7 ms·

I got a top spec 15 MBP a year ago and I have to say the experience is appalling - 4000$ device that goes full airplane takeoff levels of noise at any serious w

I got a top spec 15 MBP a year ago and I have to say the experience is appalling - 4000$ device that goes full airplane takeoff levels of noise at any serious workload, no ability to control performance (I would gladly throttle the CPU sooner to avoid everyone in the office turning my way when I start an emulator or keep the fans at lower RPM but constantly instead of letting the CPU idle at 60-70 degrees with no fans). All of this could be fixed if the device gave me power settings but even third party paid tools that require custom kernel extensions (Volta) still don't work reliably. My next computer is not going to be from Apple for sure.

Someone1234 7y ago
Unfortunately this is not new. A lot of good can be said about Apple's devices (inc. Macbooks), but in terms of thermal performance the Macbooks are pretty bad and have been for a very long time. They often use software to paper over the problem. Part of that seems to be a design trade-off to hide the exhaust vent and continuing the match towards thin. As an aside the 2019 redesign of the Mac Pro likely has the best thermal design we've seen from Apple by far. I often wonder what an actual mobile workstation laptop from Apple would look like, I'm talking at least three times the thickness, hardy case/screen, great thermal design, and huge battery. It would be niche but fantastic.
eecc 7y ago
Just search for it https://www.eidac.de/ https://www.eidac.de/
- rubber_duck 7y ago
  This is fan control - but I want CPU/GPU power control - I wouldn't mind lowering my boost clocks to limit peak temperatures on heavy workloads.
  - eecc 7y ago
    > or keep the fans at lower RPM but constantly instead of letting the CPU idle at 60-70 degrees with no fans My reading skills still suggest SMCfanControl fulfills the description given by the parent post
  - jeddf 7y ago
    I've been using turbo boost switcher for a couple of months now with a base MPB16 and it's worked well. I pretty much keep turbo boost off all the time, barely ever notice any slowdown and it seems to help with noise & heat. http://tbswitcher.rugarciap.com/ http://tbswitcher.rugarciap.com/ Happily sprang for the pro version, it's needed to not have to keep authorising it in on every switch.
haxxorfreak 7y ago
I use a 15" 2018 MacBook Pro with the six-core i9 at work and Turbo Boost Switcher[1] has been my favourite discovery. It lets you disable the turbo boost function of the processor which means the fans never spin up and the battery lasts longer. I pretty much always leave it disabled unless I am going to be transcoding video or compiling something and can't notice a performance hit even with a couple of VMs running. The only bad thing is that it requires a kernel extension so will stop working when they are deprecated in 10.16. Hopefully Apple introduces a similar feature as there were rumours of a "Pro" mode coming which would ramp up the fans and clock, my hope is they add a complementary "quiet" mode or similar to disable turbo boost. [1] https://github.com/rugarciap/Turbo-Boost-Switcher https://github.com/rugarciap/Turbo-Boost-Switcher
- rubber_duck 7y ago
  I have the same machine and I used this option with volta - it was the most reliable in turning down the heat while keeping the system stable but at the same time it made the system considerably slower even in day to day tasks (with just a few of background build watchers and server + a YT video on the second screen the RubyMine become unresponsive regularly)
- mettamage 7y ago
  Thank you for mentioning this. I've been wondering for years how to get my fans down. I'm almost considering to submit this to HN.
mjayhn 7y ago
If it makes you feel any better I branched off to a XPS 13 2in1 4 months ago in between jobs (where I use the latest mbp) and used the thing for 2-3 months with no MBP as backup. I absolutely hate it. It throttles constantly even after undervolting it. I had to do a bunch of black magic to get it to sleep properly (which is evidently happening to every Dell) and eventually gave up on that and just set it to hibernate any time the lids closed (it's 32gb so that adds about 30 seconds to the start up time). I've spent more time tweaking this thing, reading forums and reddit about how to make it perform DECENTLY than I did building my last hackintosh and I don't enjoy that experience ever. When you get past all these issues it's still Windows 10 which I just find to be the most annoying OS I've ever used. Just got my new MBP yesterday and couldn't be more excited to be back on osx. I do really, really wish my MBP was smaller and a 2 in 1, though.
- rubber_duck 7y ago
  I know what you mean - had my share of random issues with Lenovo, HP, Dell - but at the end of the day Windows/Linux/Android are more customisable and I'm missing that a lot when I switched ecosystems.
- ben-schaaf 7y ago
  I've heard that most of the Xps lineup has cooling issues. On the other hand I've got an Aero 15 (2018 I think), fan noise is decent and after a small undervolt it can indefinitely sustain max single core turbo speeds (4.1GHz) with respectable all core turbo (3.7GHz), while sitting at 70C. There are laptops out there with adequate cooling solutions out there.
  - p1necone 7y ago
    A lot of high end laptops have cooling issues because it's the kind of thing you have to buy the device and actually use it for a while to find out, but everyone sees "i9, ultra slim, 'pro'" straight away.
  - cb22 7y ago
    To give some numbers to the comment I made previously in this thread, with an XPS 7390 2-in-1: Single core turbo 3.9GHz, maintains indefinitely, temperature hovers around ~75 degrees, fans around 5000RPM All core turbo: Keeps 3.4GHz and ~45W TDP for around 10 seconds, before dropping to 2.7GHz and ~25W TDP indefinitely. Temps still around ~75, with the fans around 8000 RPM. That's without any undervolting, but with the processor set for 25W TDP (like the Windows "Ultra Performance" mode). Adding in some undervolting gets the all core turbo up to 2.9GHz.
satysin 7y ago
I have almost identical spec laptops from Dell and Apple (XPS 15 and 15" MacBook Pro with same CPU) and on both they ramp up to full fan speed when I do any serious work on them so it isn't limited to Apple laptops. Pretty much all 15" laptops with 45W Intel CPUs turn into jet engines when under load, at least in my experience. Also not to defend Apple but I do find the MacBook Pro cools down and gets quieter quicker than the Dell does although that could down to my personal setup (tools, configuration, etc). Could be the more powerful Nvidia dGPU on the Dell although I am talking purely CPU workload however with the shared thermal solution the Dell has it could be a bigger factor than I think?
