Mine only gets warm once I kick up Parallels, other than that doing office work via Outlook/Excel/Terminal work and etc so far so good.
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MacBook Pro (16 inch) fan noise in idle mode
- Thread starter johnscully
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Mine only gets warm once I kick up Parallels, other than that doing office work via Outlook/Excel/Terminal work and etc so far so good.
Do you have a win10 vm? How much memory have you allocated to it?
I'm asking to check if 16 GB of RAM are enough, as I plan to buy one for a coworker, (office apps, scanning, databases).
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Loud fans on 16" macbook pro
I am buying the base 16" for $2,150. Has Apple released a software update addressing "Loud fans on 16" macbook pro"?
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Not quite as loud as front row at an AC/DC concert.. but relatively may as well be in a quite workplace or presentation meeting.
I used the MBP 16 with i9 and from the word go, just in transferring files and doing light work on MS word etc the fans started roaring. It got pretty unbearable, especially when your trying to concentrate and doing detailed work. Also in meetings it becomes a problem as its a distraction and people start to think there is something wrong with your hardware and it cuts a sorry figure, as you cant go into explaining about the extensive need to cool the i9 chip etc and thats why such strong fans exist on board. In presentations its definitely a distracting factor.
The system went jittery on playing Starcraft II. In applications it beachballs a lot on startup and "blueballs" when doing saves or changing fonts. For all the money you spend and where we are with technology its a sad affair. may as well keep using your older macs.
I guess the sound system is really good and you can dial that up, but then you wont be very popular at work and others will fight with you to control your music [just like tv's]. You can whack on a pair of headphones but thats social suicide again in workplaces as people take it as a: "do not disturb sign".
I dont think its worth upgrading within a couple of years. I went back to using my 2017 mac which was much quieter, even when the fans kick in high.
Its definitely going to cause problems for those on the work front and also will be embarrassing in meetings, especially when you reflect technology in your work.
I used the MBP 16 with i9 and from the word go, just in transferring files and doing light work on MS word etc the fans started roaring. It got pretty unbearable, especially when your trying to concentrate and doing detailed work. Also in meetings it becomes a problem as its a distraction and people start to think there is something wrong with your hardware and it cuts a sorry figure, as you cant go into explaining about the extensive need to cool the i9 chip etc and thats why such strong fans exist on board. In presentations its definitely a distracting factor.
The system went jittery on playing Starcraft II. In applications it beachballs a lot on startup and "blueballs" when doing saves or changing fonts. For all the money you spend and where we are with technology its a sad affair. may as well keep using your older macs.
I guess the sound system is really good and you can dial that up, but then you wont be very popular at work and others will fight with you to control your music [just like tv's]. You can whack on a pair of headphones but thats social suicide again in workplaces as people take it as a: "do not disturb sign".
I dont think its worth upgrading within a couple of years. I went back to using my 2017 mac which was much quieter, even when the fans kick in high.
Its definitely going to cause problems for those on the work front and also will be embarrassing in meetings, especially when you reflect technology in your work.
16GB should be more than enough. I used to give 8GB to my Windows 10 VMs in Parallels but have since reduced it down to 4GB and performance has been just as good. I know it depends on what you're doing in Windows, but I've been surprised by how well it performs on 4GB RAM.
Thank you, i had the impression that 4gb ram for 64bit win10 are a little bit low.
I'm currently using 4 Cores and 4GB of RAM. You don't need as much if you just wanna run those apps... 2GB is enough.
I usually Remote Desktop to Azure VMs in the cloud and got Xterm in the background to access DBs.
Thanks a lot.
Is the 16" too noisy for simple tasks?
I have read many posts claiming that it is but I suspect the t it is a result of software like chrome etc, I use safari, no external displays.
And there's the danger of forums.... You only have to go in to the first page of the MacBook Pro forum and the over-riding impression you'd get some days is that its an absolute dumpster fire of a laptop.
