Is your Macbook w/ the 5600m able to wake from sleep (with an external monitor connected) without crashing?
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(2019) 16" is HOT & NOISY with an external monitor! :(
- Thread starter Appledoesnotlisten
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Is your Macbook w/ the 5600m able to wake from sleep (with an external monitor connected) without crashing?
I just need help to find best settings for SwitchRes. ATM working only 50Hz. Want to try at least 59Hz.
Hey, I also have a MacBook pro with the 5600M, and I have had no issues whatsoever with it. It wakes from sleep fine, and most of the time is connected to an external 4K monitor @ 60Hz (via a Thunderbolt 3 dock). I never hear the fan unless I am doing a render of a video in Davinci Resolve Studio. It also doesn't get overly hot unless I am pushing it, which it is then expected (probably not as hot as my old 2014 MacBook Pro).
I was fearful buying it because of all the negative comments, but I haven't regret it. I got the 2.4Ghz i9 with 32GB RAM, so according to all the complaints here, it was a recipe for disaster. I haven't even disabled Turbo Boost - haven't had the need to do that. No issues at all.
Glad to hear that. Do you use it with your external monitor in clamshell mode or with open lid?
I can confirm this is actually a fix, it worked with my monitor which could run at 5w only when setted to 60hz, now it runs at 120.95hz at 5w, thanks a lot. I think that if you buy two identical monitors and run them with the same resolution profile you could still get <10 watts since the 18w problem is caused by synchronization of displays with different res/hz
So lets all start mailing Apple to fix this or ask amd to update Their drivers.
obviously apples engineers are as good as we thought they were when it takes users to jerry rig a solution that may or my not work on different setups.
obviously apples engineers are as good as we thought they were when it takes users to jerry rig a solution that may or my not work on different setups.
So I decided to trial clamshell mode for work today, despite being a committed "lid open" user I thought I should try it to see if there was any difference in fan noise. Found a bluetooth keyboard and mouse hidden in a drawer (Logitech K850 keyboard and Logitech M720 Triathlon mouse). No change to my apps usage - MS Office, MS Teams, MS Outlook, Chrome, Safari, Monday, Apple Music.
The difference is pretty stark. Whereas with the lid open the 5500 Radeon was drawing close to 20W power and the fans were spinning up noisily at 5,500rpm+, in clamshell mode the GPU is drawing 5-7W and the fans are spinning at 1,800rpm (silent) for most usage, up to about 12W with fans at 3,000rpm when on a MS Teams call. This is with Turbo Boost enabled. Will try with Turbo Boost disabled later today.
Compromises in this mode:
1) I preferred using the MBP 16 keyboard.
2) I liked using the Touch Bar (there, I said it
). Why? For easy volume control and also I use Touch ID all the time for passwords on Safari. Now I'll have to remember them
3) I liked the integral speakers on the MBP16 for conference calls. They're excellent. The speakers on my Philips 346B1 monitor are distinctly average. So, for now, I'm Airplaying sound to a Apple HomePod on my desk. Will see how that goes. Good sound obviously, as long as the lip sync is OK. So far so good.
So, I reckon I'll accept these compromises in order to have less heat, fan noise and actually be able to participate in MS Teams calls with less of a noise issue. I will still however, continue my escalation with Apple support on the "lid open connected to monitor" noise problem. I see clamshell mode as a workaround only, but for now, it's better.
The difference is pretty stark. Whereas with the lid open the 5500 Radeon was drawing close to 20W power and the fans were spinning up noisily at 5,500rpm+, in clamshell mode the GPU is drawing 5-7W and the fans are spinning at 1,800rpm (silent) for most usage, up to about 12W with fans at 3,000rpm when on a MS Teams call. This is with Turbo Boost enabled. Will try with Turbo Boost disabled later today.
Compromises in this mode:
1) I preferred using the MBP 16 keyboard.
2) I liked using the Touch Bar (there, I said it
). Why? For easy volume control and also I use Touch ID all the time for passwords on Safari. Now I'll have to remember them 3) I liked the integral speakers on the MBP16 for conference calls. They're excellent. The speakers on my Philips 346B1 monitor are distinctly average. So, for now, I'm Airplaying sound to a Apple HomePod on my desk. Will see how that goes. Good sound obviously, as long as the lip sync is OK. So far so good.
So, I reckon I'll accept these compromises in order to have less heat, fan noise and actually be able to participate in MS Teams calls with less of a noise issue. I will still however, continue my escalation with Apple support on the "lid open connected to monitor" noise problem. I see clamshell mode as a workaround only, but for now, it's better.
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I know it's not much, but I had a "customer feedback" form from Apple today about my recent 13" 2020 MBP purchase (i7/32GB/1TB). Under the section about why I purchased the 13" and not the 16" I selected the "other" option and said:
"Concern about noisy fans and heat when the 16" is driving an external 4K display"*.
