I have one with 64GB and 1TB SSD. Running multiple linux VMs in WMWare Fusion right now and it's silent. The fans only really get loud when I'm compiling.
`sudo powermetrics` will tell you die temperatures. It's possible the author has a bad sensor, in which case the fans will ramp to max whenever the machine is not asleep.
FWIW I run the same machine (except 32 GB) and a 4k external display. It's silent when idle (~45C) and quiet even when loaded (~97C).
Modern intel parts run that hot no problem, what is normal for temps changes wildly over time across product lines. The current gen CPUs will self throttle at 100C.
Apparently, intel accepted that laptops will just never have decent cooling, so they let the high power chips get right up to 100C and throttle based on how much cooling is available.
If your laptop CPU is at 100C and the fans are quiet, you're wasting a lot of performance potential.
The chips themselves will probably outlast their users or at least their own useful lives quite comfortably at 100°C. If sat on a desk, not in something mobile.
Heat cycling the motherboards will definitely shorten their effective lifetime significantly. There's no reason not to have proper cooling.
Having said that, modern Thinkpads are not great in this regard either.
Thanks for the tip. I hadn't known about powermetrics before. I've had a 16" MBP with the same specs as OP for almost 2 months now, and I use it with a 4K external monitor, and haven't noticed the any issues with fan yet.
**** SMC sensors ****
CPU Thermal level: 47
GPU Thermal level: 0
IO Thermal level: 0
Fan: 1828.89 rpm
CPU die temperature: 64.80 C
GPU die temperature: 68.00 C
CPU Plimit: 0.00
GPU Plimit (Int): 0.00
Number of prochots: 0
Incidentally, the `Number of prochots` field in command's output made me chuckle. At one of my previous jobs, I spent some time on a team that owned the fleet wide server auto-remediation service and the prochot alarm and the resulting CPU throttling would end up reducing the available CPU capacity in clusters and sometimes knocking out entire services. I have bittersweet memories spending sleepless nights trying to debug it.
Intel Power Gadget might also prove handy here (assuming it runs on the newer MBPs?) - it charts some useful power/performance related stats, including temp/power/speed, making it clear to see when/if the system is throttling/boosting/etc.
Same here. I pretty regularly use my 16” to play games and compile C++; I’ve never noticed the fans operating higher than normal. The author mentioned external monitors: I have it plugged into an LG27850-W (27” @ 4k UHD) and it’s never been a problem.
The one thing that does bother me: I have a hardware USB switch that Catalina doesn’t recognize properly (works fine on Mojave).
I’ve got one, and the only time this happened was a rouge process that I installed using 100% CPU. I usually just open Activity Monitor and either sort the CPU tab by usage or the Energy tab by Average Impact. If it’s a software problem it’s going to be there.
So what does activity monitor or ‘top’ tell you is running? My 16 runs quiet unless I’m compiling and I run multiple vms and am impressed with how it runs.
32GB+2TB here, with TB3 RAID and XDR. No fan issues. I understand the author's frustration but extrapolating a single defective unit to "Apple doesn't care about QC anymore" is sort of bonkers.
> "Apple doesn't care about QC anymore" is sort of bonkers.
Excuse me, but that's exactly the case here.
Only Apple can brag about "learning about mistakes" and then have temerity to do them even worse.
The MBP has poorer thermal solution than noname Chinese OEMs that market similar machines at $700-800. Just look at that wimpy single heat pipe and the radiator sizes.
I‘m not the proverbial fanboy (pun entirely intended), but I seem to remember similar headlines for just about any new MAC of the last two decades. And the issue often seems to be caused by the initial run of the Spotlight indexer.
The author could have also maybe taken a look at what’s actually causing his problems with a simple click on the standard-issue system monitor. Not doing so is either disrespecting his readers, or just gross incompetence of the kind that doesn’t go well with his long-winded claims of being "professional“.
Not at all an ad hominem. Saying a quibbling author has not conducted the most basic research to see what a problem is before complaining about said problem is always a valid criticism. Saying an author is wrong because he is a stupid dumb meanie is an ad hominem attack.
The three things that usually kill performance and make the fans go ape on new Macs are:
- Initial Spotlight index;
- Initial iCloud Drive sync;
- Initial Photos sync.
No such issues with MBP 16" here, unless of course there's a misbehaving process. I have noticed Catalina's new iOS device syncing can spin out of control if the device being synced disconnects or goes out of range before finishing. There's an "AMPDevicesAgent" or similar process that pegs the CPU at 100% when this happens and wreaks havoc on Finder, Music, etc.
If i'm not mistaken, he indicates he's running the 6k display from it. That would likely be the cause: That's a lot of pixels to push from a mobile GPU.
The CPU temps increase by at least 10ºC whenever you plug something to the TB port. I've seen this happen on my last 4 Macs with TB. Not only monitors but SSDs too.
