An app for M1 Macs that plays the sound of a fan as CPU usage goes up • Hacker News Board

Re: An app for M1 Macs that plays the sound of a fan as CPU usage goes up

#251

Post by idonotknowwhy » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 12:54 AM UTC

zitterbewegung wrote: post #67

jedberg wrote: post #43

This is funny. For the last ten years I've used Mac laptops as my primary machine. Of course the fan noise was a great auditory clue to tell me to check out Activity Monitor/top for rogue processes and help me optimize which tasks took too many resources. I didn't realize how much I relied on that cue until I temporarily switched to a Mac desktop machine during the pandemic when I didn't need to travel. The desktop f…

I remember using hard disk drive sounds for disk usage and or capacitor noises to debug issues. But, I really like the MacBook Air M1 because its so quiet and it helps me concentrate much better and if you are talking to others or recording a talk it is silent. The other thing is that it has no moving parts so it should be very durable.

I used to use capacitor noises too when i was younger. I could tell other devs when builds were finished by hearing the high pitched noise stop. At the time i thought i could hear the cpu but recently learned it was the capacitors lol

Re: An app for M1 Macs that plays the sound of a fan as CPU usage goes up

#252

Post by cletus » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 1:02 AM UTC

tbrock wrote: post #241

jmkni wrote: post #25

Pre M1, I've always preferred a PC. When I'm using a laptop, especially doing real work, they heat up, the fans go crazy, the laptop is hot to the touch and everything slows down. It almost makes you anxious. You're wondering if it's about to crash or go on fire. I've always kept a Desktop PC on the go for this reason, a well cooled desktop just doesn't have these issues. With a laptop, I always feel like I'm comprom…

I dont understand why they sell the pro. The touchbar is rubbish and the air has 99% the same performance. Yeah the pro can go faster for longer without throttle but its heavier and doesnt have those physical f-keys. Its more expensive too… not sure why anyone would buy it over the air. Two more usb-c but you can only hook in one external monitor! Also 200 more nits on screen but… is it really that important? I cant…

The Touch Bar makes me so angry. Why? Because it's a less reliable laptop with a worse keyboard that exists for no other reason than to raise the ASP (Average Selling Price) of Macs. That's it.

Go back 5+ years and you had the (2010+) Macbook Air, which was fantastic. A good compromise of size and power at a really low price. Like competitors just couldn't compete. The only problem? By 2015 or so the display was pretty outdated. It needed a thinner bezel and a retina display and it would've been perfect.

But no, Johnny Ive came along with his war of thinness and foisted the butterfly keyboard on us and added the Touch Bar to increase the price. There's no other reason for it to exist.

Re: An app for M1 Macs that plays the sound of a fan as CPU usage goes up

#253

Post by SpelingBeeChamp » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 1:04 AM UTC

tbrock wrote: post #241

jmkni wrote: post #25

Pre M1, I've always preferred a PC. When I'm using a laptop, especially doing real work, they heat up, the fans go crazy, the laptop is hot to the touch and everything slows down. It almost makes you anxious. You're wondering if it's about to crash or go on fire. I've always kept a Desktop PC on the go for this reason, a well cooled desktop just doesn't have these issues. With a laptop, I always feel like I'm comprom…

I dont understand why they sell the pro. The touchbar is rubbish and the air has 99% the same performance. Yeah the pro can go faster for longer without throttle but its heavier and doesnt have those physical f-keys. Its more expensive too… not sure why anyone would buy it over the air. Two more usb-c but you can only hook in one external monitor! Also 200 more nits on screen but… is it really that important? I cant…

Obviously, to people who choose to pay for it. I produce video news and the Touch Bar is integral to my workflow. Just because something is not useful to you doesn’t mean it’s useless.