Maybe this will register as a small data point in Apple's thinking and help some here or at least be taken into account in the successor to the 2019 16".
*This was indeed an important factor in my decision. I was in the market for a new MBP to replace my 2015 iMac in part because WFH has meant I need to rationalise space on my desk and move to a docked laptop so that there is room for my work (Surface) laptop. I now have a laptop either side of a Dell 4K u3219q, which works nicely with the space available.
I could easily have picked up a mid level 16" with my budget and especially as refurbs are available for the 16". The number one thing pushing me to the 13" (even more than its portability advantage) is that it runs cooler and quieter for this setup. The 13" will happily drive the 4k display and its own while fans stay at 0 rpm for a lot of day-to-day light use.
"Concern about noisy fans and heat when the 16" is driving an external 4K display"*.
Maybe this will register as a small data point in Apple's thinking and help some here or at least be taken into account in the successor to the 2019 16".
*This was indeed an important factor in my decision. I was in the market for a new MBP to replace my 2015 iMac in part because WFH has meant I need to rationalise space on my desk and move to a docked laptop so that there is room for my work (Surface) laptop. I now have a laptop either side of a Dell 4K u3219q, which works nicely with the space available.
I could easily have picked up a mid level 16" with my budget and especially as refurbs are available for the 16". The number one thing pushing me to the 13" (even more than its portability advantage) is that it runs cooler and quieter for this setup. The 13" will happily drive the 4k display and its own while fans stay at 0 rpm for a lot of day-to-day light use.
Maybe not... I have two exact same model 4K displays. If I run them at anything other than default scaling or the scaling with the smallest text then the GPU runs as 21W. So, depending on your settings you may not get low power. Amazingly, rotating one of the displays to 180 degrees results in low power at my preferred scaling.
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I liked using the Touch Bar (there, I said it
You can turn off the option to require touch ID/login password for password autofill if that's annoying
Good choice. Are you running your 13 inch MBP with the lid open or in clamshell mode?
In light of some of the apparently successful workaround stories posted in the last day or so, I've back-pedalled on this stance a little - I'll at least try the new machine out. If I can get it to work with some combination of SwitchResX, inverting the monitor etc. then I'll consider sticking with it.
I run three monitors for audio/music production, but they're currently 1080p - which adds up to only 75% of a single 4K monitor in terms of the number of pixels being pushed. So perhaps I'm in with a chance for it to behave itself.
I'm still really tempted to wait for ARM, but it's such a balancing act - I'm trying to make sure I don't miss the window to sell my Cylinder Mac Pro. They're still commanding decent prices right now, which will offset the cost of the 16" by a good amount, but by next year I reckon they'll have dropped quite a lot.
I'll report back when it arrives and I get a chance to try it.
Thought I follow up on life with one monitor inverted...
It's been fine apart from looking a bit odd. The bottom bezel on the monitor is bigger than the top so the case of the monitors don't line up if the LCDs do. Occasionally the Mac wakes and both monitors are upside down because it's decided to swap the monitor settings over so they both end up out by 180 degrees and both displays are upside down. A Display Set in SwitchResX on a hotkey makes this easily fixed however.
I've thought quite a bit about it... my aging eyes need scaling on a 27" 4K display, but they are not that bad that I am happy using default scaling - it is too big. So I'll need to run at the scaling that causes high power usage.
Ultimately I'd like a third 4K display or a 5K for the main display and would like to make use of the MacBook's screen. It's a waste to keep it closed and I would prefer the slightly improved cooling that will result from keeping it open. I need to run environments with multiple virtual machines and test a multi machine solution across them. So I need a lot of screen real estate to do this efficiently as I need to see what is going on across at least 4 VMs at the same time.
I thought about an EGPU but given some of the inconveniences and the cost I figured I would be better off shelling out for the 5600M. So I have one on order. This machine is going back. Fingers crossed that the 5600M can handle the four screens more efficiently. I'll report back once I've given it a try - it's probably about a week and a bit away.
A good find on the SwitchResX option for a single display. Had a bit of a play with SwitchResX didn't find options that helped with both monitors and scaling but don't have a lot of time to screw around with it.
Keep trying everyone... will chip in where I can with the 5500M before it goes back
It's been fine apart from looking a bit odd. The bottom bezel on the monitor is bigger than the top so the case of the monitors don't line up if the LCDs do. Occasionally the Mac wakes and both monitors are upside down because it's decided to swap the monitor settings over so they both end up out by 180 degrees and both displays are upside down. A Display Set in SwitchResX on a hotkey makes this easily fixed however.
I've thought quite a bit about it... my aging eyes need scaling on a 27" 4K display, but they are not that bad that I am happy using default scaling - it is too big. So I'll need to run at the scaling that causes high power usage.