I have the base model MBP 16 inch and I've been experiencing slow downs with laggy keyboard input, momentary freezes, etc. Battery life is also not as good as on my old MPB 13 and I don't use it for much more than browsing with many tabs. I've done plenty of troubleshooting and a reinstall but no luck.
I'm hoping that 10.15.3 which I installed yesterday will help remedy.
I have been having similar issues with freezing, but only the video stutters, everything else keeps running in the background. I also have the base space gray model.
Weirdly enough this only happens if I don’t turn off the mac for days (only putting in sleep mode) and when the ram is close to 16GB.
However, when the ram gets to 16GB, the only thing that gets impacted is the video, there is no spinning wheel, audio doesn’t stop. Just the video stutters for a bit, then jumps to present.
The theory here is that the onboard graphics card doesn’t have enough ram for it, it is being swapped constantly, which causes the stutters.
You didn't restore from an old Time Machine backup onto your rMBP right?
If not, it sounds like a defective unit. I'd strongly recommend taking it to Apple Store.
I had no issues with laggy keyboard input, freezes and battery life was very solid for me. I've returned the laptop not because of these issues but because useless touch bar and large trackpad on top of Catalina issues.
32GB+1TB here, I haven't experienced anything I'd call a fan issue. Every once in a while fans spin up, mostly because of Chrome-based things. A few times I think it's been heavy GPU activity. I use it connected to 2 monitors (display port) most of the day. It's completely silent most of the time.
I've experienced more issues with what I'm guessing is Catalina or driver-related bugs. Once when disconnecting my monitors I got RGB "static" on the MBP screen, had to force power down. Another time the touch bar quit working due (I think) to an external monitor plugged in. A restart solved that.
I am really hoping to keep my macbook, the One True macbook, Macbook Pro 2015, and that it will last and be healthy until apple finally starts making stuff that doesn't break again.
Nearly everyone else in this thread is saying that their 16" MBP is fine. My roommate has one -- I'm not sure it's completely maxed out, but it's pretty hefty spec-wise -- and hasn't had any issues, either.
Personally, I just don't want a laptop that big -- I've always preferred the 13" models to the 15". So I'm waiting to see what happens with both the 13" MBP and the Air.
Apple almost never pre-announces products, so we don't really know, but they've strongly hinted the new keyboard is coming to at least the 13" MBP in the next revision. I don't remember the exact phrasing, but it was a comment from VP Phil Schiller something like "it's important for all our 'Pro' products." (I remember it was something that made it unclear whether the keyboard will come to the Air, although I certainly hope it will.)
I did see the comment from someone saying it'll be upgraded to a 14" the way the 15" became a 16"; while that's a reasonable guess, I don't think there are any supply chain rumors supporting that yet, and the 16" update had rumors nearly a year in advance of its release. My personal expectation is that we'll see an upgrade to the new keyboard in the 13" before WWDC, but it'll stay 13".
This is unfortunate. Bought a top of the line used 2015 13” in 2017 to hold me down for the long term until they fixed the keyboard. Haven’t tried one yet but I’m worried I’ll feel the same as you do about it. Though it was the inverted-T that I was most hoping for!
I personally think it's a huge upgrade from the butterfly keyboard. I've got a 16" I just upgraded to at home, and an older 15" I was issued at work.
The higher key travel and further spacing apart from each individual key means I can actually differentiate between keys by feel, unlike with the older butterfly keys that all kind of blend together. The travel makes a huge difference in feel as well, as they're much less clicky.
If you're ever near a store carrying the newer model and an older butterfly model I suggest you try it out yourself.
I've been through so many laptops. After I tried a desktop in 2019, I can't seriously consider a laptop, unless in a pinch. Even so-called "beefy" workstations, e.g. W series Thinkpads, I've returned. They throttle too.
You want to know what beats a $3500 Macbook Pro? For me, a desktop with "ok" parts and water cooling.
You'll never have a fan issue. You get to use high quality parts that are replaceable with their own warranty.
Even the cables are super high grade. And you still come in at a third of the cost, slightly more than half the cost if you want to splurge.
You'll never have slowdowns. You can power multiple 4k monitors, ultrawides, whatever you want.
It boils down to keeping all these parts in a small chassis. If Apple cared, they'd stop the soldering and add an inch and half thickness and let the thing ventilate, because these things are built for consumption, not creation (e.g. being under an intensive rendering/compilation/io workload).
You don't even need watercooling for really good thermal control on a desktop. Companies like Noctua make CPU fans that are just as effective, quieter, and are less complex than watercoolers (and I say this having built a watercooled system in the past year).
Watercoolers do have fans, so not only can you run into potential "fan issues" but you can also have a "pump issue" on top of that.
