(2019) 16" is HOT & NOISY with an external monitor! :(

[IceStormNG]

Apple can't do that because it's up to AMD to do that. AMD designs the GPU's, Apple buys them from AMD.

For the 5300M and 5500M AMD have chosen GDDR6 and for the 5600M AMD chose HBM2.

The previous 15" did not have this issue cause it was using GDDR5.

Right it was using GDDR5. But GDDR6, like in the 16", is extremely power hungry.

Most of the fan noise issues just comes from the VRMs and also the VRAM that run too hot and don't get cooled at all.

The machine was simply not designed to be used under load. Apparently it was designed for web surfing or editing documents in Pages. Edit longer than 20 minutes in final cut and the machine already starts tp throttles heavily.

HBM2 is very expensive as well.

The 16" isn't cheap either. Apple always blares how they only deliver the best of everything.


Anyway. Apple shouldn't have used these GPU options or improved cooling. You can't tell me that these genius engineers at Apple didn't encountered that issue.

What doesn't get into my head is, how they apparently saw "Oh the machines does a jetengine when running with open Lid and external display" and said "this is fine" and shipped that thing.

My only explanation would be that they either didn't cared at all or did that on purpose as their M1 machines where probably almost ready at that time.

Either way: The M1s also have some issues. Ironically also with external displays. Before I buy another Apple machine, I will do better research about stuff like this.

 

[venom600]

The machine was simply not designed to be used under load. Apparently it was designed for web surfing or editing documents in Pages. Edit longer than 20 minutes in final cut and the machine already starts tp throttles heavily.

That isn’t entirely fair. This generation of machines (all of the USB-C only models) were designed to work with significantly smaller Intel processors that produced less heat. When they were designed, Apple expected to be using 10nm chips in 2016 when they launched and 8nm chips in 2018. When they didn’t get those they were stuck with a machine that was never designed to deal with the thermals the available processors put out.

 

[IceStormNG]

That isn’t entirely fair. This generation of machines (all of the USB-C only models) were designed to work with significantly smaller Intel processors that produced less heat. When they were designed, Apple expected to be using 10nm chips in 2016 when they launched and 8nm chips in 2018. When they didn’t get those they were stuck with a machine that was never designed to deal with the thermals the available processors put out.

Sorry, but that's Apple's fault in the end.

I can't imagine Intel promised them they will do that. Intel is still on 14nm. They tried 10nm before the 2016 machines and failed.

 

[Kung gu]

Sorry, but that's Apple's fault in the end.

I can't imagine Intel promised them they will do that. Intel is still on 14nm. They tried 10nm before the 2016 machines and failed.

IDF13: Intel To Ship 10nm Chips in 2015, 7nm Chips in 2017

Fudzilla reports that Intel promised at the IDF13 press conference that their 10nm chips would start shipping in 2015 followed by 7nm chips in 2017.

wccftech.com

"Intel promised at the IDF13 press conference that their 10nm chips would start shipping in 2015 followed by 7nm chips in 2017."

That article was written in 2013. Apple probably designed the 2016 laptops maybe 3-4 years earlier believing Intel will indeed deliver 10nm and 7nm.

Apple did not design these machines in 2016 they take years to design.

But the thin design is not at all suited for 14nm.

 

[Kung gu]

Most of the fan noise issues just comes from the VRMs and also the VRAM that run too hot and don't get cooled at all.

most of the heat comes from the Intel CPU and AMD GPU and the VRAM.
Yep

 

[IceStormNG]

Now look. They trusted intel and are mad as it doesn't work as expected.
How ironic. We also trusted Apple and are now made because it doesn't work as advertised and expected.

That's just fair to be mad at Apple. It's not our fault. Yeah it's Intels. But also Apple's fault. The 16" is not from 2015. They had enough generations to fix these issues. They haven't done anything in that regards.

I mean: They probably just made these machines as stop-gap until they got their ARM ones ready.

Doesn't change the fact that we have a 2300-5000$ machine that performs subpar on simple tasks (like: Connecting a monitor)

 

[Kung gu]

Now look. They trusted intel and are mad as it doesn't work as expected.
How ironic. We also trusted Apple and are now made because it doesn't work as advertised and expected.

That's just fair to be mad at Apple. It's not our fault. Yeah it's Intels. But also Apple's fault. The 16" is not from 2015. They had enough generations to fix these issues. They haven't done anything in that regards.

I mean: They probably just made these machines as stop-gap until they got their ARM ones ready.

Doesn't change the fact that we have a 2300-5000$ machine that performs subpar on simple tasks (like: Connecting a monitor)

yep, honestly I think Apple does not give a **** about Intel Macs(Apart from Mac Pro).

Also you did mention that monitor is issue is inherent to the AMD GPU, as your brothers PC is the same.

I would expect a AMD Windows laptop with GDDR6 to have the same issues.

 

[IceStormNG]

yep, honestly I think Apple does not give a **** about Intel Macs(Apart from Mac Pro).

Also you did mention that monitor is issue is inherent to the AMD GPU, as your brothers PC is the same.

I would expect a AMD Windows laptop with GDDR6 to have the same issues.

