this machine works phenomenal as a stand alone and in clam shell mode. it gets loud and hot when open & connected to a monitor. Solution, simplify your desk and use clam shell mode. there is no better option on the market for MacBooks with such a large screen, so we all need to move on with our lives and stop complaining unless you are going to actually invest resources into a class action law suit, which seems like a pathetic use of time while on the planet
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(2019) 16" is HOT & NOISY with an external monitor! :(
- Thread starter Appledoesnotlisten
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Well, there is: vote with your wallet and don‘t buy that thing
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Also have a look at your (Left) TB3 Controller. Those Intel JHL7540 are rated for up to 65°C. It's already at 62°C here.
I also did some testing around this and the TB3 controller heat can also let the fans spin up. CPU and GPU (while having 18+W power consumption) where not hot enough to kick in the fans (in my tests). When under higher load (without external monitor) both CPU and GPU can go way hotter before the fans actually spin up. Plugging in an external monitor lets the TB3 controller's heat jump up to nearly 60°C in a short time.
Keep in mind that Apple routes almost everything through these chips: Thunderbolt, DisplayPort, (probably also USB-C) and power delivery. They're not connected to the heatsink and also have nothing that helps it to dissipate heat. They need airflow from the fans.
Here's a pic for those who don't know where the chips are in the 16".
Just my 2 cents...
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My machine also takes off whenever I connect an external monitor (have one with 5500M). As Big Sur didn't fixed it yet (Beta 8) I don't expect a fix at all. Too bad I used my MBP without external monitor for the first months, didn't noticed the problem, and now can't return it anymore. Apple Support just said: Works as designed... whatever it is that they designed here.
I hope you got apple care + with it cause using the laptop in clam shell will mess up the screen at some point in my opinion.
It's extremely close to the body which get super hot.
Thanks for the info. Today I connected an eGPU to a 15" 6- core MBP'18 and it DID reduce dGPU heat from 17W to 5W, but 3 problems remain:
1) the dGPU is still burning 5W, despite me driving all the external monitors through eGPU. In spite of the external monitors connected to the eGPU, gfxcard from gfx.io does NOT allow to disable dGPU, saying that external monitors are in use (see print screen).
2) both Thunderbolt ports are getting hot, especially the left one, that I connected both eGPU and Caldigit to (moving Caldigit to the left only slightly helps the left port, while significantly increasing temps of the right one
3) The computer is tot when fans are on auto, but not as hot as it was without eGPU.
So I have 3 questions:
1) Is it possible to calm down the dPU to 0W?
2) Is it possible to calm down Thunderbolt3 ports somehow?
3) Do Thunderbolt3 ports on the 16" suffer the same or they are bigger/better?
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Isn't the dGPU has to be active as Apple's dGPU implementation has any displayport output routed via the GPU itself?
What you can try is this:
1. Disconnect all external monitors.
2. Set it to integrated graphics.
3. plug it back in.
See if that works. (I think it worked on my rMBP 2015 15" with r9 M370x, connecting to a monitor via displayport/hdmi as you would get black screen on external monitor.) But I don't know if its going to be the same on later models.
Your numbers seem normal, and I'm surprised if it would lead to any real problems. Five watts shouldn't change anything meaningful, especially if you're connected to AC — it won't even consume the battery. You may be trying to over-achieve in that regard. My 16" setup is fairly similar, and the Mac stays warm. Most temps hover at around 55...65 °C. That would be normal.
Port-wise, use the right side for charging (via eGPU?) and if you've got many devices, use them evenly on left/right. This is important. Charging from the left creates much more heat and fan pollution than charging from the right. If you're charging from the left, that may explain any symptoms you think aren't OK.
Are You Charging Your MacBook on the Wrong Side?
Yes, you read that headline correctly. There is apparently a “right” way and a “wrong” way to connect devices to a M acBook with Thunderbolt/USB-C
I've got the eGPU (charger) and Caldigit connected to the right, and an LG 5k connected to the left. Temps stay mid-range. Switching it around would bring the left side Thunderbolt to higher figures, which affects the temp readings and fan curves quite significantly. But I can't demonstrate it with numbers anymore, haven't got iStat installed. It works now, so no need to touch it. But I'll still hang around here for general interest.
Nope. Even when the iGPU is used for display, the the dGPU is still on. Metal and OpenCL can use the dGPU without switching to it. So you can run Metal/OpenCL on both the iGPU and the dGPU at the same time while iStat or gfxCardStatus show that the iGPU is active.
For example: I'm right now on the iGPU, no external display and no compute intensive applications running. Radeon high side is about 3W. The dGPU is always powered on.
I was thinking about that. Someone I know wanted to test whether some small heatsinks (for a raspberry pi) would fit onto them (maybe have to cut them down). The other idea would be to use a thick piece of Thermal pad and connect it to the chassis. That would obviously heat up the bottom plate.
Otherwise: There's nothing. The chips should've been connected to the heatsink or should have at least a small passive heatsink on them. But they're naked.
I was talking about the 16". The 16" has two dual port controllers (one on each side). The ports on the same side share lanes and bandwidth. That's why you have to connect some monitors onto separate sides in order for them to work. Like 2 6k XDR screens.