Re: An app for M1 Macs that plays the sound of a fan as CPU usage goes up

#254

Post by kylec » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 1:05 AM UTC

tbrock wrote: post #241

jmkni wrote: post #25

Pre M1, I've always preferred a PC. When I'm using a laptop, especially doing real work, they heat up, the fans go crazy, the laptop is hot to the touch and everything slows down. It almost makes you anxious. You're wondering if it's about to crash or go on fire. I've always kept a Desktop PC on the go for this reason, a well cooled desktop just doesn't have these issues. With a laptop, I always feel like I'm comprom…

I dont understand why they sell the pro. The touchbar is rubbish and the air has 99% the same performance. Yeah the pro can go faster for longer without throttle but its heavier and doesnt have those physical f-keys. Its more expensive too… not sure why anyone would buy it over the air. Two more usb-c but you can only hook in one external monitor! Also 200 more nits on screen but… is it really that important? I cant…

It actually has the same number of USB-C ports, the M1 MacBook Pros only have 2. But, from the perspective of someone who bought one, I got it for the sustained performance provided via the active cooling and for the extra battery life. Would love the physical keys instead of the touch bar, but I've used a touch bar for the past 5 years so it's whatever.

Re: An app for M1 Macs that plays the sound of a fan as CPU usage goes up

#255

Post by fomine3 » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 1:07 AM UTC

thelopa wrote: post #118

porknubbins wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a hardware nerd I always kind of like that moment when the CPU starts really working and you hear fans spin way up. The auditory feedback is like a throwback to a more mechanical age, like a manual transmission vehicle where you can judge when to shift by engine speed.

When I replaced all my spinning disks with SSDs and fans with ultra quiet ones I realized just how much I relied on fan noise to signal things. E.g. if my computer isn’t visibly on, the fan/disk noise tells me whether I need to power it on or just wake it. I’ve had to start changing my habits as a result.

At the same time, we are losing disk access LED.

Re: An app for M1 Macs that plays the sound of a fan as CPU usage goes up

#256

Post by chipotle_coyote » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 1:09 AM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #203

ryanSrich wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My workflow for research is like this: - open link, determine if it’s relevant or not. If it’s relevant, but not relevant right now, I’ll dump it into my notes. - then I close the tab. Pretty simple. - when the time comes where that link is relevant again, I’ll find it in my notes and open it. - I really don’t find any value in having tabs open that aren’t immediately relevant to what I’m doing. 10 seems like the upp…

> I really don’t find any value in having tabs open that aren’t immediately relevant to what I’m doing. 10 seems like the upper limit of focus for me. It's clear that you do understand the value of preserving tabs that aren't immediately relevant to what you're doing. What's the difference in value between writing tabs in your notes and simply not closing them? I'd understand if there weren't tree-style tabs - you ca…

I'm not the OP, but I almost never have a lot of tabs open, because to me "keep multiple windows each with dozens of tabs open" isn't organization any more than "keep dozens of icons on your desktop" is organization. Some people love that, but I can't find anything that way. And every implementation of tree-style tabs I've seen is -- again, to me, personal preference, YMMV, fill in your favorite disclaimer -- a hot mess. More to the point, it's still "keep multiple windows each with dozens of tabs open wait don't close the window reflexively OH NO YOU CLOSED IT FLAIL FLAIL UNDO HIT THE HISTORY UN-ERASER BUTTON WHEW IT'S BACK". Jesus. No. OMG stop.

Seriously, though, it's just a different way of working. If I want to save a link because I'm genuinely going to need it later, I save the link. More often than not, it just goes in the drafts or annotations for the article that I'm working on at that moment. If not, I save it in GoodLinks, where I get a title and a summary and tagging and syncing across my laptop and desktop and iPad.

I get that I'm an anomaly these days, and that "if you have less than 50 tabs open across three windows you're an amateur" is the norm among technonerds. (That is an actual quote from a friend.) But I am pretty sure the Venn diagram of the all-the-tabs-all-the-time folks I know and the "which tab is it? nope, nope, nope, I'm sure it's here somewhere" folks I know is essentially a perfect circle.

