay below 2000RPM. Seems like Catalina is taking a more performance bracing approach

I will test the same with our 30 inch Apple Cinema Display.

I've hardly done work using connected ext displays since upgrading to Catalina. Now that I hear the fan blowing all the time I long to the days where my machine was quiet. 3800RPM is not too noisy, but that is when idle. When I actually start opening apps like Adobe Lightroom the fans reach 5000 + easily by merely scrolling through some images in library mode. This used to be silent under Mojave. Maybe I'll just downgrade again. However having to do without notes and reminders is not a pleasant perspective.

It should allow me to choose at least lower refresh rates. I also saw a web page on apple.com advertising the native screen's refresh rate can be changed but no such option has ever been avail.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT210742

Only if product is not defective, otherwise customer has one year warranty, and if issue is covered by

https://www.apple.com/legal/warranty/

it should be either fixed, or replaced, also it is even possible to replace item by more advanced model and pay diff. (sounds meaningful for 5600 model)

I understand I should prove it.

"Only if product is not defective, otherwise customer has one year warranty, and if issue is covered by

https://www.apple.com/legal/warranty/"

That's only provided that Apple sees this as an issue after doing proper testing. If they don't see anything actually defective they won't replace the product simply because the consumer doesn't like the fan noise. And replacements are done by a necessary repair that is done after 3 times in service for the same issue.

JavaExpert wrote:

Only if product is not defective, otherwise customer has one year warranty, and if issue is covered by

https://www.apple.com/legal/warranty/

That's just it, it's not defective.

The computer is not failing to do anything its specifications state it will, it simply is running its fans at a higher speed than some customers would like to keep itself cool.

TimUzzanti wrote:

Throughout our six months of testing 16inch MBP’s, we also experienced screen corruption issues, text artifacts on laptop and external displays,  frequent SMC resets to bring back machines that wouldn’t boot, and most recently and most concerning has been the rapid decline of battery health with very low cycles.

Just to be clear, note that all three of these things definitely are items Apple Support should be notified of immediately for anyone experiencing them with their system, regardless of whether fan speeds are unacceptable to you or not.

Contact - Official Apple Support

Hi Tim - great to hear your report about the 13s. Sadly, my experience has been rather different. I've spent only one day with a new 2020 MBP 13" (2.3 GHz i7, 10th gen with Iris Plus), and the fans are screaming with a 4k monitor, the lid open and light load (25% CPU, 20% GPU). Ironically, I'm using my 16" in preference because it is "quieter".

I've posted some numbers on a separate thread (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251533161).

It's all rather disappointing...

This is how watching 720p video in chromium-based browser looks like. Activity monitor shows GPU load at about 5%.

My primary guess for getting fan spin is

• use full hd or 2.5k 60hz display
• use GPU-related features in chromium browsers or in electron-based applications