New 2015 15" rMBP (maxed out config) with fan issues

[ZombiePhysicist]

Hi All:

Just got the new 15" mac book pro and its fan kicks up with not very much load. This is the model with the AMD Radeon R9 M370X.

So I first noticed the fans kicking up to max turbo speed when just going around in 3D maps with the CPUs pretty much with no load on them. So it might be relative to the graphics card, but then this weirdness happens...

The fans kickup during boot. So just turning the machine on and booting and the fans spin up. After the machine finishes the boot, maybe about 1 minute later in the finder, they finally spin down.

My 13" rMBP (2013) never kicks up doing similar things. The only thing to note is I used Migration assistant on my Mac Pro (2010) to create my account on the new 15 mac book and wonder if there might be some account cruft that might be causing this effect?

Any ideas on this. Anyone else experiencing very quick-to-fan bursts on their new 15"? I'm probably going to take this back to apple but was hoping to get some feedback/insight from the collective brain trust.

Thanks!

 

[sebseb]

There's other people experiencing loud fan issues and have made a topic about them here. As some have suggested, it could be the drivers.

 

[Vermifuge]

Any ideas on this. Anyone else experiencing very quick-to-fan bursts on their new 15"? I'm probably going to take this back to apple but was hoping to get some feedback/insight from the collective brain trust.

Thanks!

What is your ambient air temperature?

 

[Cuniac]

One thing I noticed is that when running BootCamp (windows) the fans came on far less than they did with the Mac OS. I can only assume this is due to the fan speed to heat ratio is different in windows that it is in the Mac OS. This may change with 10.11. I personally don't think 10.10 was optimized all that well. People have complained about sluggish graphical performance in just OS actions and windows. Its probably using more GPU and CPU power than it should.

 

[Queen6]

Been a owner & user of the 15" MacBook Pro forever; Over the years the 15" has frequently struggled with it`s thermals, especially when an external display is connected as the dGPU switches on as default, internal temperatures soar;

• Elevate the rear, aluminium passive coolers generally work best (I use RainDesign`s mStand & iLap)
• Increase base fan RPM to 3K or as much as you are comfortable with (MacsFanControl or SMC Fan Control)
• Limit the dGPU`s usage with gfxCardStatus
• Swap out Chrome for Chrome Canary as it`s way more optimised for OS X and will extend battery run time, reduce thermals
• Swap out VLC for Movist as again it`s a reduced load on CPU/GPU
• Uninstall or block Flash
• Powered coolers are very much a "mixed bag" when it comes to Mac portables, you need one that has a high capacity (100 CFM minimum) and preferably a large single fan, this can help to keep the 15" internal fans below 4K which for many is good enough as often it`s this point and beyond where the fans become intrusive. Don't expect a powered cooler impact internal temperatures, beyond a couple of degrees
• Replacing the thermal paste has been hit & miss, some with very positive results, some with no improvement over stock. Personally I would only do this on a Mac Portable that was either very old, or one that I can confirm was definitely running hotter than stock.

The key to a quiet life with a 15" MacBook Pro is several incremental changes that do add up to reduce thermals. From my experience over the years if your going to push a 15" hard the fans are going to max out fast, with associated noise. If your using it with a moderate load life can be made quieter For the most part your MBP runs hot as that`s how Apple designed it, the trade of for form over, function, thin & light...

The old adage still applies; it`s easier to keep a system cool, than cool-down an already hot machine. This being said it`s not strictly necessary, equally it`s nice to know that there are options for reducing temperature out there

More on cooling
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/cooling-pad-for-rmpb.1493580/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/cooling-pad-for-rmpb.1493580/

Q-6

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

You mean like in my apartment? It's pretty cool. 74F.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

One thing I noticed is that when running BootCamp (windows) the fans came on far less than they did with the Mac OS. I can only assume this is due to the fan speed to heat ratio is different in windows that it is in the Mac OS. This may change with 10.11. I personally don't think 10.10 was optimized all that well. People have complained about sluggish graphical performance in just OS actions and windows. Its probably using more GPU and CPU power than it should.