Re: An app for M1 Macs that plays the sound of a fan as CPU usage goes up

#257

Post by fomine3 » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 1:14 AM UTC

lucb1e wrote: post #139

Animats wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, yes. This has been an ongoing problem with "sleep mode", which users think means "off", but isn't really. Some Windows docs for hardware makers indicated that "sleep mode" should stop the fans, to maintain the illusion that the machine is "off". Some machines do that, and some stick to temperature-based fan control, so the fans continue to turn if the machine is warm. Some users then complain that sleep mode does…

Wait, why would the device get warm during suspend? Or do you mean a different kind of sleep mode? I'm thinking of the state where it just refreshes DRAM to keep its contents (this does not produce much heat at all) and everything else is off: that definitely does not require the cpu fan to run because the cpu is not processing any instructions during that state.

Some devices do some tasks while sleep, similar to Mac does.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/dev...

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/what-is-power-nap-m...

Re: An app for M1 Macs that plays the sound of a fan as CPU usage goes up

#258

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 1:14 AM UTC

nyanpasu64 wrote: post #246

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Syncthing is great, however the biggest issue Ive found with thr Mac version is you explicitly need to end the task in the upper taskbar or it will just drain your battery. Also, if you sync a Mac with anything besides, be prepared to see a .nomedia file in EVERY.SINGLE.DIRECTORY. (i cant recall what exactly it is). It's very annoying to say to least. That being said, Syncthing works great for a wholly cross platform…

To my knowledge, .nomedia files are created on Android to prevent the folder from being scanned for media. I don't think it's due to "anything besides", but Android in particular. I haven't tried configuring the Android Syncthing app to exclude .nomedia files, but it may be possible.

Then it's not .nomedia but some Mac specific file. I can't recall what it is since I stopped using syncthing on my Mac haha. I rarely use it unless I kinda have to.

Re: An app for M1 Macs that plays the sound of a fan as CPU usage goes up

#259

Post by prawn » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 1:14 AM UTC

Retr0id wrote: post #124

Rd6n6 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just looked up some benchmarks. Apparently a m1 is 2-4x faster at many tasks than my wife’s gaming desktop from 5 years ago. It’s comparable in many benchmarks to my ryzen cpu as well? What’s the catch?

The only real catch is that you're currently limited to only 16GB of RAM.

I haven't found that to be a catch actually.

I went from a mid-2015 15" MBP to 13" M1 with 8GB. I made the impulsive purchase to get 8GB ASAP rather than wait for 16GB (which was backordered). My primary apps are DaVinci Resolve, Lightroom and Photoshop. On the 15", the fans would run on full constantly. I would have to create proxy video files to work with.

On the M1, I don't create any proxies at all and the video files I work with just play in real-time.

Main catch for me is the two USB ports and one external screen limitation. I have a hub (card readers, USB, HDMI, etc) and a 10-port USB hub coming off that (with 7 external drives connected). As soon as there is a 15/16" available that handles two external displays, I will get that as well.

I dislike the TouchBar and the lone external display, but everything else about the M1 has been excellent for me.

Re: An app for M1 Macs that plays the sound of a fan as CPU usage goes up

#260

Post by jedberg » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 1:16 AM UTC

qudat wrote: post #242

jedberg wrote: post #43

This is funny. For the last ten years I've used Mac laptops as my primary machine. Of course the fan noise was a great auditory clue to tell me to check out Activity Monitor/top for rogue processes and help me optimize which tasks took too many resources. I didn't realize how much I relied on that cue until I temporarily switched to a Mac desktop machine during the pandemic when I didn't need to travel. The desktop f…

> Now I'm looking for a better remote access solution so I can consider sticking with a desktop at home and then maybe just an iPad for travel with good remote access and file sync. This is my solution. I don't really need to do any file syncing as rsync or scp works fine for my purposes. It has been a fantastic dev experience. I remote in, bring up my last tmux session and pick up exactly where I left off, regardles…

Can you tell me more about your setup? What apps do you use on your iPad for remote access? Is it just remote shell or do you do Remote Desktop too? What do you use for Remote Desktop?