Any device plugged in to the ports will heat up the TB3 controllers. Even a USB-C SSD will heat them up while transferring data at high speed. Although it's quite minimal. Charging/high power draw and external displays are the worst when it comes to heating up the TB3 controllers.
And then there is another thing which is a bit harder to test. The VRMs. They also get really hot and they're not connected to the heatsink. You can easily see throttling when exporting a clip in Final Cut. The CPU is limited to 1.8GHz even though heat and power of both are still fine. The fans run full blast and the CPU (i9 2.4GHz) is locked to 1.8GHz. I'm 99.9% sure that this is caused by the VRMs but sadly, we cannot read the VRM temps.
The Dell XPS 15 also had that issue. Dell made the heatsink longer to cover the VRMs in the newer XPS models to fix that problem.
Ok thanks, it seems that 15" and 16" behave similarly in this respect.Your numbers seem normal, and I'm surprised if it would lead to any real problems. Five watts shouldn't change anything meaningful, especially if you're connected to AC — it won't even consume the battery. You may be trying to over-achieve in that regard. My 16" setup is fairly similar, and the Mac stays warm. Most temps hover at around 55...65 °C. That would be normal.
Port-wise, use the right side for charging (via eGPU?) and if you've got many devices, use them evenly on left/right. This is important. Charging from the left creates much more heat and fan pollution than charging from the right. If you're charging from the left, that may explain any symptoms you think aren't OK.
Are You Charging Your MacBook on the Wrong Side?
Yes, you read that headline correctly. There is apparently a “right” way and a “wrong” way to connect devices to a M acBook with Thunderbolt/USB-Clifehacker.com
I've got the eGPU (charger) and Caldigit connected to the right, and an LG 5k connected to the left. Temps stay mid-range. Switching it around would bring the left side Thunderbolt to higher figures, which affects the temp readings and fan curves quite significantly. But I can't demonstrate it with numbers anymore, haven't got iStat installed. It works now, so no need to touch it. But I'll still hang around here for general interest.
I just moved everything from the left to the right port andit did not helps, the temps even jumped 2 degrees higher.
Btw, why are you connecting the 5K to your computer if you have an eGPU?
Sleep/wake was OK for the longest time, but Big Sur beta 7 broke it. Kernel panic, though I didn't check whether it even was eGPU-related or something else. I just turned sleep off while on A/C. Haven't tested with beta 8 yet.
The key is to have charging on the right. Can't tell from distance what else might be going on, if anything. If it works well and low/medium load fan noise is in control, why worry about what iStat says? Do you have a problem, or are you just trying to optimize the numbers further?
I direct-connect the LG 5k because it doesn't consume much wattage and I can split the work between two GPUs. Very smooth total performance. But on top of that: I cannot connect the 5k TB3 monitor to an eGPU, unless it's a BlackMagic. No graphics card supports TB3 monitors, except through some gimmicky gizmos, which I try to avoid.
LG 5k in clamshell alone runs fast and cool, zero problems. But I need those two side wing monitors, so the Razer Core / 580 drives them. Without the eGPU the total performance isn't butter-smooth and I'd get temp/noise pollution from the 5500M. With eGPU, all OK.
Yes, I do have a problem. The problem is that the computer gets too warm when connected to external monitors (I have 3 4K attached to the eGPU). Before eGPU it would get hot, so at least the problem is smaller. I did expect that eGPU would take ALL the load from dGPU - everybody on forums says that eGPU fixes the problem, while in fact it only significantly lessens it.
However, I will survive because winter is coming and room temperatures will stay lower for 6 months, naturally cooling the equipment. By the time it gets warm we will hopefully have more optimized Apple CPU and/or thunderbolt ports.
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Thanks! Hopefully the panics will be fixed by final release time. I'm also curious about stability under Catalina.
So I've been reading through this thread, and was wondering if someone could distill this down for me: are all 16" models having this "excessive heat/excessive fans" problem, regardless of configuration? How about the mid-2020 refresh models with the 5600m video?
The problem is with the 5300m/5500m. Most people with the 5600m stated that the problems were fixed. I think only 2 people have had issues with the 5600m. Search google for 5600m site:https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/16-is-hot-noisy-with-an-external-monitor.2211747 to see what the owners said.
You are right. Complaining here will not do much. I have contacted a class action lawyer. If anyone else is interested, let me know.
I haven't had the time to read all 154 pages of this thread but can report the following (for an 8-core i9, 5500m 8GB, 32GB MBP16):
1) Running 2 x Dell 24" 1080p monitors via a docking station with DisplayLink does not result in high temperatures and fan noise for my typical use - c. 40-50 Safari & Chrome browser tabs, Slack, Mail, MS Office apps, multiple terminal tabs (normal <10% of CPU). The laptop is open and on a stand that allows good airflow to the base.
2) I plug the docking station into one of TB3 port on the right-hand side of the machine. Monitors are connected via HDMI and DisplayPort to the Dell docking station.