Yes and no. They have the same root issue, yeah. But if they added proper cooling to the VRMs and the VRAM it's less of an issue for the end user (except for power consumption. You cannot fix that in this case)

The VRAM and VRMs in the MBP are only cooled through ambient air. So if the mac heats up, the air inside gets hot and doesn't cool properly. So the fans have to ramp up. If connected to a heatsink, they can dissipate heat passively much better.
That's why some of us (including me) padded the VRMs with thermal pads to abuse the backplate as giant heatsink.

 

[Kung gu]

The VRAM and VRMs in the MBP are only cooled through ambient air. So if the mac heats up, the air inside gets hot and doesn't cool properly. So the fans have to ramp up. If connected to a heatsink, they can dissipate heat passively much better.
That's why some of us (including me) padded the VRMs with thermal pads to abuse the backplate as giant heatsink.

funny how the M1 MBP has better cooling than the intel 16" cause the unified ram in M1 MBP is connected to the heatsink and thermal paste is applied to the RAM.

The heatsink covers the RAM as well. Since there is no VRAM in M1, well there is no need worry about that.

I wonder if the next 16" is gonna have similar unified RAM.

 

[Minga_]

The VRAM and VRMs in the MBP are only cooled through ambient air. So if the mac heats up, the air inside gets hot and doesn't cool properly. So the fans have to ramp up. If connected to a heatsink, they can dissipate heat passively much better.
That's why some of us (including me) padded the VRMs with thermal pads to abuse the backplate as giant heatsink.

And that's clearly a design flaw that Apple is responsible for. Not Intel, not AMD.

 

[Kung gu]

And that's clearly a design flaw that Apple is responsible for. Not Intel, not AMD.

The 5600M does not suffer from this and even when connected to the external display it uses 5-6 watts simply because it’s using HBM2 and those the with 5600M have much cooler temps.

but on the 5300M and 5500M use GDDR6 this is power hungry memory so Apple should have added extra thermal pads on these models.

 

[PeterJP]

The machine was simply not designed to be used under load. Apparently it was designed for web surfing or editing documents in Pages. Edit longer than 20 minutes in final cut and the machine already starts tp throttles heavily.
(...)
Either way: The M1s also have some issues. Ironically also with external displays. Before I buy another Apple machine, I will do better research about stuff like this.

Even worse than Final Cut. Just do a Teams call with the damn thing. I know Teams is extremely inefficient, but still. Here you got the most powerful laptop in the entire Mac range, you do a video call and it starts pumping like a leaf blower?

Or just connecting an external screen. Instant leaf blower!

Because I've started music production recently, the 16" is going out and a new 14/16" Apple Silicon machine is coming in as soon as it's announced.

 

[Minga_]

The 5600M does not suffer from this and even when connected to the external display it uses 5-6 watts simply because it’s using HBM2 and those the with 5600M have much cooler temps.

but on the 5300M and 5500M use GDDR6 this is power hungry memory so Apple should have added extra thermal pads on these models.

I know.

 

[adak]

Hi guys,
I'm almost having success eliminating the fan speed / heat with switchresx.
If I use one of the existing profiles with exactly 60HZ instead of 59.95Hz the GPU wattage goes down to about 3.5w and things are quiet! The only problem is, that the profile I use is 1920x1080 instead of 1920x1200 which I would need.
If I create a custom profile with 1920x1200 60.000Hz settings there's no option for me to use that. How can I use my custom setting?

 

[bknaepen]

Even worse than Final Cut. Just do a Teams call with the damn thing. I know Teams is extremely inefficient, but still. Here you got the most powerful laptop in the entire Mac range, you do a video call and it starts pumping like a leaf blower?

Or just connecting an external screen. Instant leaf blower!

Because I've started music production recently, the 16" is going out and a new 14/16" Apple Silicon machine is coming in as soon as it's announced.

Speaking of Teams, does anyone know if the 5600M equipped model remains fairly quiet during a video call (and connected to an external screen) ? That would be the ultimate benchmark for me...

 

[Andrew Romanov]

I have Mac Book pro 2019 with 5500 GPU and have same issue with external monitor. On this thread, I've found that this issue can be fixed with USBC-DisplayPort cable. I've bot the cabe and connected external monitor via that cable. As I think now, the issue is fixed. (Before I've tried USBC-USBC, USBC-HDMI, nothing changed).

 

[IceStormNG]

The issue is rarely caused by the connection. More by the selection of resolution and refresh rate.
Also: Clamshell mode or multiple displays will cause the 18W power draw "feature". No matter what you do. Only one external display in Clamshell mode can give you an as silent as possible machine.

 

[RomanoWave]

Hi guys, I want to share my settings for two Dell U2715H (QHD) monitors, in case it may help someone else.

I was losing hope: despite trying many different resolutions/combinations (SwitchResX) I couldn't get my MBP (16'' 5500M) not to bump to 20W as soon as even one single external monitor was connected. I almost gave up, I use this machine for work and it was throttling down to 1Ghz whenever compiling something, becoming not only slower than the former 15'' model, but also practically unusable even for writing a simple email (1Ghz doesn't cope well with today's requirements...).

