Still another question about fan noise ;-)...but a simple one...

[bennyyyy]

Hi guys,


With the i3 version 2020 of the macbookair :

With chrome and 5 tab + video 1080p fullscreen + mail open, all this during one hour in a cool room (about 20/25 degrees). Do you hear the fans once ? Or they just work for biggest task ? (sorry for my poor english ;-) ).

(and for the i5 ? )



Thanks a lot !!

 

[Fusion79]

I have had my i5 since Saturday. Fan as kicked on once full blast during initial setup when it was loading all my data from time machine. I use it mostly in my basement, which is cool, but watching YouTube TV and using Chrome with 3-4 tabs open and fan does not kick on much at all. If it's on I am not noticing it.

 

[bennyyyy]

ok thanks for this answer...anyone else could confirm or report with an i3 ?

 

[guiguigui]

I have the i5 too. Usually fan is at 0rpm. If you push it (4k video from Vimeo which supports h265) it turns on at 2700rpm. Really inaudible in a silent room. Only if you put the ear to the top right of the keyboard and know you're looking for some fan noise. When I have pushed it harder it goes to 3500-4500, which is audible but not annoying at all. The i3 should be even quieter 😉

 

[RiaKoobcam]

ok thanks for this answer...anyone else could confirm or report with an i3 ?

With my i3, under your use case, the fan is running at minimum (2700rpm). It's audible if you're in a very, very quiet room, but if there's even a bit of background noise, you can't hear it.

 

[bennyyyy]

With my i3, under your use case, the fan is running at minimum (2700rpm). It's audible if you're in a very, very quiet room, but if there's even a bit of background noise, you can't hear it.

Thx all of you for your answer...The pb is i am often in quiet rooms 🙁. Does it run all the time ? Could you confirm me that the i3 will be the quietest in most of the case compare to the i5.

 

[RiaKoobcam]

Thx all of you for your answer...The pb is i am often in quiet rooms 🙁. Does it run all the time ? Could you confirm me that the i3 will be the quietest in most of the case compare to the i5.

That was certainly my experience running the i5 versus the i3, yes. I can't confirm that it'll translate to your use case or particular machine, but I found the i3 fans kicked in less often and later compared to the i5, and the temperatures were consistently 10-15c cooler for the CPU for my daily tasks such as web browsing and light office use.

 

[guiguigui]

Thx all of you for your answer...The pb is i am often in quiet rooms 🙁. Does it run all the time ? Could you confirm me that the i3 will be the quietest in most of the case compare to the i5.

i5 with safari 40+ tabs + 2 windows full screen in different spaces, YouTube video playing, Sublime Text with many windows, notes, Time machine backup in the background, dropbox, nothing extreme but pretty normal use to me. 0rpm

 

[IngerMan]

i5 with safari 40+ tabs + 2 windows full screen in different spaces, YouTube video playing, Sublime Text with many windows, notes, Time machine backup in the background, dropbox, nothing extreme but pretty normal use to me. 0rpm

Wow, did you just pull the i5 out of the freezer and run all that at Zero rpm fans. You should label that machine Sub Zero 😉

 

[bennyyyy]

Wow, did you just pull the i5 out of the freezer and run all that at Zero rpm fans. You should label that machine Sub Zero 😉

well cause of the quarantine i can't test the laptop in a shop...What's why i'm asking questions. Sub zero make me laught a lot ;-) ! Hum my mbpro 2013 was really quiet (no fans on) for small tasks, i wonder if it'll be the same for the air...Do you think the MBpro 2018/2019 with the smallest configuration are quietest ?

 

[IngerMan]

well cause of the quarantine i can't test the laptop in a shop...What's why i'm asking questions. Sub zero make me laught a lot ;-) ! Hum my mbpro 2013 was really quiet (no fans on) for small tasks, i wonder if it'll be the same for the air...Do you think the MBpro 2018/2019 with the smallest configuration are quietest ?

Some people are more sensitive to sounds on their laptop or desktop makes. I have only had annoyance with spinning disks, why I changed to all SSD for external and internal. I have not had a fan complaint yet. Sure if I’m pushing something for a given time and temps go up and so does the fan, I expect that.

I think the only sure way is your going to have to see for yourself.

 

[deeddawg]

Thx all of you for your answer...The pb is i am often in quiet rooms 🙁. Does it run all the time ? Could you confirm me that the i3 will be the quietest in most of the case compare to the i5.

I spent the evening working on tagging/ranking/culling travel photos in PhotoMechanic6, a bit of tweaking in Luminar, plus the usual email/safari/message distractions.

No other sounds in the room. My i5 was silent.

Sitting at my desk yesterday working, with my i5 off to the side with personal mail, safari, and trying a couple things here and there during lulls in work, it remained silent. I had a Seagate 2TB external HDD attached and could hear it spinning. MBA i5 remained silent with no audible fan activity. I've not loaded a monitoring program so I can't what the fan RPMs are -- dont' care either, just whether I can hear it or not.

 

[Fusion79]

Using a 2020 i5. I have been working for a couple of hours already this morning. Using pages, 4 safari tabs open, listening to Apple Music, using mail, and Chrome. Fan has never turned on so far.