The 16" is absolutely silent in normal use. It has improved thermals over the other MacBook Pros and you should only expect to hear the fans when you're really hammering the CPU. Just like other Macs, you'll get some of this when setting up things like Dropbox, installing Windows updates etc.
Some people have had issues with external displays, but many people haven't had any issues at all.
No it's perfect. It only makes noise once you push it.. As in connecting to an external display and forcing the dGPU or ending up rendering or even pre rendering a video.
For my type of workloads only when I have the dGPU working is when it start to take the fans up... Also automatically it only pushes the fan to 30% I manually put em at 60%
There is NO problem with MBP fans noise in IDLE mode (unless you have hypersensitive hearing and fans at 1800-2000rpm are disturbing you).
I am not claiming there might not be individual cases where fan noise is too high due to broken fan or faulty device.
In most cases there is a reason you can hear the fans - your machine is NOT idle.
I am writing this on my new MBP16 - have it already 1 month - it is a perfect machine. I cannot hear fans unless I charge it with some work and that is expected and desired - this is a workhorse that can deliver a lot under load.
With regular use - safari/emails/word processing fans stays below 2k and are NOT audible.
I am using it with 4K external monitor sometimes - fans stays at minimum as well with light use (I've tested it with YouTube 1080p video -published results on another thread) - if I push it I can hear fans of course but again this is expected and desired.
All that are not sure if to buy this machine because of fan noise - don't look at opinions here - go ahead and buy it if you need one. You'll have two weeks to test it yourself and verify (wait a week before your machine stabilises/reindexes/reprocess photos).
I just took a screenshot from istat menu with my current use (safari with few tabs in macrumors, mail, system preferences, istat menus, nextcloud running in background) - see yourself
MBP 16 is really good machine - very happy to have one (i9 2.4, 32GB RAM, 2T SSD, 5500M with 8GB).
I am not claiming there might not be individual cases where fan noise is too high due to broken fan or faulty device.
In most cases there is a reason you can hear the fans - your machine is NOT idle.
I am writing this on my new MBP16 - have it already 1 month - it is a perfect machine. I cannot hear fans unless I charge it with some work and that is expected and desired - this is a workhorse that can deliver a lot under load.
With regular use - safari/emails/word processing fans stays below 2k and are NOT audible.
I am using it with 4K external monitor sometimes - fans stays at minimum as well with light use (I've tested it with YouTube 1080p video -published results on another thread) - if I push it I can hear fans of course but again this is expected and desired.
All that are not sure if to buy this machine because of fan noise - don't look at opinions here - go ahead and buy it if you need one. You'll have two weeks to test it yourself and verify (wait a week before your machine stabilises/reindexes/reprocess photos).
I just took a screenshot from istat menu with my current use (safari with few tabs in macrumors, mail, system preferences, istat menus, nextcloud running in background) - see yourself
MBP 16 is really good machine - very happy to have one (i9 2.4, 32GB RAM, 2T SSD, 5500M with 8GB).
I am so grateful for your useful advices and first hand experiences with the 16", I can order one happily now.
Many many thanks.
Just want to chime in that I've now had my MBP 16 (2.3 i9 / 32GB / 1TB / 5500 w/8GB) for about a week now, where I've mostly been using it on my lap, browsing the web, and keeping it plugged in. The bottom got barely warm.
Just today, I finally brought it to my home office and plugged it into one of my 2560x1440 monitors (while also using the built-in display) and I can only hear the fan if I try to listen for it (it's running, but it's very quiet). Bottom of laptop is quite a bit warmer. And I just now plugged it into my 2nd 2560x1440 monitor (while also still using the built-in display) and I'm not noticing any uptick in fan noise.
I haven't really tried pushing it hard yet, so I'll see how that goes. But based on some of what I was reading in these forums, I was worried that the fans would be noticeable all of the time, and that it might be too uncomfortable to use it on my lap (for non-intensive stuff) and I'm happy to report that that doesn't seem to be a concern.
