MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise

That's crazy, and as predicted by many people here the power consumption of the GPU was the result of a defect and not normal operations (unless Apple knowingly shipped defective machines because they are prepared to argue it's normal operating to use 19W running sub 480p resolution and 5W running 2x at 1080p).

This sounds really like an AMD driver/firmware issue

Really hope you're right but the last generation AMD GPUs appear to have had this specific problem for their entire lifes..

Guys, ignore those who aren't interested in helping us resolve our issue, if you're dealing with someone who claims they don't have time to send you a screenshot but keep coming back here to argue or people who suggest you spend more money buying other Apple products they're not here to help you and you will be 'dissapeared' for engaging.

Having installed the latest drivers for the Radeon 5500M running in bootcamp I discovered something interesting:

https://youtu.be/n-MbwxfR--s

Setting the scaling mode to 'center' of one monitor with the resolution of both monitors set to be the same the memory clock spikes, if the scaling mode is anything lese, both monitors are the same resolution and the lid is closed the memory clock drops and the fans eventually calm down.

Clearly there is a defect in the hardware design or drivers.

Built in monitor only: 190

clamshell with one monitor connected: 190

both: 1400 (unless running both at 1920x1200 then 190)

This is with no load, obviously.

I couldn't find anything in the drivers to change the power profile, I installed the 'blue' drivers, the 'red' drivers might have something like that.. might be worth looking into.

Good point - in the interests of trying everything including the kitchen sink, I just did mirrored displays and took the resolution as low as 1152 x 648. Still stuck at 20 W power consumption in the dGPU.

So I think I understand this pretty well. My point is that there are really only 3 meaningful combinations, and I can't find any evidence to support the idea that the interface makes a difference. What I see is:

• Internal monitor only: ~5 W
• Internal + external monitor: 20 W
• External monitor only: ~ 6 W

I cannot find any combination of resolution, refresh rate, mirroring, same settings between internal and external, different settings between internal and external, interface cable, dock, no dock, any of it, that makes any difference. And believe me, I've tried every combination I can think of. The only defining characteristics (for me) are the three dot points above.

I get the theory, but it just doesn't seem to make a difference in practice.

@David - to your comment - I'm not left with much. I will test a direct connection between MBP and monitor with a TB3 to DP cable (when it arrives). But I'll be super surprised if I don't get the same results. That is, ~20 W with both monitors running, and ~6 W with only the external.

Because I can already get low power (~6 W) running only the external monitor using a legacy interface, I don't think the interface actually matters. Sure, there might be a technical difference in theory, but it doesn't seem to make a meaningful difference in practice.

I will be celebrating if I am wrong, and a TB3 to DP cable gets me <20 W with both monitors running, but it can't be possible that, 112 pages later, no-one has tried it yet. So I'm not that optimistic.

It’s most probably a driver issue and given that Nvidia has sorted a similar issue, we expect nothing less than a solution from Apple or AMD. Then we finally can come back to normal from this nightmare and use our premium laptops efficiently.

Worked now my 2rd day with my new MacBook Pro 16" 2019 (16 GB, 1TB, i9 2,3 GHz, 8-core).

Just doing normal work, got MS Team running Microsoft Remote Desktop, The Macbook Pro is connected to an external  monitor.

I am same problems with the noise of the fans, checked the activity monitor which does not show any apps which consume much energy. Don't understand why fans are constantly running.

Used to work with my old MacBook Pro Late 2013 in the same setup where the fans were most of the time dead silent. Been reading the comments here going back to 12/19, it seems there is no fix by Apple yet. So will be sending this back!!

Yes, it's crazy but using 144 hertz has solved my problem (except for the issue I mentioned before with Quicktime).

As you can see, I'm using the higher resolution available for this monitor and still only using 8 watts.

I always use mine with a close lid, but I just opened the lid for a few minutes and it was using 18/19 watts but the temperature was at 60 degrees (when using 144 Hertz), I think it was higher before when I was using 60 hertz. The fans were at 1900 RPM but to be fair I only used it like that for 5 minutes.

Can confirm sadly that running an external display through the Caldigit TS3+ display port out does not solve the heat issue indicating that the dock even when only powering through display port is treating itself as a 'legacy display'.

My ultrawide is an ASUS and supports up to 100hz refresh through g-sync but unfortunately when connected via display port though the dock MacOS doesn't recognise the refresh rate can go to 100hz so I can't test what will happen if it goes over 60hz (this may be because it uses g-sync or because of the dock).

Has anyone confirmed if they don't have issues running using thunderbolt 3 to display port? (adapters or cables, let me know what you used).

"It’s a shame that is been a few months already and Apple and AMD still didn't’ fix this issue, what it worries me is that using the machine with the external monitor for 2 months with this driver/software issue will shorten the life of the machine and I will start having problems when the warranty expires."

Might be a good idea for you to sell the machine at this point and either get an older MacBook or look into some Windows options because your machine is apparently preventing you from getting your work done.

To add to the above - when the lid is closed with two monitors connected as long as all external displays have a 16:10 aspect ratio resolution, even if they are different, there is no memory clock spike - I haven't tested all possible combinations but haven't found a single combination of 16:10 resolutions that don't work.

With the lid open all bets are off, even with all resolutions set to the same and 16:10 memory clock goes nuts.

Ok with the lid open I can get the memory clock down with 1280x720 resolutions across the board. Not bad... for 2005 😂 I seem to be able to make the macbook monitor resolution reach 1536x(some nonesense) but anything above 1600 horizontal pixels and the memory clock goes haywire.

The best I've managed is:

1280x1024 on asus ultrawide monitor

1536x900 on dell 4k

1536x900 on MacBook display.

I wonder if there's just some magic number of pixels that the display needs to push before it goes crazy...

With the AMD drivers it appears I can make up display resolutions, I wonder if there's a way to set all resolutions to something the GPU isn't offended by and scale up to the real resolution somehow...

dhia32 wrote:

topvideo-tv I went into safe mode, opened two Safari tabs, and launched a youtube video. Fan speed rose above 3000rpm. Laptop closed, external USB type-C monitor connected, 2560 x 1440 60Hz.

caution: Safe Mode does not load the graphics acceleration Drivers. What you see in Safe Mode does not translate directly to regular mode.