MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise

Thank you for your helpful response. I can live with the keyboard, but fan noise to me indicates(as it happens in both windows AND Mac) that Jony Ives quest to add more thinness means you have a loud noisy laptop when using it for "pro" applications.

"Well this thread is about the 16" and my fans are not noisy. I edit on Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for a living."

Please try with an external monitor and report back to us, it would be interesting to see if you experience issues also.

Mine is also 5300 i9 2.6 connected to 3 monitors (Full HD), with zero fan noise or overheating issues.

I think it has something to do with it.

Although Catalina drives me crazy, sometimes one monitor just goes off with no reason, I just unplug and replug it and it works again.

IMHO Catalina is just a buggy release...

Just want to chime in I have the exact same problem.

MacbookPro 16inch 1TB/32GB/5500/8core

When I connect an external monitor the fans ramp up like crazy and the aluminium near the touchbar heats up too. Probably not great for the CPU/GPU when it's that hot. I really hope it can be fixed with a software update since this is nuts.

5500m GPU-8GB

64GB RAM

I do not have a noticeable heat problem, BUT it was pointed out to me that when I installed istat that my RHS wattage is lowest when nothing plugged in (.7W) and a little higher (7W) when connected to the dock that has 2-4k displays and much higher (20W) when 1 screen is plugged in directly to the laptop and the laptop is open.

My fans rarely turn on to an audible level no matter the configuration. When I am loading large images, exporting a lot of images, or when using FCPx and it's building previews or exporting.

I am very impressed with the power of this machine. There does seem to be some kind of a bug though as I don't think the wattage should change based up on what is plugged in or whether the screen is opened or closed. It seems it should change based up on it's usage instead. Of course, 4k has many more pixels than the built in screen but that doesn't account why 2-4k's through a dock uses less than 1 4k connected directly.

Basically those thermal problems are on all mac books at least since 2013. There are different sources for heat.

CPU, GPU, battery and USB/thunderbolt connections.

At home I am running continuously a late 2013 (4 core 15 inch Mac Book Pro Catalina (10.15.3)) having two desk fans cooling it down. Without it the CPU would be throttled down on all cores (temperature around 100C) and it would become unusable after a few minutes of running. This does not happening in El Capitan. So here the software may be at fault (maybe different thermal thresholds). With external cooling Catalina runs fast and stable.

The batteries of all my mac books (17 inch late 2008, 15 inch late 2013, 15 inch 2018) were bulging (you feel less play on the touchpad over a few years and more heat on the palm).

This is easy to fix. Just offer laptops which are not ultra thin and make the batteries replaceable so users can replace batteries regularly. It is probably Apple's intention to make laptop unrepairable, not upgradable and super thin that is causing those problems. If I would not depend on XCode and other Mac OS only software I would just dump them. Most competitors produce better hardware for less money.

Max Tech on YouTube claims to have a solution to this problem. Looks like he even has screengrabs from this discussion in video.

As my machine got returned you lot can test out whether this works/is workable for yourselves.

TailsDog wrote:

And before someone explains to me again for the nth time connecting a 4 or 5k monitor is a such GPU intensive situation that it causes massive heat and GPU power consumption. Well how come a tiny fan-less $120 mini pc with windows 10 can do it without a struggle?

With nowhere near the performance of the Radeon Pro GPUs.

William Kucharski wrote:

With nowhere near the performance of the Radeon Pro GPUs.

Exactly, and they do it with nowhere near the supposed efficiency and power savings of the Radeon Pro GPUs.

To be honest, without using an external monitor this machine is very good it can really do things quick at a decent temperature. I would be very happy with it if I didn't need to plug it in to a monitor.

I'm also having this annoying fan noise, minutes after connecting an external tv.

Even without using the computer, keeping it completely IDLE, the fans are at ~4500 rpm!

In Activity Monitor I see this:

I am connected to my tv for about 4 hours now.

PLEASE FIX THAT APPLE, THANK YOU.

DPJ wrote:

" Expects to buy $4K+ machine and then look for third party hacks to bring it to behave normally."

The behavior in the Windows world every single day of the year and for some unseen and ridiculous reason those Windows users tolerate it and never give up. A fan in the MacBook that actually cools the machine to reduce/eliminate throttling is trashed by some users here as if a crime was committed by Apple. Asking for help here is what this forum is for and there are a great deal of people willing to help, but coming here and starting up new accounts (which happens daily here) simply to trash Apple and combat anyone who has a positive word to say and is not experiencing these issues is not what this forum is for.

You seem determined to miss the valid points raised by users here. The fan noise occurs when the machine is not being pushed, it seems to overheat for no reason at all. The fan noise is a by product of overheating for no reason and is also very annoying too. One of the reasons I use Macs is that they are usually very quiet. When I took my 16" back to the Apple store to be checked out, the technician said it's certainly not meant to behave like that.

What is counterproductive here, is people who do not have the issue come on to try and make out that Apple is perfect and we are imagining problems. Plus the only people complaining are Apple users and it's specifically because they have a duff product. Some who may have recently created an account because they now have a problem they need help with or are new Mac users.

Also the main difference between PCs and Macs is that the hardware and software with pretty rare exceptions are made by different companies. And PCs are usually a fraction of the price.

I’ve never once made Apple to be perfect. What I have mentioned is every new problem filled with comments saying they have the same problem are 100% all new accounts. Some will see that as an hidden agenda to grab the attention of the company. Saying that the 16” MBP is overheating with loud fan noise and doing absolutely no tasks is something I’ve never experienced. Therefore it leaves the fact that your machine is faulty and it’s not an issue unique to the 16”. Obviously your machine is defective.

Maybe it's just a lot of people who bought the new MacBook Pro 16" because it was what they were looking for and found the issue? There actually is nothing comparable to the 16" MacBook Pro out on the market especially for pro use.

And I wouldn't be surprised if most 'pro' users like myself use multiple monitors for their work, so it's kind of a natural thing to happen a lot of Apple newbies are getting into and as power users are having the same issues.

That isn't correct Tim. In the video where I address how to "fix" or workaround this issue my specced out 16" was in-fact receiving 97 watts of power from the Pro display XDR. I spent a half hour testing with a 4K thats connected through USB-C where the Mac was receiving power (but not as much) and then the 5K which I think provides 87 watts and after I spent about 4-5 hours testing the rest with the ProDisplay XDR.

Yes this issue ***** and hopefully apple can fix or improve it but have you had a chance to test out competing windows laptops? I've tested 3 with 8 core i9's and heat issues are present and fans are worst while having larger chassis with more cooling capabilities. My video has already helped so many people in the comments so I'm glad at least there are some things we can do right now. https://youtu.be/EkmdHVfk4XE

[I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.]

I was reluctant from participating anymore in this thread as my comments are getting deleted for no good reason.

But felt the urge to give you shout out for the amazing job you have done to get some work arounds for this consistent issue. Thank you!

You have done something that Apple should have done and acknowledged, but somehow Apple didn't! so again Thank you!

With that said, I don't believe using third party tools to bring a brand new machine to a normal behavior (no noise is expected while the device is idle) is a solution. Add to that if any of these third party tools caused any hardware failure, it wouldn't be fair to expect Apple to fix this failure; so it is better to have official solution so we can hold Apple warranty accountable for the machines.