Perhaps. But my partners each have the same 15" maxed out model, just the 2013 model. Running exact same setup and software. The fans don't kick up for it unless you're really hard on the processors.... I'm not sure if this is a problem with the entire new model, or if I just got a lemon. But if so, I'm going to be returning it. It's highly unpleasant to use.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Been a owner & user of the 15" MacBook Pro forever; Over the years the 15" has frequently struggled with it`s thermals, especially when an external display is connected as the dGPU switches on as default, internal temperatures soar;

• ...

Q-6

Thanks so much Queen6. But my partners each have the same model, just the 2013 edition. All three maxed out. In the same apartment, running the exact same software, their machines do not exhibit this fan issue.

Further, unless I'm in death valley or someplace extremely hot, there should never be a situation where just booting causes the fans to kick up, IMO.

I'm just trying to get a sense if others are having this problem. Perhaps the new video card just gets hot and stinks, or if I got a bum unit. If I'm the only one, I'll ask for a replacement. If others are having the issue, I'm just going to return this for a refund and either get an old model, or make due with my 13" rMBP for a while.

 

[Hog Milanese]

Was Spotlight still doing its first index? Not that this should require the fans, but still.

Sounds like dGPU are still a bad idea on MBPs.

 

[Studflower]

the m370x needs 50% more power than the 750m (75W vs 50W), so it probably gets hotter.

I wish Apple got a deal with Nvidia for the newer 900 models...

 

[Cuniac]

Was Spotlight still doing its first index? Not that this should require the fans, but still.

Sounds like dGPU are still a bad idea on MBPs.

I don't think this has anything to do with the dGPU. My 15in MBP with dGPU only fans up when doing games, or something intensive. But when I run BootCamp, the fans come on even less. I really feel its an issue with 10.10. People have said that the non-dGPU MBP 13 & 15in 2015 models still have issues with 10.10 doing normal things with just the windows or menus that should have very little GPU usage. But the dGPU models with auto switching turned off do not have this problem. This would make it an issue with the OS rather than a problem with the computer itself.

 

[Queen6]

The 2015, has a new dGPU, and this may well be the cause of the increased fan RPM`s, I think you really need to take it back to Apple and compare it to exactly the same model, it`s entirely possible there is a hardware and or assembly issue, equally these tend to be rare. It`s difficult in the extreme to get sense of other systems over the web as in general, they are all individual.

I also suspect if more continue comment on the fan noise it`s a result of Apple wanting to reduce the failure rate given the current extended coverage on 15" MBP`s with dGPU (2011 - 2013). The 15" has always pushed the limits thermally, they do get hot even with medium workloads, under heavy loads the internal temperatures soar near to 3 figures and can exceed, which frankly is not good for consumer grade components.

Have you tried resetting the SMC?

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

I am not entirely certain I remember correctly, however I do believe my 2014 13" 2.8, 512SSD Retina did the same for a limited time under restarting, spooling up the fans hard, it is now silent. There are so many variables at play it`s difficult to pinpoint sometimes. I did consider had Apple changed the TIM and does it takes some time to bed in, equally I never looked into it, as the 13" stopped this behaviour within a matter of days, runs perfectly and it`s operating temperatures are very moderate. If it`s literally brand new there is always a lot going on in the system the first few days, especially as you load on further & further data.

I have just finished setting up a 12" Retina and loaded over 300Gb of data, so it does take the system some time to index the data, if so you will see multiple instances of MDS in Activity Monitor under CPU, all consuming CPU cycles. Generally indexing is over and done with pretty quickly, however if you restarting a lot and or loading ever more data it can lengthen the process.

Q-6

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

So I just returned the new 15" MacBook Pro to apple. Apple can lick my Fn hairy nuts.