- rubber_duck 7y ago
  But windows has power profiles, intel utilities to undervolt and limit boost clock
- ben-schaaf 7y ago
  In my experience there are 15" laptops with adequate cooling solutions for Intel's 45W parts. They just turn out to be heavier, because a proper metal heatsink is just heavy.
- proverbialbunny 7y ago
  >Also not to defend Apple but I do find the MacBook Pro cools down and gets quieter quicker than the Dell does although that could down to my personal setup Apple tunes itself to spin down it's fans later, which is why you're noticing this. This is because when the average user runs a cpu intensive task it is unlikely you will run another one seconds later, so the cpu can cool off without all the fan noise.
- Joeri 7y ago
  I have a thinkpad t460p, it has a 45w cpu and stays quiet under load, even after years of use. It is two times as thick as a macbook pro. Newer thinkpads are thinner and louder. As long as people buy for sleekness first and thermals second this is the outcome you get.
  - 7y ago
greedo 7y ago
Perhaps try https://www.rugarciap.com/turbo-boost-switcher-for-os-x/ https://www.rugarciap.com/turbo-boost-switcher-for-os-x/ This can extend your battery a decent amount, and obviously would cut down on fan noise.
- gruez 7y ago
  ...at the cost of speed. A big % of a computer's performance comes from its turbo clocks. For instance, the 16" MBP with 6 cores is 2.6GHz base, up to 4.5GHz turbo. Disabling turbo in this means you're slowing down the computer as much as 40%. Also, it's questionable whether running at lower clocks saves power overall. Apparently it's more efficient to run higher clocks, but for shorter periods of time than it is to run medium clocks for extended periods of time. [1] https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/race-to-sleep https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/race-to-sleep
  - Zarel 7y ago
    I think there's a difference between turbo boosting for short workloads and turbo boosting for long workloads. Especially since a big cause of turbo boosting for long workloads is because of a bug in some app I'm running, like an infinite loop doing nothing useful. Turbo Boost Switcher's website says it can adjust Turbo Boost based on fan speed (only in its Pro version). This is probably the best way to do it: disable Turbo Boost only when it's running for long enough to turn on the fan. I honestly think a "no fan noise" setting should be a built-in feature.
vpEfljFL 7y ago
Laptops isn't designed for serious workloads. It's a small portable devices to hash some errands at starbucks. You can't change physics laws unfortunately to make all the heat disappear somewhere. Keep in mind Intel marketing as well which advertises CPU with way less heat than they expose in real life. The way you have this machines is because apple is commercial company and they should follow market demands. "10 cores", "silent": you can only choose one. If you want a reliable silent machine, use the proper tool for the job. I.e. mac mini / imac. There is the only way to get proper cooling. You can't have silent cooling in your laptop. Especially if it's "a top spec".
- derefr 7y ago
  In theory, laptop manufacturers that use aluminum in their chassis could just put the CPU die right up against the chassis, Remove the bottom feet, and then tell you to only ever use it sitting on top of a table designed to function as a top-down heat pipe (i.e. the kind they use to make “scraped” frozen yoghurt.) The table would become the CPU’s direct-contact heatsink. Not practical at all, of course, but this is well within the laws of physics. (And people do lesser things all the time, using e.g. those laptop “cooling stands” with clearance and fans built in.)
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - BenjiWiebe 7y ago
    It would be practical to at least have some form of heat transfer to the case for passive cooling advantage, but this can have the downside of the end user getting burned/uncomfortable and saying, Why does my computer get so hot? The recent metal-cased RTL-SDR's from rtl-sdr-blog have this "problem". The metal case actually helps the chip run cooler, but it gets hotter to the touch then the early insulating plastic models.
- alltimenoob 7y ago
  "10 cores", "silent": you can only choose one. No. It's "10 cores", "silent", "5mm thick": choose two. Personally I don't see the point in having a laptop thinner than 20mm. I would pay very good money for a 25mm thick, reasonably powerful laptop with super quiet cooling. The Thinkpad T440s was dead quiet. It was the first generation of thinkpads with a 15W CPU instead of 35W. A current mobile CPU configured to 15W TDP would be powerful enough for basically any task that you would throw at a single computer. Instead of keeping things quiet, manufacturers focus on making laptops thin enough to replace a knife. On current laptops, the noise level tends to follow the system load very closely. Just putting a bit more thermal mass into the cooling system would allow for a much more steady noise level, which is much less annoying (and the fan would not have to spin up at all on short load bursts like starting a VM).
virtue3 7y ago
have you considered using a laptop cooler? If you get two large fans they will be quite quiet. I have found that "gaming" on my macbook almost requires it as for whatever reason, the system will NOT spool up when intel gpu gets hot.
Razengan 7y ago
The core thermal management of macOS seems to be better than Windows: https://youtu.be/LGOmbNRlZdM?t=495 https://youtu.be/LGOmbNRlZdM?t=495 (8:15) And I've always gotten better battery life on average on MacBooks than other laptops, and in macOS than in Windows on the same Mac. The problem is when there are bugs (of which there are many) in the other higher-level daemons and third-party apps that get stuck in some task and cause the CPU to unnecessarily shoot up. For example I try to do things like renice +20 for every Steam process, because it's a bad macOS citizen and suddenly shoots up to 100% CPU for no reason, but it doesn't help until I terminate them. Even the TextInput etc. daemons get randomly wonky and have to be terminated.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  Running at 95C all the time is not "better".
  - Razengan 7y ago
    What runs at 95C "all the time?"
  - bb123 7y ago
    If the hardware is designed to handle it, why not?
- IanSanders 7y ago
  Important clarification The core thermal management of macOS seems to be better than Windows on the same mac device
newscracker 7y ago
This seems like a hardware issue. If you haven’t tried App Tamer [1], check it out (I’m not affiliated with it in any way). [1]: https://stclairsoft.com/AppTamer/index.html https://stclairsoft.com/AppTamer/index.html

