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New MacBook Pro warm while sleeping

M

macjoshua

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 4, 2011
544
679
Nashville, TN
I've noticed on a few mornings, after my 14" MBP M4 Max has been sleeping with the lid closed all night, that it's very warm to the touch. I don't recall any of my previous laptops doing this. I keep it plugged in and have it set to optimize the battery, so it stays at 80% charge most of the time.

I set it up so that no notifications happen while it's sleeping, but still no luck. Any ideas what could be causing this or how I could find out what is?
 
Is it connected to a display while the lid is closed? If you install iStatMenus, you can check the graph for whatever metrics like temps and you will see gaps when the computer is sleeping. Is it sleeping while the lid is closed?
 
Flyview said:
Is it connected to a display while the lid is closed? If you install iStatMenus, you can check the graph for whatever metrics like temps and you will see gaps when the computer is sleeping. Is it sleeping while the lid is closed?
Click to expand...
It's not connected to a display, and it's sleeping - or at least it should be - when the lid is closed.
 
macjoshua said:
It's not connected to a display, and it's sleeping - or at least it should be - when the lid is closed.
Click to expand...

If it's warm, it's most definitely not sleeping, so please confirm that. The next step would be to figure out what is keeping it awake or waking it up. Wouldn't be surprised if it's AI related :).
 
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Obviously step is to do a reboot and see if the problem persists. But before you do, check Activity Monitor and look at the Energy tab. See if there is an app that is Preventing Sleep.
 
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I was just about to post this same kind of topic, but fortunately saw this thread.
I have a new M4 Max 16" - running 15.3.1.
Same deal; very, very often, the thing is warm to the touch when closed. Zero peripherals attached, etc.
Activity Monitor shows the likely culprit (I think) is Adobe CC. Creative Cloud Content Manager & Adobe Content Synchronizer are always at the top of my "Energy" usage list.
So, assuming it is indeed, Adobe activity...how does one go about disabling ALL background activity?

Thanks!
 
Same here, new 16" 2024 M4 MAX MBP OS 15.3.1, several times noticed MBP quite warm during / after sleeping?????
 
this happens to me too. So annoying. Thing will actually run its battery down. off/sleep does not mean what it has for as for my entire life using computers.
 
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More importantly, what if anything comes up as "Preventing sleep" (yes) in the energy tab of Activity Monitor? You can sort them by "Preventing sleep" by tapping on that heading. Certain things like "windowserver" are normal to be preventing sleep.

I suspect there are multiple levels of "Preventing sleep". Chrome can show up there if playing music for example, but the computer will still go to sleep if you close the lid. I think it will keep it awake if the display turns off.
 
Good point, about the "preventing sleep".
At least on mine, everything shows up as "no".
However, in the "CPU" tab, I do see all kinds of various items listed under "Idle Wake Ups". But I have no idea what the actually is, beyond what it kind of sounds like to me.
 
yeah, i have been through everything I can think of. Most frustrating is that when I bought this laptop I actually first tried the 14 inch and returned it for a 16. Both laptops behaved the same way. Set up fresh with no system migration. No chrome, no adobe, no network access while sleeping. I leave my laptop unplugged (fully charged) and closed and return the following day to find it warm and battery drained to 40%...love that.
 
The only thing I've found that seems to help is unchecking "Prevent automatic sleeping on power adapter when the display is off". I've not been able to pinpoint any culprit preventing sleep or waking it. Searching through logs in terminal, the only process that shows up while it's in sleep is power management, which I assume is just to handle battery optimization.
 
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Have you guys tried turning off WiFi before you put it to sleep? I've noticed mine wakes up briefly a few times overnight but not if WiFi is off.

EDIT: After installing SleepAid I see that it is actually still waking up briefly about every hour.
 
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I haven't run into the issue in a while, but I realized that I hadn't had Creative Cloud running. Yesterday, I launched it and was doing some work with Adobe apps. This morning, I opened my laptop and it was warm to the touch again. I'm going to bet it was the Creative Cloud sync.
 
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I have the same issue. It is my first MacBook with such strange behavior. I owned M1 Pro previously and Intel MacBooks before that and never faced such a problem. I have now 16" MacBook Pro with M4 Max. Laptop is lying on my desk, plugged in to power. Nothing attached except for external SSD for Time Machine backups. Since I have it, it gets noticeably warm quite often when the lid is closed and laptop is sleeping (or at least should be).

On one hand, it's good to see that a lot of us has this issue. I started thinking that maybe my unit is damaged and I would have to give it to service for checking, but it looks like it is probably something with M4 chipsets :/ Or maybe (hopefully) software issue, but it happens still on macOS 15.4.1.
 
Noticed this too M4 Max. File a report/feedback page on Apple to let them know.

happend to two new units.
 
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macjoshua said:
I haven't run into the issue in a while, but I realized that I hadn't had Creative Cloud running. Yesterday, I launched it and was doing some work with Adobe apps. This morning, I opened my laptop and it was warm to the touch again. I'm going to bet it was the Creative Cloud sync.
Click to expand...
I have definitely caught Lightroom specifically keeping the system awake before.
 
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Guys, stop guessing. Install SleepAid and it will tell you exactly what is waking it up and when.
 
Howard2k said:
Obviously step is to do a reboot and see if the problem persists. But before you do, check Activity Monitor and look at the Energy tab. See if there is an app that is Preventing Sleep.
Click to expand...
And while you're in there, view All Processes and sort by CPU Time. The stuff that's had the most cumulative activity will rise to the top.

macjoshua said:
I haven't run into the issue in a while, but I realized that I hadn't had Creative Cloud running. Yesterday, I launched it and was doing some work with Adobe apps. This morning, I opened my laptop and it was warm to the touch again. I'm going to bet it was the Creative Cloud sync.
Click to expand...
Ugh. Creative Cloud is borderline malware.
 
I've been experiencing the same phenomenon since I have my new MacBook Pro 16" M4 Pro. Sometimes it's pretty warm in the morning for no apparent reason. Has anybody been able to resolve this mystery?
Here is my AlDente log showing how the battery got warm several times at night so it must be something that is coming and going:
(When it's really sleeping the temperatures stays at about 20°C like the start of the graph)

Edit: I saw people talking about Adobe and Creative Cloud. I don't have any Adobe products installed.
Edit 2: I haven't been using the Macbook while these stats were recorded at all. The temperature started going up at about 1:45 pm. I wasn't even home yesterday.
 

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It' not really a mysterie, unfortunately. It's called "Modern Sleep" or "Modern Standby". It basically means that the OS uses this time without user interaction for syncing lots of stuff. Windows is particulary aggressive about this, which makes laptops sleep and battery endurance without disabling WIFI impossible to calculate. The battery drain including heating up the machine reliability is real and severly compromises reliying on battery power while on the move. In windows world this even fried laptops in backpacks.

The best and only true solution for for laptops running Windows and MacOS is to disable any network connection, that is WIFI when on the go.

Don' waste time to guess who is the culprit. The main responsibiloty for this behaviour lies with the OS.
 
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