I call appleIdontcare and at some point they put me on with some f'wink at the An Apple Store about 40min away. The guy at the Apple Store doesn't know why AppleCare transferred me to him. But he, sua sponte, suggests that I go to that store even though there are no slots open for geniuses, because he says that I could get a walk in technician. I asked him are you sure? He says yes. So I go, wait in line, and when I get there to tell my woes, technician told me the time to get in the slot for a walk and ended over an hour ago.

I say "come on, you got to be ***** kidding. Why did that ***** tell me to come here?"

Line guy gives me the smug 'I don't know, that's your ***** problem you chose to listen to someone from our store' look. Already he's looking dismissively and pissily past me like I didn't exist. So now I'm fuming. If Apple were monitoring my Apple Watch pulse rate, they would've cleared the store because I was about to go ***** postal on everyone with an apple shirt, starting with lineboy .

Instead, I go to the counter, and say "give me a ***** refund on this" and they asked me what the problem is, and I say "the problem is is all of you are ***** f aholes and this ***** computer doesn't work and it's fans spin all the ***** time. And I came here to do you guys a favor to figure out if it's a problem with the model, or this particular machine, but you know what, you all can just go f yourselves and give me my ***** money back."

Apple's customer care has been going down hill. I don't know if it's just some kind of misunderstanding (likely), that Angela sucks and they are more disorganized, or that there are not enough resources and the employees are exhausted and fraying at the strain, or all the above, but a bunch of friends with apple tech problems recently have had similar 'whose on first, not my f'n problem' experiences.

This just s*** on my day for no ***** reason. F apple in the a with a pine cone with glue and coarse flake glitter.

Anyway, I wish all you guys with the fan problem good luck and that you get It well sorted. And sorry for my pissy hissyfit rant.

Good luck fellas.

 

[Cuniac]

So I just returned the new 15" MacBook Pro to apple. Apple can lick my Fn hairy nuts.

I call appleIdontcare and at some point they put me on with some f'wink at the An Apple Store about 40min away. The guy at the Apple Store doesn't know why AppleCare transferred me to him. But he, sua sponte, suggests that I go to that store even though there are no slots open for geniuses, because he says that I could get a walk in technician. I asked him are you sure? He says yes. So I go, wait in line, and when I get there to tell my woes, technician told me the time to get in the slot for a walk and ended over an hour ago.

I say "come on, you got to be ***** kidding. Why did that ***** tell me to come here?"

Line guy gives me the smug 'I don't know, that's your ***** problem you chose to listen to someone from our store' look. Already he's looking dismissively and pissily past me like I didn't exist. So now I'm fuming. If Apple were monitoring my Apple Watch pulse rate, they would've cleared the store because I was about to go ***** postal on everyone with an apple shirt, starting with lineboy .

Instead, I go to the counter, and say "give me a ***** refund on this" and they asked me what the problem is, and I say "the problem is is all of you are ***** f aholes and this ***** computer doesn't work and it's fans spin all the ***** time. And I came here to do you guys a favor to figure out if it's a problem with the model, or this particular machine, but you know what, you all can just go f yourselves and give me my ***** money back."

Apple's customer care has been going down hill. I don't know if it's just some kind of misunderstanding (likely), that Angela sucks and they are more disorganized, or that there are not enough resources and the employees are exhausted and fraying at the strain, or all the above, but a bunch of friends with apple tech problems recently have had similar 'whose on first, not my f'n problem' experiences.

This just s*** on my day for no ***** reason. F apple in the a with a pine cone with glue and coarse flake glitter.

Anyway, I wish all you guys with the fan problem good luck and that you get It well sorted. And sorry for my pissy hissyfit rant.

Good luck fellas.

