MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise (2019) • Hacker News Board

Re: MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise (2019)

#201

Post by muyuu » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

nottorp wrote: post #171

zarmin wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bug on Macbooks in general, as I understand it. I have a 2019 MBP with a 4k monitor, and if I change the resolution to anything except the default, there is massive system-wide lag. God forbid I use PyCharm on 4k scaled resolution – a full second between typing and seeing the text.

That seems unrelated; I think Mac OS is the only place where non native resolutions use GPU-accelerated scaling. The other operating systems just set whatever resolution you asked for and let the monitor handle it. This seems to be excessive GPU use when simply connecting an external monitor at its native res.

I use my 2015 MBP with an external 4K monitor every day and it works like a charm. No delay, no fans going off, etc.

Re: MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise (2019)

#202

Post by dillonmckay » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

jacurtis wrote: post #150

baybal2 wrote: post #14

What can I say as a person somewhat close to electronics engineering: Look at that single skinny heat pipe, it will get saturated very fast. Second to that, look at those tiny radiators, they are clearly not capable to discharge the full heat flux. I simply don't see any signs of proper thermal engineering there. Apple says "we are listening now, and here is a new cooling design," then it comes out to be even less ad…

> if anybody wants to dish out something on an order of $1.5m to do a contract manufacturing run for a properly designed full sized laptop, give me a note. Something tells me that Apple spent more than $1.5M designing the recent MacBook Pro. It is a bit presumptuous to say "well i could do it better" when referencing an entire team of qualified electrical engineers at one of the largest corporations in the world that…

So, explain the keyboard fiasco?

Re: MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise (2019)

#203

Post by pivo » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 4:12 PM UTC

rorykoehler wrote: post #23

dragonsh wrote: post #11

I was planning to buy MacBook 16-inch as I am still on 2014 edition which in my view were one of the best MacBooks. I simply hate that unnecessary Touch Bar, was hoping Apple will remove it but didn’t. Thought then of getting 16-inch as they have an esc key. Waiting for this kind of review, I will put on hold purchasing it until get a clarity on fan noise. My current old MacBook fan do make some noise but only under…

I went from late 2013 13 inch to the 2016 16 inch (maxed everything but the graphics). I also hate the touchbar. Things like volume control that used to be a tap away are now hidden in sub screens. You can switch it to only function keys but they are missing the icons for volume etc and you can't touch feel where the buttons are so I have left it in full touchbar mode. Some functions of it are actually quite cool but…

For things like volume control and brightness, you don't have to treat it as a two step process, you can simply press on the volume button, for example, and immediately slide to adjust without moving your finger over to the slider.

Re: MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise (2019)

#204

Post by jamescontrol » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 4:13 PM UTC

I went from a MacBook Pro 13” late 2013, to a 2019 16” and I have the same issue, running the exact same development setup, and I hear the fan much much more on the new machine. I know it’s faster etc so it can’t directly be compared, but still, I feel like I notice it now, every single day multiple times, where with the old 13 inch I never really noticed it at all.

*Same setup and dev env on new MacBook as on the old

Re: MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise (2019)

#205

Post by wlll » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 4:15 PM UTC

dragonsh wrote: post #11

I was planning to buy MacBook 16-inch as I am still on 2014 edition which in my view were one of the best MacBooks. I simply hate that unnecessary Touch Bar, was hoping Apple will remove it but didn’t. Thought then of getting 16-inch as they have an esc key. Waiting for this kind of review, I will put on hold purchasing it until get a clarity on fan noise. My current old MacBook fan do make some noise but only under…

I had a 2014 15" (maxed out spec). I wanted a replacement so bought and returned the 2017 MBP because it was just not very good at all (https://blog.willj.net/2017/08/14/why-i-returned-my-macbook-...).

I have recently bought the 16" (max GPU, max CPU, 32GB, 2TB disk). It's way better. There's still stuff wrong with it for sure. Some takeaways:

- The keybord is better than recent models, but still not as good as the 2014. I can live with it though.

- The touch bar is still there, but there's an escape key which was my main gripe. I would still prefer an option to not have one though.

- I hate USB-c so so much. The mental overhead of trying to work out what will work with what cable is horrible.

- I had to buy a £250 dock to make everything work as it did before (the TS3 caldigit one on the Apple site). Apple would not recommend a USB-c to mini displayport adapter, and the first one I bought didn't work.

- The screen is lovely.

- The speakers are a massive improvement.

- The trackpad is too big. I hit it accidentally way too much.

- I have it plugged into two external 4k monitors and I keep the lip open, so it's driving three screens. It does this with seemingly no problem or cooling fan use.

I'm definitely keeping it. There's still issues, but it's now simply a much better machine overall (taking speed into account) than my 2014.

Re: MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise (2019)

#206

Post by hocuspocus » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 4:16 PM UTC

jillesvangurp wrote: post #139

gwbas1c wrote: post #110

One thing I miss about Steve Jobs is that he hated fan noise. The fact that Macs only made noise under extreme load was something that I really appreciated. I'm at a loss for what I'm going to do for my next laptop. Windows 10 still has performance issues that Macs don't have, but Windows laptops clearly have better hardware. Anyone make the switch back to Windows? (Every time I try Linux it feels like a dumpster fir…

I've been considering both Linux and Windows (with the linux subsystem, obviously) but so far can't bring myself to do it. I'm leaning towards Linux. My main beef with both ecosystems is the high amount DYI and tweaking needed to get things functioning and that I actually need to make an indepth study of exactly which variants of which hardware to get in order to get a linux setup that works. With windows I have no l…

I find that I'm spending more time tweaking MacOS than the two others.