Ultimately I'd like a third 4K display or a 5K for the main display and would like to make use of the MacBook's screen. It's a waste to keep it closed and I would prefer the slightly improved cooling that will result from keeping it open. I need to run environments with multiple virtual machines and test a multi machine solution across them. So I need a lot of screen real estate to do this efficiently as I need to see what is going on across at least 4 VMs at the same time.
I thought about an EGPU but given some of the inconveniences and the cost I figured I would be better off shelling out for the 5600M. So I have one on order. This machine is going back. Fingers crossed that the 5600M can handle the four screens more efficiently. I'll report back once I've given it a try - it's probably about a week and a bit away.
A good find on the SwitchResX option for a single display. Had a bit of a play with SwitchResX didn't find options that helped with both monitors and scaling but don't have a lot of time to screw around with it.
Keep trying everyone... will chip in where I can with the 5500M before it goes back
I recall a poster earlier in this thread (or perhaps on the Apple Support community) saying that they had tried the beta of Big Sur OS and it made no difference whatsoever to this issue 🤨
A bit of both. Probably, 60:40 in favour of lid open. The fans rarely exceed 1300 rpm (extremely quiet) in either configuration.
When pushed (e.g. FCPX export) the fans make themselves known. 3500+ rpm is the subjective point of obtrusiveness to me.
So i also tried clamshell mode for the first time the last few days. Here are my findings in idle:
MBP: 16" Base model
My external monitor: DELL P2421DC via USB-Connection (left side of MBP) in 2048x1152 HiDPI custom resolution.
Clamshell:
- Radeon High Side: < 7W
- Fans: below 2.000 rpm, 95%: 1.800rpm (silent)
- Temperature: 50c
I have nothing to complain about here. Works perfect and as expected.
Open lid:
- Radeon High Side: 18w
- Fans: 1.800 rpm - 2.500 rpm, about 90%: 2.200 rpm
- Temperature: 60 c
Area above the Touchbar is noticeably hot, rest of the machine feels warm, but fans are silent most of the time. I just don't know how an average temperature of 60c will affect longevity of this machine. Drawing 18w in idle just doesn't feel right for me, although fan noise (and speed) is acceptable for me.
I wish I had a second external monitor for some more testing (another P2421DC would be ideal). You might noticed I don't run my monitor in default resolution (2560x1440) and I enabled HiDPI-Mode, but I think the numbers in clamshell are really good. Would be interesting to see the Radeon High Side with 2x external montiors running in HiDPI.
BTW: It's just me but native 2560x1440 resolution looks absolutely horrible and fuzzy in MacOS. I could never use that.
MBP: 16" Base model
My external monitor: DELL P2421DC via USB-Connection (left side of MBP) in 2048x1152 HiDPI custom resolution.
Clamshell:
- Radeon High Side: < 7W
- Fans: below 2.000 rpm, 95%: 1.800rpm (silent)
- Temperature: 50c
I have nothing to complain about here. Works perfect and as expected.
Open lid:
- Radeon High Side: 18w
- Fans: 1.800 rpm - 2.500 rpm, about 90%: 2.200 rpm
- Temperature: 60 c
Area above the Touchbar is noticeably hot, rest of the machine feels warm, but fans are silent most of the time. I just don't know how an average temperature of 60c will affect longevity of this machine. Drawing 18w in idle just doesn't feel right for me, although fan noise (and speed) is acceptable for me.
I wish I had a second external monitor for some more testing (another P2421DC would be ideal). You might noticed I don't run my monitor in default resolution (2560x1440) and I enabled HiDPI-Mode, but I think the numbers in clamshell are really good. Would be interesting to see the Radeon High Side with 2x external montiors running in HiDPI.
BTW: It's just me but native 2560x1440 resolution looks absolutely horrible and fuzzy in MacOS. I could never use that.
Hi!
I don’t want to scare you, but some music production software may act as an external display itself. I use Ableton, and it drives the dGPU so hard, so it starts to use 20w of power even without external display. Now I switched the dGPU off with a terminal command in order to run my ableton sessions without fans blasting all the time. No external display is available in that case of course
At my home office, I use a Lenovo X1 and that device is really not a masterpiece. I connected two WQHD monitors to it or alternately a UHD monitor. Sure, it doesn't have a dGPU, but still, it manages the monitors without a problem and the fans are quiet most of the time. So the situation around the 16" MBP is a joke.
With my 4k monitor, and latest tweak to SwitchResX settings based on EDID, I get:
Clamshell:
- Radeon High Side: 8-9w
- Fans: 1.800 rpm - 2.500 rpm
- Temperature: 60 c
Are you happy with that? 60c seems a little hight at idle for a single external monitor in clamshell?