MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise

William Kucharski wrote:

By what definition do you define "normal?"

If it's what the device does, and it doesn't conflict with what the specs say the device will do, why is it not normal?

A violation of your expectations? Sure.

A violation of the published specifications? In no way.

In 2020 normal is: Connecting an external monitor that has lower resolution than the internal display, does not cause consuming more power.. If a Raspberry Pi can drive a 4K monitor without a hitch, in a few watts; than this >$2000 piece of metal should do as well..

If a company defends the opposite of normal, than it is an imposter..

I have seen many laptops, and never seen one that ramps up the fans.. People use their laptop connected to external monitor all the time.. They take their machines to meetings, home, or to vacation.. That's todays "normal".. None of them ramp up their fans when they connect.. I can spot a MBP16 eyes closed when people go to launch.. That's absurd and ridiculous.. I think it is a problem as big as the butterfly keyboard toy was..

Hey guys I stumbled across this thread and haven’t crawled through the previous 173 pages just as yet. I have tested the 2020 air i5 (returned it because of loud fans) and a 2020 mbp 13 base model ($1299) got in after that.

talking about expectations id say mine are that a new 2020 16 inch mbp should run my favourite apps considerably more smoothly than my trusted late 2013 retina mbp. Also, I’d say 7000+ rpm fan speeds is a sign of heat which should only happen when driving the performance to the max.

the 2020 mbp 13 inch 1.4 ghz performs a lot better than the 2020 Air but it will still get On the hot side using a bit of office 365, music, mail and safari, but fans stay low or off. More than once I get unexpected 100 deg Celsius stalls and AM indicates a system process using full power. Fans go to 6000-7000 rpm. otherwise it runs ok.

Connecting the 2020 mbp 1.4 to a basic 24 inch ext display (1080p) goes well but there is a rise in processor freqUency but temp stays ok.

could it be that Catalina handles apps less efficiently than Mojave (I quite liked Mojave)?

i am in the market for 3 13 inch MBP’s for my school children by the end of August. But I am quite hesitant reading these reports and also I’m hesitant based on my own experience with the 2020 13”.

on top of this, now that I have upgraded my trusted late 2013 retina 15” MBP to Catalina it will start the fans more often than it used to under Mojave. Same device, different OS version.

Yes, the noise tolerance is subjective but the 18W increase is not.

I'll repeat that the product page is advertising that the laptop supports internal display + four 4k displays.

For many, just connecting one increase the temperature of the whole motherboard from 35°C to 60°C on idle.

The CPU temp also rise to a constant 100°C during max load with external displays.

Ask Louis Rossmann his opinion of having constant high temperature in your system!

If you plan to use external monitors with your 16", you are playing a dangerous game in the long run, unless you don't care about paying a lot more for a future repair / Apple care+.

This is weird. I absolutely believe you, don’t get me wrong. Moving from late 2013 to late 2019 should be progress right? For the last 6 years I’ve been using my late 2013 MBP retina 15” 2.3 b 16GB to an old 30” Apple Cinema Display, 2560x1600 resolution, running photoshop and Lightroom simultaneously, along with 10-20 safari tabs, Apple Music, apple mail open and some other apps like Dropbox syncing, cyberduck and some more. No audible fans at all, ever. Except when creating previews in Lightroom which is as designed.

I know 2560x1600 is not 4K, but this is 6 years on and its in the specs. So it should be able to run at least one 4K display and stay quiet like a good doggy. And - I repeat - there should be headroom lef to actually launch apps that take advantage of that display!

just to share: the 2020 13” 1.4 GHz MBP I am testing shows 0.3W idle and 2W when connected to a 1440x900 ext Iiyama 24” display. Using intel power gadget and turbo boost switcher to analyse.

I’ll test hooking it up to my 30” ACD tomorrow.

I don’t want to bash apple just because, I have been an apple fan for 14 years now. But I simply don’t have a good feeling about where they are going. I really want to like the 2020 MacBooks but for the first time in 14 years I can’t seem to feel enough confidence that they will eventually fix the issues. Catalina is at the 5th dot release, one would expect them to have fixed the basics by now.

one totally bad surprise was that the 2020 Air we tested first doesn’t have a heat pipe. It runs so hot using only google meet, the people on the other end complained about audio quality.

Dear Denizcan,

From your profile I read that you are specialised in creating software. Reading this thread I notice that there are more and less affected machines. There are also machines that appear to run fine with an external monitor attached. Maybe you as a software engineer could reflect on this. Could it be that there are software issues causing the 18W rise on some machines but not on other units? By the way I believe the 18W is for an ext 4K display so more res than HD.

