Mac Mini M4 Pro - Overnight sleep - Warm to the touch

[tomstone74]

Hello,

received my Mac Mini M4 Pro 14/20/64GB/2TB/10Gbit this Friday. A wonderful litte efficient beast. Fan/thermals are completely fine for my software dev use case, playing around with local LLM and other usual daily stuff. Due to space reasons, the Mini is not on the desk e.g. close the monitor, but in some sort of closable (typically closed) bookshelf, together with a turned on Synology DS218+ and the cable modem, connected with a 2m DP cable to a 4K 27" Dell. According to TG Pro, I'm typically in the area of 40-50°C with constant 1000 rpm fan speed, like now, when typing that message. Ambient temperature in the closed bookshelf is ~ 28°C whereas ~ 22°C in the living room overall.

Anybody else seeing a Mac Mini M4 (Pro) being warmer (not hot) during sleep (e.g. over the night)? I guess fans or really OFF during sleep, but some stuff still running and/or waking the Mac Mini up regularly, resulting in feeling warmer due to turned off fans. Makes me wonder to better really shutdown over the night again and not turning it into sleep, which makes the "power button at the bottom" interesting again . Also coming from a 14" MBP M1 Pro being replaced by the Mini as real desktop computer and I never felt the MBP being noticeable warmer after waking up from sleep by opening the lid.

Any thoughts / experience with having a Mac Mini in sleep?

Thanks!

 

[izlomdoc]

I have the same heating in sleep mode. This happens because all Apple computers continue to power all connected external devices in sleep mode (not at maximum power, but still). Therefore, the internal power supply (designed for air movement inside the case, but in sleep mode no working fan) begins to heat up. For example, Mac Studio has exactly the same problem. The MacBook also heats up, but to a lesser extent, because when the battery is fully charged, it switches completely to power from the external unit. The only way to avoid heating without turning off the device is to turn off all external devices (especially ssd and, for example, sound cards) before sending the computer to sleep. Which looks at least stupid and inappropriate. Personally, I turn off the Mac Mini at night, and send it to sleep during the day. The Mac Mini itself is attached under the table in a bracket printed on a 3D printer, so the power button is easy to feel with finger blindly.

P.s. There are already several topics on this issue in the forum thread, for example, you can read the topic about "location of the power button"

 

[tomstone74]

so the power button is easy to feel with finger blindly

Thanks for the reply. Similar here from a power button perspective, cause the Mini stands on my Synology, thus the power button is easily accessible. Will also go the shutdown over-the-night route.

Interesting that a lot of people, including well-known techies / Youtubers promote the Sleep mode, although it seems Sleep doesn't fully do what it's supposed to do.

 

[izlomdoc]

Interesting that a lot of people, including well-known techies / Youtubers promote the Sleep mode, although it seems Sleep doesn't fully do what it's supposed to do.

Sleep mode is advertised for Apple devices due to fewer software problems, compared to Windows. Mac OS can really be used without restarts for months and didn't get serious problems and slowdowns (except for some low-quality programs, for example, Adobe). Windows never dreamed of such stability (except in the format of specialized devices, such as ATMs or NAS with no sleep 24\7 working regime), especially when using hibernation.

 

[satinsilverem2]

Do you have PowerNap enabled? If so then that’s what’s causing it. It’s a system setting that allows the machine to do iCloud, Time Machine, and software updates during the night without running the fans.

 

[izlomdoc]

Do you have PowerNap enabled? If so then that’s what’s causing it. It’s a system setting that allows the machine to do iCloud, Time Machine, and software updates during the night without running the fans.

In my case, disabling power nap does not help. Even if you look at the sleep statistics in the monitoring program and see a complete "dead sleep", the Mac Mini was still warm when turned on. But unplug Focusrite Solo helped even without disabling Powernap (which in fact wakes up the device once every couple of hours for literally a couple of minutes, during which the computer does not have time to heat up).
P.S. for those who believe in "poorly working monitoring software heat up your system": completely removing the monitoring program does not help. And also the first couple of weeks Im using Mac mini without monitoring programs in the system (until I discovered that the Mac Mini case a bit tight for m4pro under load).

 

[tomstone74]

FWIW, I don't have the "Power Nap" option on my Mac Mini M4 Pro and MacOS 15.2.

 

[akalor]

I have zero - 0 - devices connected to the Mac Mini M4 during the night (I use a Thunderbolt docking station for two different Macs, that's why I unplug it completely from the Mac Mini). And I still experience the warming issue during sleep that everyone is talking about. So I believe that weakens the power supply theory mentioned above.

 

[kbonnel]

In my experience with an MacBook Pro m1 and a mini M4, they never actually seem to sleep for me, and do things in the background. I have tried turning off / disabling items per numerous suggestions but have basically given up and let them do what they do. They use such little power when not in use. I just make sure my monitors go to sleep as they use the majority of energy.