I would email customer relations. If you send an email to Tim Cook directly there is a 1% chance he will read it (that's not sarcasm he really does read 1% of the emails sent to him out of the 1000's a day), if not it will go to a CR. I had a bad experience at an Apple store about 18 months ago. I emailed Tim, Apple CR called me, we went over everything that happened, and they said they would speak to the manager of that store. Later that day the Manager called and he had a different tune. Asked me to see him when I came in. I saw him when I came in to pick up my laptop (repair), still angry but not yelling or anything and he apologized and provided some very decent compensation. Now, I'm not saying that because I want to try and get something free from this, but that if a store is going to be like that they need to be reported, and Apple does listen.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Thanks Cuniac. I appreciate it and happy it worked out for you. But frankly, I don't feel I owe apple the trouble of helping them fix things. I returned the dud, got my money, I'm not putting anymore effort into what are THEIR problems. Not mine. Mine's been fixed with the refund (although my psychological problems clearly need different recourse all together. ).

Apple, and people in general, need to understand when someone give you critical feedback, like hey you have SNOT on your face, they are doing you a favor. Because no one wants to deal with that. Who wants to look at your snot. Why should I make myself feel uncomfortable in helping you clean the snot off your face. I can just ignore you and be on my merry way and leave you snot faced. But I will help my family out when one of them has snot on their face, maybe even help them wipe the snot off their face, because I love and care about them. I *tried* to help apple by going down and resolving what is a lemon purchase. I could have just returned it (which I ultimately did), but I thought it would be helpful. They spit on me for the effort. So f'em. I don't care enough to bother.

It left me pretty bitter, bitter enough that I'm actively thinking I'd like to just dump apple stuff all together. I know it's silly as I have a TON invested in apple stuff. And to be so irrationally out of whack over this...although this was one of several things and is acting a bit like the straw on the camels back. Sadly, there is nothing better than apple stuff for my needs right now, and so it would be a bit of cutting my nose to spite my face...but the point is that this kind of thing really can sour a person on the brand, and that person can go and sour others on apple and so on and so on.

You have to care about your customers. Care enough not to send them on wild goose chases. Care enough to be sympathetic, particularly when it's your foul up. And, sure, mistakes will happen, but try and be a human being to the person you made the mistake to and not compound arrogance atop of error.

Anyway, I've beat this horse enough. I think you give good advice. I'm just too pissed to exert anymore effort on it, so shame on me.

 

[Cuniac]

Thanks Cuniac. I appreciate it and happy it worked out for you. But frankly, I don't feel I owe apple the trouble of helping them fix things. I returned the dud, got my money, I'm not putting anymore effort into what are THEIR problems. Not mine. Mine's been fixed with the refund (although my psychological problems clearly need different recourse all together. ).

Apple, and people in general, need to understand when someone give you critical feedback, like hey you have SNOT on your face, they are doing you a favor. Because no one wants to deal with that. Who wants to look at your snot. Why should I make myself feel uncomfortable in helping you clean the snot off your face. I can just ignore you and be on my merry way and leave you snot faced. But I will help my family out when one of them has snot on their face, maybe even help them wipe the snot off their face, because I love and care about them. I *tried* to help apple by going down and resolving what is a lemon purchase. I could have just returned it (which I ultimately did), but I thought it would be helpful. They spit on me for the effort. So f'em. I don't care enough to bother.

It left me pretty bitter, bitter enough that I'm actively thinking I'd like to just dump apple stuff all together. I know it's silly as I have a TON invested in apple stuff. And to be so irrationally out of whack over this...although this was one of several things and is acting a bit like the straw on the camels back. Sadly, there is nothing better than apple stuff for my needs right now, and so it would be a bit of cutting my nose to spite my face...but the point is that this kind of thing really can sour a person on the brand, and that person can go and sour others on apple and so on and so on.

You have to care about your customers. Care enough not to send them on wild goose chases. Care enough to be sympathetic, particularly when it's your foul up. And, sure, mistakes will happen, but try and be a human being to the person you made the mistake to and not compound arrogance atop of error.

Anyway, I've beat this horse enough. I think you give good advice. I'm just too pissed to exert anymore effort on it, so shame on me.