+1 on that. High quality air coolers are great options. They can still be super silent and are nearly maintainance free. I had higher end thermalright fan cooler on my old desktop and it run without issues for 6 years with multiple hours per day usage. For my new desktop I invested in a be quiet dark rock pro and hopes it will do the same. Noctua also has great options, and other companies too. But don’t try to save too much on coolers. The lower end models might be cheaper, but having to deal with less noise is so much worth 50$ extra over a couple of years.
Watercooling is probably overkill unless you want to overclock. Less complicated than it used to be though, Corsair and similar sell complete CPU/pump/radiator loops for relatively cheap that you just drop in.
been using the 2019 version that I got from work for a couple of weeks now, haven't noticed anything. I run a heavy Docker based setup on MacOS, the fans do make noise but that's about it.
Why is everybody in this thread providing their RAM and SSD size like it's relevant but no info on whether they upgraded their CPU or not? Issues seem relatively common but I can't find info on whether it only happens to those who upgraded the CPU.
Anyone else getting horrible battery life under heavy use? Doing Xcode builds that aren’t crazy I’ve seen crazy stuff like a 1.5 hour total battery on my recent flight.
I've had some serious fan action on mine, and then about a week ago, the machine was seriously hot when I got home after my transit commute. Tried to take it out of my bag, but I couldn't. I literally had to get a pot holder to handle it. I was fearful I'd see melting or something when I opened it - but it quickly returned to normal.
The hot bag thing is a pain and has so many different reasons. I've been caught out with it in the move from a 2012 rMBP to a 2019 16", where on the old one if I was connected to WiFi/tethered and I had SSH sessions open in Terminal they would just die when I put the laptop to sleep. On this new one it will keep Dark Waking the machine in my bag in order to prevent my SSH connection from closing.
I keep switching off Wifi before putting my MacBook into a bag for longer time. Seems otherwise, it might try to run some updates during the night, which it shouldn't do when being in the bag. Switching off Wifi seems to prevent that.
Why would that have to be the case? Also, wouldn't performance and thermals go together? You won't get good performance if you're constantly overheating.
That’s just how physics work. Here are some examples.
Good performance and good thermals: it’s going to be a thick laptop (or a desktop) with good airflow, portability will suffer.
Good thermals and good portability: you’ll end up with something like an IPad Pro or a surface. performance will be lackluster.
Good performance and good portability: The thermal solution will be sub par because it’s designed too thin, light, etc. This is basically what we have here with these specced out 16 MacBooks.
It isn't a "fan" problem, it is a heat or perceived heat problem. It is either a temperature sensor, a problem transferring heat from the CPU or GPU, or a defect in the CPU or GPU (probably one of the first two).
Given the number of complaints, I'd wager the first or second.
This post is complete trash. I'm wondering if this is only on the front page because it takes a shot at a big tech company?
Help, I'm using CPU intensive apps on my laptop and the fan is coming on! Okay, and the sky is still blue?
I'm sorry but I just can't stand this post. One thing that may help the author that I don't see mentioned here is plugging it in. Seems running off AC power is less thermally intensive than battery.
> Help, I'm using CPU intensive apps on my laptop and the fan is coming on!
If you had read it properly he said one time he had just booted it and had 3 Apple apps running (Mail, iMessage, and something else) and the fans were still loud. He says he'd understand if he had Photoshop open with many layers...
106 comments
[ 0.18 ms ] story [ 250 ms ] threadAuthor doesn’t reveal how many TB of SSD he configured, but maybe powering 64GB of not-LPDDR and lots of TB of SSD is what sets the fans off.
FWIW I run the same machine (except 32 GB) and a 4k external display. It's silent when idle (~45C) and quiet even when loaded (~97C).
Yikes, that seems like an issue on its own. It's generally not good for parts to get that hot regularly.
If your laptop CPU is at 100C and the fans are quiet, you're wasting a lot of performance potential.
Heat cycling the motherboards will definitely shorten their effective lifetime significantly. There's no reason not to have proper cooling.
Having said that, modern Thinkpads are not great in this regard either.
Servers in our HPC cluster runs with similar temperatures even with enough cooling and we change CPUs very very rarely.
https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-power-gadget
The author of the blog should seek technical assistance for his hardware.
The one thing that does bother me: I have a hardware USB switch that Catalina doesn’t recognize properly (works fine on Mojave).
Excuse me, but that's exactly the case here.
Only Apple can brag about "learning about mistakes" and then have temerity to do them even worse.
The MBP has poorer thermal solution than noname Chinese OEMs that market similar machines at $700-800. Just look at that wimpy single heat pipe and the radiator sizes.
The author could have also maybe taken a look at what’s actually causing his problems with a simple click on the standard-issue system monitor. Not doing so is either disrespecting his readers, or just gross incompetence of the kind that doesn’t go well with his long-winded claims of being "professional“.