I currently have a test unit MacBook Pro 13 inch 2020 ($1299 base model w 8GB RAM and i5 1.4 GHz). This unit runs idle at 0.3 W. When I connect an external display power draw rises to 2.0 W.

in other words: could the performance difference between units be accounted for by software flaws only?

Are you using Catalina or an older version of MacOS? Please all contributors to this thread would you be willing to specify your OS version?

The whole time I am reading this thread I am wondering about this. It would help a great deal if we knew if the issues herein are hardware or software related.

My 2017 Air never exhibited audible fan noise for three years. Not a single time. Until I upgraded to Catalina and now its fan blows too. Midly most of the time, but still.

sebastian-jopen wrote:

Thanks JohnZonie for your input not to use it in clamshell mode. That absolutely make sense.

I cannot find your answer in the forum.

That may be because it was misleading and incorrect information.

Apple has no restrictions against running in clamshell mode or they wouldn't allow it let alone tell you how to do it:

Use your Mac notebook computer in closed-display mode with an external display - Apple Support

Another thing that I noticed today is that by connecting a USB-C cable to charge my Magic Trackpad the right thunderbolt sensor goes up more than 20 degrees (almost 30). To be honest I don't know if that is normal or not because I never checked that on my previous Macbook but it seems a little too much.

PhotogWithMac wrote:

Man denizcan you leave my Apple heart full of dents when you talk like this. But that is okay, it can take a beat. And I am very skeptical about the latest and not so greatest Macbooks.

Don't mind me.. You have spent a lot in Apple ecosystem.. If using the device with external monitor, or booting into bootcamp is not your daily routine, then MacBook 13", or even 16" will be good decision.. If MacOS is enough, MBP 16 is running very well without external monitor..

10th gen CPU's are powerhungry. It's obvius that Intel has not been investing in design of CPU's and has been pushing frequency up to compete with AMD.. So the latest chips require more cooling.. What you describe is vise: A device with two cooling fans..

TimUzzanti wrote:

A six person Microsoft Teams video chat using 5% CPU in clamshell with two 4k monitors and a USB camera is running at 68 degrees Celsius but fans are at max speed. No other applications running.

Short of gaming or editing live 4K streams, it's hard for me to conceive of a more GPU-intensive application than a multi-person, real-time video chat.

Funny that they buy their employees Macs yet hobble them by forcing them to use Microsoft Teams.

Yes, the MBP 16 is so broken that… it continues to just work the entire day and doesn't shut down because it is generating too much heat.

Sounds like excellent thermal design.

There is not a single report I've seen of a MBP 16 reaching thermal shutdown.

That means if, as many posit, the MBP 16 is generating "unexpected" amounts of heat, it is handling it just fine, because it's not shutting down.

That's excellent thermal design, it can handle whatever is thrown at it, whether normal or especially if it was unexpected.

Just wanted to add:

I can fully understand and absolutely sympathise that those whose preference is not to have loud fans, and who have confided in Apple and splashed out big bucks for a new 16" MacBook Pro, are likely and rightfully disappointed by the fan noise. I feel for you and I hope that somehow by upcoming OS'es or even dot.releases the fans can calm down.

At the very least, this development constitutes a change in what we can expect from Apple. The specs say that this machine can drive multiple 4k monitors. The power draw involved and the cooling required are not stated. And in fact the machine is able to drive the 4k monitors. However, based on over 25 years of experience with previous models we all assume that the machine can handle all this without excessive fan noise, but alas that is not the case.

You are correct.

We don't know whether the MBP 16 is capable of driving multiple external monitors with less power draw, but it can do it.

I get the fan noise makes them unsuitable for certain applications where previous MBPs were used, and I don't know what to say about that except that's where the return policy comes into play.

Certainly with each new generation of Mac Pro the question of what the fans are going to sound like is an open question, the same is true for desk side PCs, especially given the size of the fans that GPU boards have.

The fan on this MBP 16" revs high way too often for comfort. I use it on it's own unconnected to anything external (monitors etc). This is the second one , the first returned due to one speaker not working properly, but on the first identical one I did all the same things I do on this one and had no fan issues. So that's odd. I have tried the recommended resets. It is no good when people around you actually move away because your laptop fan is too loud with normal everyday tasks. It's embarrassing as well as worrying.

I will have to return it but do wish I didn't have to.