 

[IngerMan]

Using a 2020 i5. I have been working for a couple of hours already this morning. Using pages, 4 safari tabs open, listening to Apple Music, using mail, and Chrome. Fan has never turned on so far.

I would be curious if you had time. Shut down Chrome let the temps stabilize back to 40's and use Safari for the same test. Just want to see how much Chrome is a factor for the 60 C temps.

 

[Fusion79]

I would be curious if you had time. Shut down Chrome let the temps stabilize back to 40's and use Safari for the same test. Just want to see how much Chrome is a factor for the 60 C temps.

Will do when I have some time. I do suspect Chrome does drive temp up even when being used just for browsing. When I use Safari exclusively, even watching YouTube, I have never had the fans kick on. I have to use Chrome for Youtube TV and for the first time last night the fan did kick on full blast for a bit after about 30 minutes of full screen viewing. Temp was in the high 80's. For me that was the first time since I got this on Saturday that the fan kicked on full blast. It was loud.

Luckily I use my iPad for most of my media consumption. On the Mac it is mostly consigned to streaming Apple Music while working, and in that use case I have not noticed any thermal issues. I admit though my overall use case is light compared to others. Also my son has been using Google Classroom with Chrome and Zoom for class meetings and we have not noticed any issues. But I have not taken any measurements during his use.

 

[bennyyyy]

Well hope for us that we don't need an ipad to wath vidéo on youtube with fans off !!
A lot of people here has got an i5...I am really curious if there is a gap with the i3 in terms of fans noise.
I use chrome, i watch netflix and youtube video, often with 10 tabs open during 2 hours....
My old macbookpro i5 from 2013 has never shown any pbs of fans and noise in that case...

 

[deeddawg]

Well hope for us that we don't need an ipad to wath vidéo on youtube with fans off !!
A lot of people here has got an i5...I am really curious if there is a gap with the i3 in terms of fans noise.
I use chrome, i watch netflix and youtube video, often with 10 tabs open during 2 hours....
My old macbookpro i5 from 2013 has never shown any pbs of fans and noise in that case...

Have you tried h264ify chrome extension?

I don't use chrome on macos unless I absolutely have to. I prefer safari.

I also don't watch much in the way of videos either. 🙂

 

[bennyyyy]

Until now i haven't try this extension cause there was no pb.
But my mbpro gone broken since last week, so i want to replace it. I've tryed a windows laptop (D14 huawei)...
No way, too much noise. (and other things).

So i think i'll get the mcair i3...But i expect for the price really friendly use in terms of noise particulary. (and i consider 1080p video and several tabs open in 2020 are the minimum to expect no noise).
The mcpro 2019 is out for the keyboard (and the price also, and it's a pity that we can't change the ssd or ram).
May be the mcpro2020 but i it'll be too long to come i think.

 

[deeddawg]

The trouble isn't that you're streaming 1080 video and multiple tabs.

It's that you're doing it with a non-optimized browser (from a competitor) and with a video codec that is decoded in software on macOS.

That's going to tax the CPU. A taxed CPU gets hot. A hot CPU causes fans to run.

Especially on a model line that's not designed for sustained CPU usage.

Switch to a method that leverages the hardware decode and you should be golden.
Or instead, buy a Macbook Pro as they're intended for CPU intensive jobs.

Don't blame the screwdriver when it sucks at hammering nails.

Use the right tools for the job.

 

[bennyyyy]

Yeah i understand, i know what h264eify does, but as i say, this was no necessary with my mcbookpro2013, and i havent got an macairi3 yet so i can't test your chrome extension ;-).

 

[deeddawg]

Just for grins I pulled up an Alton Brown Good Eats Reloaded episode and set it to 1080p.

Safari plays it while showing about 10% CPU in activity monitor.

Chrome plays it while showing 60% CPU for Google Chrome Helper (Renderer) plus 10% CPU for Google Chrome Helper (GPU) and about 1% for Google Chrome itself. One tab.

System remains silent as best I can tell in either circumstance.

So at least with my system things are nearly as dire in Chrome as it might otherwise seem.

but I also oddly enough am finding my i5 2020 MBA to be far cooler and quieter than some of the reports and youtube video comparisons would suggest. I only hear the fan when I would otherwise expect to such as doing a bunch of RAW image exports from Lightroom.

It's almost like folks who are experiencing a problem for some reason are very vocal, as are folks who are trying to promote YouTube views, and a bunch of the rest of folks who aren't having any problems are just going on about their business? 😛

Edit - when I first got my MBA up and running after restoring from time machine, I had a problem process (Synology Cloudstation Drive) hung up trying to sync a couple files - slammed the fans to max. I re-linked the sync process and everything's been fine with it since (apart from it's not the best software to begin with). While I don't think any of the folks here are conveying anything different than their actual experience, I wonder if there may at times be third party software creating an issue that appears to be an issue with something else?

Several minutes now since I started the video full screen and set it 1080p via Youtube on Chrome. My MBA remains silent. Bottom case temp ~98F. Topcase 107F at the 6-F6-7 junction. Palmrests 82-83F.