Someone1234 7y ago

Unfortunately this is not new. A lot of good can be said about Apple's devices (inc. Macbooks), but in terms of thermal performance the Macbooks are pretty bad and have been for a very long time. They often use software to paper over the problem. Part of that seems to be a design trade-off to hide the exhaust vent and continuing the match towards thin. As an aside the 2019 redesign of the Mac Pro likely has the best thermal design we've seen from Apple by far. I often wonder what an actual mobile workstation laptop from Apple would look like, I'm talking at least three times the thickness, hardy case/screen, great thermal design, and huge battery. It would be niche but fantastic.

eecc 7y ago

Just search for it https://www.eidac.de/ https://www.eidac.de/

rubber_duck 7y ago
This is fan control - but I want CPU/GPU power control - I wouldn't mind lowering my boost clocks to limit peak temperatures on heavy workloads.
- eecc 7y ago
  > or keep the fans at lower RPM but constantly instead of letting the CPU idle at 60-70 degrees with no fans My reading skills still suggest SMCfanControl fulfills the description given by the parent post
- jeddf 7y ago
  I've been using turbo boost switcher for a couple of months now with a base MPB16 and it's worked well. I pretty much keep turbo boost off all the time, barely ever notice any slowdown and it seems to help with noise & heat. http://tbswitcher.rugarciap.com/ http://tbswitcher.rugarciap.com/ Happily sprang for the pro version, it's needed to not have to keep authorising it in on every switch.