Just today, I finally brought it to my home office and plugged it into one of my 2560x1440 monitors (while also using the built-in display) and I can only hear the fan if I try to listen for it (it's running, but it's very quiet). Bottom of laptop is quite a bit warmer. And I just now plugged it into my 2nd 2560x1440 monitor (while also still using the built-in display) and I'm not noticing any uptick in fan noise.
I haven't really tried pushing it hard yet, so I'll see how that goes. But based on some of what I was reading in these forums, I was worried that the fans would be noticeable all of the time, and that it might be too uncomfortable to use it on my lap (for non-intensive stuff) and I'm happy to report that that doesn't seem to be a concern.
No need to apologise, this is what forums are for!
I just went for the i7 base model as its more than powerful enough to cope with my workflow.
(Repost from another thread)
Did you import your old Mac (which was perhaps even on a previous OS) when setting up? In my experience, this often leads to problems: a slow and loud (fans running a lot) Mac. Have experienced this many times.
I'm guessing that permissions and other stuff conflict.
So, I never update to a new operating system but always start fresh and manually import everything I need.
Have my MBP 16 (i9) since three days and only once the fans were audibly running very quietly. Just rendered a file in Compressor and the fans were not audible at all.
Haven't tested it with an external screen. Will do that soon.
Well, I have been reading this thread closely as I was concerned with the FAN issue (although if there really IS an issue I'm pretty sure it will be corrected in post, with an update) since I do a lot of work at my desk, plugged into a couple of 4K monitors often, well at least ONE all the time.
I swapped my original ordered late 2019 i7, 16GB 1TB 5300 MacBook Pro for a 2019 i7, 32GB 1TB 5500M 8GB machine. I have NOT transferred over all my previous content from my 2012 rMBP daily driver (yes, that is right it's nine years old and running fine!) or from my 2015 15" rMBP, so I can't speak to whether or not some of what people have been seeing is indexing and optimization of content, all of which CAN spike CPU, most likely not GPU.
Running it with just a USB-C to DisplayPort cable into the one 4K display and running Safari, with 25 tabs open and running several YouTube videos at the same time, the machine is dead quiet, and the fans are running at 1805 left and 1740 right. Nothing seems to get much higher.
What would be a way to test if the fans should run higher for this type of load, and external monitor? I'll have to wait a few days till I can get another USB-C to DisplayPort cable and test with both monitors hooked up.
I swapped my original ordered late 2019 i7, 16GB 1TB 5300 MacBook Pro for a 2019 i7, 32GB 1TB 5500M 8GB machine. I have NOT transferred over all my previous content from my 2012 rMBP daily driver (yes, that is right it's nine years old and running fine!) or from my 2015 15" rMBP, so I can't speak to whether or not some of what people have been seeing is indexing and optimization of content, all of which CAN spike CPU, most likely not GPU.
Running it with just a USB-C to DisplayPort cable into the one 4K display and running Safari, with 25 tabs open and running several YouTube videos at the same time, the machine is dead quiet, and the fans are running at 1805 left and 1740 right. Nothing seems to get much higher.
What would be a way to test if the fans should run higher for this type of load, and external monitor? I'll have to wait a few days till I can get another USB-C to DisplayPort cable and test with both monitors hooked up.
Return it! You must have defective unit - read all the threads about new noisy standard 😁.
I'm in the same boat - my fans are at mins with one 4K connected (not in clamshell mode). I strongly believe that there must be something with all those hubs - if you use single cable or direct dongle you have better chance to get silent operation with external monitor.
I have the same problem but only when I have an external monitor connected to my new MacBook Pro 16 i9 with AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 8 GB, I also have an 2018 and 2019 MacBook Pro 15-inch with similar specs and I have no problem with those machines, it seems to be a problem related to the MacBook Pro 2019 16-inch with i9, I think it's a software issue and not a hardware issue but we'll have to wait until Apple acknowledges the issue. I called Apple support yesterday and they told me they don't know about this issue and they told me to reinstall MacOS (it didn't fix the problem). I hope they come out with a solution soon because I really like this new MacBook Pro but if they don't fix it soon I will return it and I will have to go back to the MacBook Pro 15-inch.
