MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise

William: Yes, they are hard to diagnose, especially because Apple has remained silent on these types of errors for the last couple of years. That makes it difficult for us to know what to do, and is why I returned the machine. We don't know whether the issues are hardware or software. If you go to the Apple Store, they'll run their test suite, but even they don't know whether the suite will detect this kind of error if it is hardware related. In my firsthand interactions, Apple Store employee's experience with these problems appears to be limited to cases they've personally handled at the store. Knowledge sharing at Apple should be broader.

From a corporate PR perspective, Apple's approach is understandable. But I don't think it's very fair for the customers. Last year, prev gen Macbook Pro users had similar kernel panics because of their webcams. Just like the current gen MBP kernel panic or fan noise issues, there was no guidance from Apple. It seems Apple finally provided a fix for the webcams in Catalina without telling anyone, but that was 5-6 months after the problems were first reported.

I'm not saying this to smear Apple. But I do think it points to areas where they can improve customer support.

FWIW, I actually meant especially difficult for even the best hardware and software engineers to diagnose.

Basically when this happens the CPU has encountered an unrecoverable error, and can't even leave a register dump to indicate what went wrong where.

The diagnostic folks at the Apple Store are good, but I'm talking Apple and Intel's most senior hardware engineers would have to catch the issue in the act with CPU-specific debug hardware like JTAGs connected, and even then it would be hard to track down.

Believe me, I took the time to look up the error message after my computer crashed the fourth time in the span of a few hours.

These errors are not unique to one or a handful of users. They're being replicated by a lot of people with the same machines. It's possible that some people with the same machines and same error messages may be experiencing different bugs, but it's likely that many are the same. That was certainly the case with the kernel panics caused by faulty webcam software. Given the volume of machines affected, I'm pretty sure Apple has the resources to replicate the errors on their own. However, some users even reported providing them with a step-by-step guide. In the past, with the webcam problem, users who escalated the situation also said that they'd been told Apple was aware of the issue long before the fix. Ditto for these MBP 16" kernel panics.

So diagnosing the problem is only part of the issue here. Bugs happen. They get fixed. The unreasonable part is that Apple doesn't alert their own support staff about what to watch for, nor do they publish guidance for end users. That leaves countless users to spend days of their time formatting hard drives, reinstalling OSs, resetting SMCs, etc., when some engineers at Apple know none of it will work. Presumably a software fix will eventually come out, but Apple's release notes won't mention it. This is where there's room for customer support improvement.

My MBP 16 was in sleep mode just now, came back to it and the fans were blaring full blast, extremely hot to touch and it would not wake up. Had to do a hard reboot.

Why is it getting so hot when asleep (no screensaver on) I guess the system just hung because of overheating.

Turn off "Power nap" -- where it wakes to sync files, check email, and do backups

System Preferences > Energy Saver

(remember that there are TWO sets of preferences there, one for Power adapter and one for Battery operation)

Agreed. That is not an exhaustive solution to unexpected wake-ups.

I should have written something like:

"the first thing to try is to turn off the most obvious possible causes of unexpected wakeups, the enabling of power nap"

Today I started a video conference today using Zoom and after 5 minutes the machine went crazy, the fans were running at 5200 RPM and the machine was at 90/95 degrees, just for using zoom and having an external monitor connected, the noise from the fans were so bad that it was not only bothering me but the people I was talking to as well so I had to end the call and disconnect the external monitor and setup the entire conference call again (with all the windows that I had opened).

When I was on the conference call today, one person was using a MacBook Pro 15-inch 2019 with an external monitor (a better resolution than mine) and he had no problems at all, he show me the screen and the fans were running at 1900 RPM, another user was using an iPad Pro, also no problem at all, but I have a $4500 machine and I had to end the video conference after 5 minutes...........

Tim, I could have written this exact same comment today. Remote working with Zoom, Chrome, and external monitor and a $3,000 MacBook “pro” and I’m light years behind my previous machine.

Let’s hope the Apple engineers are experiencing this firsthand themselves and push an update.

“I’m light years behind my previous machine.”

Indeed this is how I feel regarding this issue of connecting an external monitor. Previous machine was a late 2013 i7 MBP! The new one is a spec’d out 16 inch that arrived one month ago. Almost 4000 euros! Had to put up credit to buy it.

Welcome to the new Apple era :) where experience is pushed to the Nth place. This is a great example of no "visionary leadership", Apple feels just like any other company now. And this is unfortunate but true. I'm not ditching them, just it doesn't feel like the company we feel in love in.

I was fortunate enough to return my 16" MBP (loudness issues). My colleagues and a few friends, who stuck with this machine are furious, every day experiencing some issues. Also, we had a similar situation with zoom, one of my colleagues had to MUTE himself, disconnect from the external display, cool down the crazy fans, and back to conversation after a few minutes. That kind of "experience" is not right.

Of course, we can blame the horrible .js apps we are using (non-native/electron), but this is another topic where Apple's lack of QA is visible (allowing macOS apps to feel like the Windows ones).

I just hope Apple fixes that problem and spend more time on QA.

Because this is just ridiculous.

I will also need to provide online classes via zoom and things are not looking good. I’ll have to stick to using the laptop with no external monitor, something I’ve been doing for as long as a month now. Beginning to feel ridiculous using my laptop on a stand in front of my external display, which is disconnected and powered OFF.

Yes, it’s imposible to use an external monitor at this time, 5 minutes after I turned on the machine it was running at 95 degrees and the fans were running at 5200 RPM, the noise was so loud that the people on the conference call complained about it so I had to cancel the conference call, when I disconnected the external monitor, the desk (I have a glass desk), was so hot that I think you

can actually cook a steak...

Readers:

Don't let up on the pressure on Apple support for a solution. They don't necessarily take what is written here to heart, but they DO tabulate the complaints lodged at Apple support and at the feedback link.

Yeah, so as if overheating wasn't bad enough, my MBP 16 just got me a sticky Delete key. After removing the cap it turned out that one of the plastic pieces holding it together just flexed enough no to respond correctly.

Great. Now I own the most expensive paperweight ever, with nowhere to repair it :(

Wow still no fix from Apple after all this time. And it's even worse now????? Yeeeesh

At this point is there ever going to be a fix????

I guess I'll stick with 10.15.3 if the update makes the problem even worse....