Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
M1 MBA how hot does it get when connected to external monitor?
- Thread starter Kraizelburg
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Good to know but displaylink is not like the real deal, otherwise Apple would have certainly advertised it.
I’ve had my MBA M1 16GB for a couple of days. Have it connected to LG 5K ultra fine with the MBA open as a second display. Running all MS office apps (universal beta), excel with ODBC updates (via Rosetta), teams video calls and screen sharing, OneDrive file transfer syncing (lots) plus about 5-6 others apps for work open, and the MBA was barely room temperature. Everything was completely buttery smooth for as long as used it, no matter what I did. Up until this week I’ve been using a MBP 16”, 2.4ghz 8 core with 5500m GPU and 64GB RAM - this ran extremely hot with the fans always screaming every time I was on a call, or OneDrive started syncing files. It’s insane this MBA in day to day use is faster, cooler and quieter in day to day use - with much better battery life and so much lighter to carry around.
Going to the sell the 16” pro whilst I can hopefully get some money for it! Only things I’ll miss are the screen size and speakers. Hoping for a 16” Air at some point in the future!
Going to the sell the 16” pro whilst I can hopefully get some money for it! Only things I’ll miss are the screen size and speakers. Hoping for a 16” Air at some point in the future!
I had my 8/8/512 hooked up to my LG 4K USB-C monitor most of the day yesterday with no warmth, just room temp as others mentioned. I had multiple tabs open in both Safari and Brave, plus Pages, Excel, and Slack.
Today will be a nice test as I have a 90-minute training via Zoom, then I’m recording a quick video via QuickTime. I’ll use my 1080p camera for both. The built-in camera is still not up to par for me.
If it passes the Zoom test, then I’ll see how it does next week when I start a week long event that will go all day each day.
Today will be a nice test as I have a 90-minute training via Zoom, then I’m recording a quick video via QuickTime. I’ll use my 1080p camera for both. The built-in camera is still not up to par for me.
If it passes the Zoom test, then I’ll see how it does next week when I start a week long event that will go all day each day.
Do you all actually have measurements for the temps during the various tasks described above? I didn't realize my M1 Air was hot until I noticed it throttled a bit at some point and I installed a few monitors. Then I saw it was up above 80-90 c a lot of the time. Maybe by design, but I wasn't aware previously.
I just saw your other thread, that's an interesting observation. It basically resonates with everything we've seen so far: plug in an external high resolution display and all hell breaks loose. It would be interesting to see whether temperatures that high would cause the M1 MacBook Pro's fan to spin or not.
Just got the M1 MBP with 16GB and 1TB. I did a straight swap for my 16" MPB 8-core, 32GB, 1TB with a local reseller. I tried to sell my 16" first but nobody wanted it! Kept lowering the price....
I am loving this little M1, it feels so efficient and does everything the previous monster machine did. I can feel that it's snappier and performs silently with no fan rev-ups. I love having a cold laptop on my legs, vs a machine that can easily cook hotdogs.
I am loving this little M1, it feels so efficient and does everything the previous monster machine did. I can feel that it's snappier and performs silently with no fan rev-ups. I love having a cold laptop on my legs, vs a machine that can easily cook hotdogs.
I've got an LG 5k TB3 direct, and two more WQHD monitors via DisplayLink on M1 Air, clamshell mode. It has been fast and reliable for my graphics-intensive work. This replaced a 16" MBP with an RX580 eGPU.
There are two downsides, but I can live with them: Unlock with Apple Watch won't work when DisplayLink is enabled, and Night Shift can only be enabled for the TB3 display. Other than that, no issues. It's generally more responsive than the 16" + eGPU for 3-display multitasking and it's fanless, silent. Never hot.
I had my M1 mini next to a Surface 7 and a Dell SFF on my desk. I currently have it set up so that the Dell feeds a single monitor using Display Port, the mini uses USB-C to the same monitor.
The Dell is always warm.
The M1 felt cooler than the Surface. Which was quite impressive as the Surface was fully off and had been for some time. I would not have been able to tell whether the M1 was on or off by temperature alone.
I wasn't pushing it hard - but I kept checking and didn't notice any rise throughout the day. The Surface became quite warm, bearable but obvious.
The Dell is always warm.
The M1 felt cooler than the Surface. Which was quite impressive as the Surface was fully off and had been for some time. I would not have been able to tell whether the M1 was on or off by temperature alone.
I wasn't pushing it hard - but I kept checking and didn't notice any rise throughout the day. The Surface became quite warm, bearable but obvious.
I'm currently using a MBP 14 M1 Pro, but whenever I connect to a 4K monitor and use both monitors for working, my mac will get hot (even though it's not as hot compared to my gaming PC), I'm wondering how to mitigate this. Can I simply close the lid of my MBP and only use the external monitor?
Yes you can close the lid and use an external display as long as you have the MacBook plugged in to the charger (or get power from the display etc).
The question is why is it getting hot at all though. I use a M2 MacBook Air with an external display and it doesn’t get hot. What kind of work is it doing?
The work is like reading papers/handouts, coding, and watching lectures. It usually gets warm after around 10 min. One side note is the monitor comes with a charging function.
None of those activities are stressing the GPU so I’m at a loss to explain why the very powerful M1 Pro would get hot with a 4K display when my fanless M2 Air doesn’t.
I'm guessing the warm might partly come from video streaming (watching the world cup live), given the fact that video streaming takes up a lot of resources. But I'm not sure either.