-Tywin Lannister
My last three macs have had the same experience.
I'm hoping that 10.15.3 which I installed yesterday will help remedy.
There could also be an issue with your SSD or HDD. To come to a conclusion try putting your SSD to another MB and see wheres the issue
The SSD is soldered directly to the logic board, so that may not be a viable strategy.
Weirdly enough this only happens if I don’t turn off the mac for days (only putting in sleep mode) and when the ram is close to 16GB.
However, when the ram gets to 16GB, the only thing that gets impacted is the video, there is no spinning wheel, audio doesn’t stop. Just the video stutters for a bit, then jumps to present.
The theory here is that the onboard graphics card doesn’t have enough ram for it, it is being swapped constantly, which causes the stutters.
I hope a system update will be enough to fix it.
Edit: adding “no” to spinning wheel
If not, it sounds like a defective unit. I'd strongly recommend taking it to Apple Store.
I had no issues with laggy keyboard input, freezes and battery life was very solid for me. I've returned the laptop not because of these issues but because useless touch bar and large trackpad on top of Catalina issues.
https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/more_info/?hazmat=7
I've experienced more issues with what I'm guessing is Catalina or driver-related bugs. Once when disconnecting my monitors I got RGB "static" on the MBP screen, had to force power down. Another time the touch bar quit working due (I think) to an external monitor plugged in. A restart solved that.
Personally, I just don't want a laptop that big -- I've always preferred the 13" models to the 15". So I'm waiting to see what happens with both the 13" MBP and the Air.
I'm still holding out on my 2015 MBP as well, hoping to get the new 13" with the good keyboard.
Otherwise... surface book it is...
I did see the comment from someone saying it'll be upgraded to a 14" the way the 15" became a 16"; while that's a reasonable guess, I don't think there are any supply chain rumors supporting that yet, and the 16" update had rumors nearly a year in advance of its release. My personal expectation is that we'll see an upgrade to the new keyboard in the 13" before WWDC, but it'll stay 13".
[1] https://www.macrumors.com/2020/01/13/apple-a2289-mac-eurasia...
Not entirely sure if I will buy another Mac again. Cant believe in less than 10 years since Steve passed away I am thinking of going back to Windows.
The higher key travel and further spacing apart from each individual key means I can actually differentiate between keys by feel, unlike with the older butterfly keys that all kind of blend together. The travel makes a huge difference in feel as well, as they're much less clicky.
If you're ever near a store carrying the newer model and an older butterfly model I suggest you try it out yourself.
More information on why laptops don't work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=947op8yKJRY
I've been through so many laptops. After I tried a desktop in 2019, I can't seriously consider a laptop, unless in a pinch. Even so-called "beefy" workstations, e.g. W series Thinkpads, I've returned. They throttle too.
You want to know what beats a $3500 Macbook Pro? For me, a desktop with "ok" parts and water cooling.
You'll never have a fan issue. You get to use high quality parts that are replaceable with their own warranty.
Even the cables are super high grade. And you still come in at a third of the cost, slightly more than half the cost if you want to splurge.
You'll never have slowdowns. You can power multiple 4k monitors, ultrawides, whatever you want.
It boils down to keeping all these parts in a small chassis. If Apple cared, they'd stop the soldering and add an inch and half thickness and let the thing ventilate, because these things are built for consumption, not creation (e.g. being under an intensive rendering/compilation/io workload).
Watercoolers do have fans, so not only can you run into potential "fan issues" but you can also have a "pump issue" on top of that.
That being said, I am keen on creating an SFF build in the future.
Maybe a lower specced model would do better...
I think you should bring your computer in for service. I haven't had a fan problem when I have used the computer.
You can also try disabling turbo boost. See http://www.rugarciap.com/turbo-boost-switcher-for-os-x/
If this is due to the processor being overstressed, Malik's fan issue may be related.
Good performance and good thermals: it’s going to be a thick laptop (or a desktop) with good airflow, portability will suffer.
Good thermals and good portability: you’ll end up with something like an IPad Pro or a surface. performance will be lackluster.
Good performance and good portability: The thermal solution will be sub par because it’s designed too thin, light, etc. This is basically what we have here with these specced out 16 MacBooks.
https://browser.geekbench.com/ios_devices/57
Given the number of complaints, I'd wager the first or second.
Help, I'm using CPU intensive apps on my laptop and the fan is coming on! Okay, and the sky is still blue?
I'm sorry but I just can't stand this post. One thing that may help the author that I don't see mentioned here is plugging it in. Seems running off AC power is less thermally intensive than battery.
If you had read it properly he said one time he had just booted it and had 3 Apple apps running (Mail, iMessage, and something else) and the fans were still loud. He says he'd understand if he had Photoshop open with many layers...
I favorited because I am interested in discussion of potential issues with the 16”; I didn’t even read the article.