I get ya. Customers service these days, whether its Apple, Sony, Microsoft has gone to hell. I have had the worst customer experience most people have ever heard of lol, at least that's what people tell me. With companies growing as big as they are these days it gets harder for them to manage every employee and every store. Don't get me wrong this is in no way our fault as consumers, it just seems to be what service is coming to.

I would not knock you at all if you left Apple. Bad customer experiences are what make most people choose another company, and it would be their loss. The only thing I can say from my numerous bad experiences with practically every company I have ever dealt with is give them a chance to react and judge them by that. Bad experience with Apple, contact customer relations and see how they handle it. If they do poorly at that level, then this is what you should expect from them going forward. If they do great, then don't jump ship yet. Company's hire so many people that just want a paycheck, they are yes men, don't want to deal with your snot that there are TONS of bad apples, usually because their supervisors are Bad Apples too but hide it well from their management.

Anyway, I'm sure you get were I'm going with all this. I'm sorry to hear about what happened. I hope you don't jump ship but no one would judge you if you did.

 

[jlc1978]

I would email customer relations. If you send an email to Tim Cook directly there is a 1% chance he will read it (that's not sarcasm he really does read 1% of the emails sent to him out of the 1000's a day), if not it will go to a CR. I had a bad experience at an Apple store about 18 months ago. I emailed Tim, Apple CR called me, we went over everything that happened, and they said they would speak to the manager of that store. Later that day the Manager called and he had a different tune. Asked me to see him when I came in. I saw him when I came in to pick up my laptop (repair), still angry but not yelling or anything and he apologized and provided some very decent compensation. Now, I'm not saying that because I want to try and get something free from this, but that if a store is going to be like that they need to be reported, and Apple does listen.

I had a similar experience that also needed positively. I also suggest email took to give kudos when deserved as well. I've done that when I felt someone really went above and beyond in providing service.

 

[Queen6]

So I just returned the new 15" MacBook Pro to apple. Apple can lick my Fn hairy nuts.

Awesome, another happy customer Apple`s on the spiral down with customer service, whatever`s changed it`s not for the better. I try to deal with the authorised resellers that I know, generally get a far better level of service. Am done with Apple Stores`s they are simply a waste of time these days...

Q-6

 

[magbarn]

Been there, done that OP. I've had a very similar experience such as yours. As well regarded Apple CS is, it's only when you can get a stinking appointment in their genius system. Since the closest Apple store to me is 35 minutes away, I wasted over a hour of my time with a situation similar to yours. You cannot trust their phone hacks, unless you have a reservation visible in their Apple store app, you really don't have an appointment...
They either don't have enough geniuses, or they need to open another Apple store as my local store is always booked 5-6 days in advance which means I can only pick times for 2-3 days at a time at almost a week in advance,which is frustrating... And given yours and my experience with visiting a genius bar without an appointment means just frustration...

Kinda miss the Dell days of in-home service I used to get when they would send a tech over. The lame part was getting through the Indian customer service with their rote diagnostics...

 

[Cuniac]

I know this is kind of a day late announcement. But Metal (announced at WWDC) will more than likely help fix that fan issue. The announcement of Metal being 50% more efficient than the current technology is going to help drastically. The UI runs on the OPENCL/GL architecture so this big of an improvement will help lower the fan speed issues people are complaining about as it will not tax the CPU/GPU as much in simple tasks.

 

[Kal-037]

From your story... it looks like the people at the Apple store were not at fault, the person assisting on the phone made the error. He should have called to get you an appointment set in stone like all the reps I have called have done. Now as for the reps at the store, even if he had a look that wasn't appealing, what was your attitude when you arrived? Even the best trained people will shut you out if you get all upset and irritated right away. dropping the F-bomb and berating people who had nothing to do with your specific problem was a tad overboard. I understand you dropped 2500 dollars for a computer, (I did the same it and sucks it didn't work) but in the end it's a piece of metal, not the end of the world... and not worth cursing out a few people who are just trying to earn a living. Now I wasn't there so maybe that dude in the store was a jerk, but surely not all of them were. Even so they have a policy to follow and a boss, and they can't over-ride it. I worked in retail and have had so many people come in and get mad at me because my store had a policy that I could not alter or change. Yes Apple needs to work on a few things but compared to many, many other companies they are years ahead in terms of CS. For one... They need to work on better communication with their phone to store employees, but you getting upset doesn't help... as you found out.





