I heard them.... I really did, I finally heard them... The fans on my 16" M1Pro

[stoobysnax]

Working on a logic session, Cpu in the upper 75% range, I noticed something to my left... A soft hum, coming from what seemed like my MacBook Pro m1Pro.... Could it really be the FANS????

Yes, it could.

First time I've heard them in 2 weeks. It wasn't offensive at all. But it was subtly noticeable. Only difference I can tell is that my room was warmer than usual so must have been that.

It was loud enough though that if that was happening too often, I wouldn't want it right next to me while working. So I'm hoping that that was a rarer occurrence.

 

[Six0Four]

Not me. I'm still not convinced there are fans in this thing!

 

[stoobysnax]

Not me. I'm still not convinced there are fans in this thing!

Ya I was indeed surprised.

 

[jav6454]

I have had my 13" M1 since August, and I haven't once heard the fans.

 

[mouthster]

Working on a logic session, Cpu in the upper 75% range, I noticed something to my left... A soft hum, coming from what seemed like my MacBook Pro m1Pro.... Could it really be the FANS????

Yes, it could.

First time I've heard them in 2 weeks. It wasn't offensive at all. But it was subtly noticeable. Only difference I can tell is that my room was warmer than usual so must have been that.

It was loud enough though that if that was happening too often, I wouldn't want it right next to me while working. So I'm hoping that that was a rarer occurrence.

Curious, what was your session like? A lot of tracks with plug-ins and virtual instruments?

 

[BotchQue]

Nice to learn it really does have fans. I've been binge-watching 8K/HDR cat videos for weeks now and still haven't heard them.

 

[seasurfer]

If you play game, you will definitely hear the fans

 

[stoobysnax]

Curious, what was your session like? A lot of tracks with plug-ins and virtual instruments?

Yup, lots of stuff. Cpu was in the 70-80% range.

 

[kingjames1970]

My 14 Max has only had it's fan on using Lightroom, scrolling though lots of 45MP images. To be honest though, I blame Adobe! It is worse on my iMac Pro. If I can playback 8K video in FCP without the fans...

 

[UBS28]

I have even heard the 16" M1 Max MacBook Pro sounding like a vacuum cleaner under heavy load. It is a not fanless computer.

 

[stoobysnax]

I have even heard the 16" M1 Max MacBook Pro sounding like a vacuum cleaner under heavy load. It is a not fanless computer.

Ya that’s why I got the Pro. Cooler / less need for fans.

 

[UBS28]

Ya that’s why I got the Pro. Cooler / less need for fans.

The conditions where I got the M1 Max fans spinning, the M1 Pro would have performed really bad here as it is basically CPU + GPU under high stress.

M1 Max is just as cool as the M1 Pro in “M1 Pro” tasks.

 

[Mlrollin91]

Haven't heard the fans in my 14" at all. Shortly after I got it I exported about 4000 raw photos in a single go and it was dead silent. It definitely warmed up, but fans never kicked on.

 

[stoobysnax]

Haven't heard the fans in my 14" at all. Shortly after I got it I exported about 4000 raw photos in a single go and it was dead silent. It definitely warmed up, but fans never kicked on.

I had a 14 for a while and I heard the fans a lot of the time. But I am pushing things with audio production so probably just different use cases

 

[Nicole1980]

If you play game, you will definitely hear the fans

i don't know. I have played call of duty zombies - 250 gb game - in rosetta 2 - and my 14 inch m1pro macbook pro got vaguely warm at best. still didn't hear the fans. But to be fair, and am In my 40's so maybe the hearing ain't what it used to be.

 

[jav6454]

i don't know. I have played call of duty zombies - 250 gb game - in rosetta 2 - and my 14 inch m1pro macbook pro got vaguely warm at best. still didn't hear the fans. But to be fair, and am In my 40's so maybe the hearing ain't what it used to be.

That or perhaps they turned on so low that you couldn't hear them over the game.

 

[Nicole1980]

That or perhaps they turned on so low that you couldn't hear them over the game.

if so, that makes them effectively silent. Bottom line - if you can't hear them, they're 'silent'.

 

[MisterSavage]

This has been such a nice difference from my iMac, which would frequently sound like a jet engine. I haven't heard the fans on my 14" Pro yet. I would have thought Xcode would have kicked them off by now.

 

[jav6454]

if so, that makes them effectively silent. Bottom line - if you can't hear them, they're 'silent'.

Agreed. Me personally, I have yet to hear the fans.

 

[iamMacPerson]

One class I am taking has virtual labs that run in the browser. For ease I typically do them on my MacBook. This is the only time I have noticed the fans turn on. Not even when doing editing in Final Cut, only with that one class. Even then I don't hear it, I just know they're on because I check iStat Menus and it says they're on. Quite wild.

 

[Nicole1980]

This has been such a nice difference from my iMac, which would frequently sound like a jet engine. I haven't heard the fans on my 14" Pro yet. I would have thought Xcode would have kicked them off by now.

My 8-core 2019 iMac is very quiet. But to be fair there's 2 things I did to help that:

1) I replaced the spinning drive with an SSD. Any spinning drive makes a significant amount of noise.

2) I leave turbo boost disabled with turbo boost switcher. I know, I know ... the mac is a little slower without turbo boost (in theory anyway) but it's still plenty fast and leaving turbo boost off means the fans rarely rev up.

 

[Danfango]

Had my 14" MBP for weeks now and still haven't heard it. If it was spinning up I couldn't hear it over my corporate Dell's fans with two chrome tabs open...

 

[Cole Slaw]

I was starting to wonder if the fans on my 14" actually work. Totally silent and when I downloaded iStat it always showed them at 0 rpm.
Then I downloaded and ran Cinebench and discovered that the fans do indeed work.

 

[stoobysnax]

Happy to report that that one time I heard the fans from my OG post is still the only time I've heard them. and that's pushing things hard!

 

[julesme]

I've never heard the fans on my 14" M1 Max (24 core GPU), 2TB, 32GB RAM, and I've been using it since late November.

It does get fairly warm occasionally, but the fans never audibly turn on for me.