In clamshell mode only I finally found one (default) resolution that made the trick: 2048x1152@60hz (and a pixel clock of 162Mhz - the important bit):

View attachment 1749948

...unfortunately that would be blurry (and give less room), given my monitors have a native resolution of 2560x1440 (QHD). I tried all the os-default combinations (they are either 50 or 60hz), and none worked. Then I saw FF89's post above (thanks!) and noticed that the 162Mhz working pixel clock was exactly half of the clock in GTF for the mode he used - (2560x1440).

Tried that as well, still 20W... eventually I tried to switch cables around, and finally (two usb-c to mini display cables) I got it working. Wasn't working with a Sandberg usb-C HDMI dock, it wouldn't allow me to set a custom mode with Switch-Res-X.

So also check your cables/dock... they seem to play an important role in this flawed hardware design.
My current setup works with this settings, very close to FF89's (one of the monitors is actually rotated by 270 degrees, but that doesn't really matter as it's just a visual transformation):

View attachment 1749954

View attachment 1749955

Finally I tried to set up the internal display with the exact same settings (and pixel clock!) but it won't work (display stays black), and despite the same frequency, power still goes back up to 20W (fans spinning high, 1Ghz instead of 4, etc.)

View attachment 1749956

I also still have the infamous WebKit gfx bug when switching between internal and dGPU, that was reported 1 year ago and still not fixed by Apple... but that's another story.

I guess they don't care much about these laptops anymore, with the M1s already way above their performance (with 2 monitors...).

Hello!

I have the same monitor.
Please tell me which cable are you using?

 

[MrGunny94]

Even worse than Final Cut. Just do a Teams call with the damn thing. I know Teams is extremely inefficient, but still. Here you got the most powerful laptop in the entire Mac range, you do a video call and it starts pumping like a leaf blower?

Or just connecting an external screen. Instant leaf blower!

Because I've started music production recently, the 16" is going out and a new 14/16" Apple Silicon machine is coming in as soon as it's announced.

Same here, completely impossible to use Teams and a External Display.

 

[jaduffy007]

Even worse than Final Cut. Just do a Teams call with the damn thing. I know Teams is extremely inefficient, but still. Here you got the most powerful laptop in the entire Mac range, you do a video call and it starts pumping like a leaf blower?

Or just connecting an external screen. Instant leaf blower!

Because I've started music production recently, the 16" is going out and a new 14/16" Apple Silicon machine is coming in as soon as it's announced.

For my music production...UA, UA Luna, large VST libraries, etc ... I dumped my 16" about 7 months ago. Replaced it with a M1 13" MBP...and love it. Even with Rosetta, runs FAST. No heat issues whatsoever. Logic probably runs significantly better than Luna. If / when Apple releases a "pro" version of the Mac Mini, I'll switch.

 

[TheJulianJES]

As expected, no changes in macOS Monterey 12.0 Beta (21A5248p).

 

[adak]

Has anyone had success after a visit to the genius bar? Are they actually capable of repairing that issue?

 

[IceStormNG]

Has anyone had success after a visit to the genius bar? Are they actually capable of repairing that issue?

No. Because in Apple's eyes is NOT an issue. It's how the machine was designed by them.

 

[IceStormNG]

As expected, no changes in macOS Monterey 12.0 Beta (21A5248p).

It actually got even worse. WindowServer process now consumes ridiculous amounts of CPU just for moving a window around.

The issue with Teams is, that Teams causes massive CPU load when using your camera. I also had a Teams meeting today. Usually, I have my cam off, and it only uses like 20% CPU.. But now, with my own cam on it was more like 200% CPU. Just for a 720p30 USB camera.

If I wouldn't need an Intel Chip for my work, I would've sold that POS right away. But there is no better MacBook with Intel CPU, and they also won't come anymore.

In the Future I will then need multiple computers to get my work done. Windows/Linux PCs and Servers won't move to ARM anytime soon.

 

[PeterJP]

The issue with Teams is, that Teams causes massive CPU load when using your camera. I also had a Teams meeting today. Usually, I have my cam off, and it only uses like 20% CPU.. But now, with my own cam on it was more like 200% CPU. Just for a 720p30 USB camera.

If I wouldn't need an Intel Chip for my work, I would've sold that POS right away. But there is no better MacBook with Intel CPU, and they also won't come anymore.

In the Future I will then need multiple computers to get my work done. Windows/Linux PCs and Servers won't move to ARM anytime soon.

Yeah, Teams is a complete pile of garbage. I'm sure it can overheat a mac pro. I think that they have programmed it in some interpreted web framework, then they do all the processing on the video stream on full res, then resize it. Just because. On my late 2013 MBP 13, the fans go on from start to end. On the 16" that I have, they go on when it's warm in the room or anytime when the call takes over 15 minutes. On my M1 mac mini, I don't hear a thing. Like you, I have a need for Intel Windows from time to time. I'm looking at building a Proxmox file server and to add a Windows VM on there just for those few moments when I need it. I hardly start up my Win VM on my 16" MBP anyway, so for me, that should do it.