Kal.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Thanks captain hindsight. The first guy on the phone WORKED AT THAT VERY SAME STORE (not to mention for the same company). And way to be an apologist. Yea, I had a fine attitude waiting in line until they told me to pound sand.

And first, clearly if it's a mistake made by someone working at that store, a) they should try and make it right. I didn't make a trip down for the fun of milling around the apple store, or b) at least be somewhat sympathetic to my being giving the real world equivalent of being sent around phone transfer hell. When apple wants to, it can do what it wants with making things right. They can put me to the side for when some genius opened up. You know that happens. Or, again, just at least apologize profusely for the rigamarole, find out who he person at the store was that gave the bad information and why. Maybe there was more to it. But don't give your customer a smug 'go f' yourself' look of 'not my problem'. My attitude was fine going in, but at that moment, yea, it turned to **** in reaction to his **** attitude. Funny how that's contagious and works in the other way.

And since he wound me up, yea I was a jerk to the clerk; and you know what, the clerk wasn't a jerk to me. He was a cool cat that calmed me down by doing the right thing. Just giving me my refund. And if I go back there, and see him, I'll apologize. And if I see line boy, **** on his cornflakes.

Believe it or not, apple's employees can be giant dicks and the customer is not always wrong and apple always infallible. If you **** on your customers, you're going to have irritable customers.

Lineboy didn't do right by what another employee may have done wrong. Clerk guy did do right by what line boy did wrong, and calmed and corrected the situation. Thats the difference.

 

[totten76]

Thanks captain hindsight. The first guy on the phone WORKED AT THAT VERY SAME STORE (not to mention for the same company). And way to be an apologist. Yea, I had a fine attitude waiting in line until they told me to pound sand.

And first, clearly if it's a mistake made by someone working at that store, a) they should try and make it right. I didn't make a trip down for the fun of milling around the apple store, or b) at least be somewhat sympathetic to my being giving the real world equivalent of being sent around phone transfer hell. When apple wants to, it can do what it wants with making things right. They can put me to the side for when some genius opened up. You know that happens. Or, again, just at least apologize profusely for the rigamarole, find out who he person at the store was that gave the bad information and why. Maybe there was more to it. But don't give your customer a smug 'go f' yourself' look of 'not my problem'. My attitude was fine going in, but at that moment, yea, it turned to **** in reaction to his **** attitude. Funny how that's contagious and works in the other way.

And since he wound me up, yea I was a jerk to the clerk; and you know what, the clerk wasn't a jerk to me. He was a cool cat that calmed me down by doing the right thing. Just giving me my refund. And if I go back there, and see him, I'll apologize. And if I see line boy, **** on his cornflakes.

Believe it or not, apple's employees can be giant dicks and the customer is not always wrong and apple always infallible. If you **** on your customers, you're going to have irritable customers.

Lineboy didn't do right by what another employee may have done wrong. Clerk guy did do right by what line boy did wrong, and calmed and corrected the situation. Thats the difference.

Lol calm down brotha. You're taking this way too far. All over some fans

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

True dat! My bad!

 

[phrehdd]

I have the middle of the line MBP 2015 with 16 gigs RAM. I notice (as I have with Minis and some iMacs) that various web pages create havoc with revving up the fans with all the crap flash and other ads all over the pages. When I block flash, fan starts going down. Sometimes I kill it from the activity monitor. It doesn't matter if I use Firefox or Safari, same crap with fans revving.

I don't have this quite so bad with playing media files whether they are local or streaming from a service. Damn shame that we spend this much for a laptop that ends up crying (fans revving) when we go to certain pages on websites chalked full of BS ads.