3) The docking station defaults to using the integrated GPU, only changing to dGPU for apps that cause it to switch, such as Photos or Final Cut Pro. Switching to dGPU doesn't noticeably increase fan noise for most apps (Photos, Netflix, YouTube). The iGPU performance is perfectly fine for web-browsing, videos, scrolling large documents, switching between apps or virtual desktop spaces etc.
Surely it would be easy to determine which processes are exercising the CPU & GPU via the Activity Monitor or command-line tools such as "top". The machine doesn't get hot spontaneously - it heats up due to activity on the CPU, GPU, SSD, RAM and maybe some supporting components such as Thunderbolt controllers. Find out what this activity is, and then you can start investigating what user or software behaviour causes it.
Is this a problem only with 4K monitors? I could see that that would require more GPU power (IGP or dGPU).
1) Running 2 x Dell 24" 1080p monitors via a docking station with DisplayLink does not result in high temperatures and fan noise for my typical use - c. 40-50 Safari & Chrome browser tabs, Slack, Mail, MS Office apps, multiple terminal tabs (normal <10% of CPU). The laptop is open and on a stand that allows good airflow to the base.
2) I plug the docking station into one of TB3 port on the right-hand side of the machine. Monitors are connected via HDMI and DisplayPort to the Dell docking station.
3) The docking station defaults to using the integrated GPU, only changing to dGPU for apps that cause it to switch, such as Photos or Final Cut Pro. Switching to dGPU doesn't noticeably increase fan noise for most apps (Photos, Netflix, YouTube). The iGPU performance is perfectly fine for web-browsing, videos, scrolling large documents, switching between apps or virtual desktop spaces etc.
Surely it would be easy to determine which processes are exercising the CPU & GPU via the Activity Monitor or command-line tools such as "top". The machine doesn't get hot spontaneously - it heats up due to activity on the CPU, GPU, SSD, RAM and maybe some supporting components such as Thunderbolt controllers. Find out what this activity is, and then you can start investigating what user or software behaviour causes it.
Is this a problem only with 4K monitors? I could see that that would require more GPU power (IGP or dGPU).
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Because you’re using DisplayLink. It’s a driver that encodes the display content like a video stream and sends it to the dock as USB data. The dock decodes it and forwards it to the correct monitor. That way the monitor is not directly connected to the Mac. It’s actually more like sidecar, which also doesn’t trigger the heat problem of the AMD GPU.
But interesting to see that DisplayLink (which is more known to be a resource hog) causes less heat than connecting monitors directly.
But interesting to see that DisplayLink (which is more known to be a resource hog) causes less heat than connecting monitors directly.
BigSur Beta 8 (public beta 4) fixed the problem for me (it seems).
My config: MBP 16 5500m 8GB, clamshell mode <--- USB-C DisplayPort cable ----> single 4K 32" Samsung monitor (60 Hz)
USB-C-DP cable - left side
Right side - power and 1 Gbps ethernet cable (1 Gbps internet connection)
It used to be loud as hell, now it seems to be fixed by software (<2600 rpm when normal work, for me it's inaudible, MBP is >1m away from me).
With Catalina I suffered from 3500-5500 rpms for no reason.
Now when I compile something - the CPU spikes - which is natural and expected.
But no more jet engine sound on my right side when typing this post in Safari.
What a relief!
My config: MBP 16 5500m 8GB, clamshell mode <--- USB-C DisplayPort cable ----> single 4K 32" Samsung monitor (60 Hz)
USB-C-DP cable - left side
Right side - power and 1 Gbps ethernet cable (1 Gbps internet connection)
It used to be loud as hell, now it seems to be fixed by software (<2600 rpm when normal work, for me it's inaudible, MBP is >1m away from me).
With Catalina I suffered from 3500-5500 rpms for no reason.
Now when I compile something - the CPU spikes - which is natural and expected.
But no more jet engine sound on my right side when typing this post in Safari.
What a relief!
Run SwitcherResX (15 days free trial) then play around with the resolutions/refresh rates on offer for your monitor noting each time the power usage, you'll soon find the sweet spot that stops the power usage on the GPU jumping from ±5W to ±17W. The key here is the pixel clock that determines the power usage so if you can find different timings for your monitor which result in a lower pixel clock that should do it.
Here's a free alternative to using iStats Menu where you can check the same sensors that iStat menu exposes. "GPU Rail 1" is the line that returns the power usage of the GPU.
Quite probably. But I can't say that I noticed any significant problem when connecting (FHD) monitors directly. Yes, the machine was probably a bit warmer running the dGPU, but not so much that the fans were bothersome.
Buy why? What component overheats? CPU? GPU? SSD? RAM? something else?
I have an MBP16 and don't have this problem and run it with 2 x 1080p monitors (via DisplayLink on a docking station), so there is no inherent overheating in the design, at least with my configuration.
Is it only when using the dGPU? Or just with 4K monitors?
In my case, the fans become noticeable when the CPU or GPU usage rises - as expected. Probably over about 25% total CPU or GPU for an extended period. That only seems to happen under consistent video encoding/decoding load, or long-running file operations (OneDrive sync often sets it off).
I wouldn't call this a design flaw - but agree that the thermal margins are quite low. You can't run the machine at 50% load and expect it to stay cool and silent.