At my previous job I was lucky to use a workstation. It was running a plain Ubuntu LTS provisioned by my IT using Puppet. Zero maintenance on my end.

For the handful of applications where I wanted the latest versions, getting upstream or PPA packages was usually enough. I don't know why you think Snap packages are flaky, they're great for things like Jetbrains IDEs. Never had a problem.

I admit Homebrew gives me access to the latest binaries quickly, but it's also the slowest and most brittle package managers I've been using.

Re: MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise (2019)

#207

Post by jstrong » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 4:17 PM UTC

mns wrote: post #129

Naomarik wrote: post #55

Been using Mac primarily since 2011 and sad to see everything keep declining with Apple's software and hardware quality. When programming an app and its backend with react native/clojure my 2015 Mac Pro gets way too hot and slow. Just built a Ryzen 3600 desktop with 32 gigs of RAM for about 1/4th the price as the cheapest 16 inch Macbook. Windows with WSL2 has been extremely good and I'm satisfied with my development…

I think you are underestimating the cost of your setup. There is no way in my opinion that you can build a decent PC with 1/4 price of a MacBook Pro. European prices might be higher, 2699 official price for base 16" (you can actually get it for 2399 from official resellers). But still 675 Eu for a proper setup is impossible. Just the CPU and RAM will cost you a bit over 300. I know you are just making a point, but it…

this is not a laptop, or new, but thought relevant: used Dell Precision workstation, 2x 14-core xeons, so total 28 physical cpu cores (also your cpu isn't throttled all day so it can fit inside a tiny box) with 64gb ddr4: $1700 on ebay currently.

the computer weighs a lot, and it won't run osx. but as someone forced to work all day at a desk on a heavily-throttled macbook, that looks like a lot of hardware for the money in comparison.

Re: MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise (2019)

#208

Post by tpmx » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 4:20 PM UTC

comboy wrote: post #179

bluedino wrote: post #172

There isn't anything wrong here. One of the confusing issues is that people say, "I'm only using 15% of my CPU, the fans should not be coming on." What they don't realize, is that using 1 core running at turbo speeds is only going to show up as 15% of the CPU, but draw enough power and create enough heat to trigger the fans! Another thing that some of these posters are not aware of, is that running these temperature/…

My 2019 15" mbpro makes quite a bit of noise on login screen with nothing connected to it. It's not a made up issue. USB 2.0 devices disconnect randomly which is a no-go for musicians. Touch bar freezes. The list goes on. I'd abandon it a long time ago but music software is macs first. Plus Logic is decent. It's so sad that they don't give a damn because market takes a while to adjust.

That touchbar freezing issue is a pet peeve of mine. It's been happening for years now. I've personally witnessed over it perhaps 10 times over multiple hardware/OS revisions.

Perhaps it's time for Apple to admit defeat and just build a watchdog service that runs every 30 seconds and if things aren't working: kill and restart whatever process and/or driver that runs the touch bar.

Re: MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise (2019)

#209

Post by dangus » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 4:22 PM UTC

dharma1 wrote: post #4

The thermal design of Macbook pros just isn't adequate for >4 core high clock speed CPUs, especially with a discrete GPU thrown in the mix too. I had one of those i9 2018 MBPros and it was always super hot. Much happier now with a 13" 4 core MBpro, it runs quite cool and without any fan noise most of the time. Built a separate AMD 3900x PC with an Nvidia GPU for heavy lifting, and can use that remotely with the MBpro…

The 16-inch MacBook Pro has a completely different thermal design compared to the 15-inch, so I’m not sure what relevance your 2018 experience bears on the 16-inch.

It’s basically a different computer in a lot of ways, despite looking similar on the outside.

Re: MacBook 16-inch Fan Noise (2019)

#210

Post by clSTophEjUdRanu » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 4:23 PM UTC

jillesvangurp wrote: post #139

gwbas1c wrote: post #110

One thing I miss about Steve Jobs is that he hated fan noise. The fact that Macs only made noise under extreme load was something that I really appreciated. I'm at a loss for what I'm going to do for my next laptop. Windows 10 still has performance issues that Macs don't have, but Windows laptops clearly have better hardware. Anyone make the switch back to Windows? (Every time I try Linux it feels like a dumpster fir…

I've been considering both Linux and Windows (with the linux subsystem, obviously) but so far can't bring myself to do it. I'm leaning towards Linux. My main beef with both ecosystems is the high amount DYI and tweaking needed to get things functioning and that I actually need to make an indepth study of exactly which variants of which hardware to get in order to get a linux setup that works. With windows I have no l…

WSL is the bee's knees for me and is about to get a lot better with WSL 2 (can talk to an X server for instance).

I couldn't deal with the Wayland/X, not playing nice with Nvidia, etc bullshit on Linux. Since I really only care about the terminal WSL has been great.