haxxorfreak 7y ago

I use a 15" 2018 MacBook Pro with the six-core i9 at work and Turbo Boost Switcher[1] has been my favourite discovery. It lets you disable the turbo boost function of the processor which means the fans never spin up and the battery lasts longer. I pretty much always leave it disabled unless I am going to be transcoding video or compiling something and can't notice a performance hit even with a couple of VMs running. The only bad thing is that it requires a kernel extension so will stop working when they are deprecated in 10.16. Hopefully Apple introduces a similar feature as there were rumours of a "Pro" mode coming which would ramp up the fans and clock, my hope is they add a complementary "quiet" mode or similar to disable turbo boost. [1] https://github.com/rugarciap/Turbo-Boost-Switcher https://github.com/rugarciap/Turbo-Boost-Switcher

rubber_duck 7y ago
I have the same machine and I used this option with volta - it was the most reliable in turning down the heat while keeping the system stable but at the same time it made the system considerably slower even in day to day tasks (with just a few of background build watchers and server + a YT video on the second screen the RubyMine become unresponsive regularly)
mettamage 7y ago
Thank you for mentioning this. I've been wondering for years how to get my fans down. I'm almost considering to submit this to HN.

mjayhn 7y ago

If it makes you feel any better I branched off to a XPS 13 2in1 4 months ago in between jobs (where I use the latest mbp) and used the thing for 2-3 months with no MBP as backup. I absolutely hate it. It throttles constantly even after undervolting it. I had to do a bunch of black magic to get it to sleep properly (which is evidently happening to every Dell) and eventually gave up on that and just set it to hibernate any time the lids closed (it's 32gb so that adds about 30 seconds to the start up time). I've spent more time tweaking this thing, reading forums and reddit about how to make it perform DECENTLY than I did building my last hackintosh and I don't enjoy that experience ever. When you get past all these issues it's still Windows 10 which I just find to be the most annoying OS I've ever used. Just got my new MBP yesterday and couldn't be more excited to be back on osx. I do really, really wish my MBP was smaller and a 2 in 1, though.

rubber_duck 7y ago
I know what you mean - had my share of random issues with Lenovo, HP, Dell - but at the end of the day Windows/Linux/Android are more customisable and I'm missing that a lot when I switched ecosystems.
ben-schaaf 7y ago
I've heard that most of the Xps lineup has cooling issues. On the other hand I've got an Aero 15 (2018 I think), fan noise is decent and after a small undervolt it can indefinitely sustain max single core turbo speeds (4.1GHz) with respectable all core turbo (3.7GHz), while sitting at 70C. There are laptops out there with adequate cooling solutions out there.
- p1necone 7y ago
  A lot of high end laptops have cooling issues because it's the kind of thing you have to buy the device and actually use it for a while to find out, but everyone sees "i9, ultra slim, 'pro'" straight away.
- cb22 7y ago
  To give some numbers to the comment I made previously in this thread, with an XPS 7390 2-in-1: Single core turbo 3.9GHz, maintains indefinitely, temperature hovers around ~75 degrees, fans around 5000RPM All core turbo: Keeps 3.4GHz and ~45W TDP for around 10 seconds, before dropping to 2.7GHz and ~25W TDP indefinitely. Temps still around ~75, with the fans around 8000 RPM. That's without any undervolting, but with the processor set for 25W TDP (like the Windows "Ultra Performance" mode). Adding in some undervolting gets the all core turbo up to 2.9GHz.

satysin 7y ago

I have almost identical spec laptops from Dell and Apple (XPS 15 and 15" MacBook Pro with same CPU) and on both they ramp up to full fan speed when I do any serious work on them so it isn't limited to Apple laptops. Pretty much all 15" laptops with 45W Intel CPUs turn into jet engines when under load, at least in my experience. Also not to defend Apple but I do find the MacBook Pro cools down and gets quieter quicker than the Dell does although that could down to my personal setup (tools, configuration, etc). Could be the more powerful Nvidia dGPU on the Dell although I am talking purely CPU workload however with the shared thermal solution the Dell has it could be a bigger factor than I think?

rubber_duck 7y ago
But windows has power profiles, intel utilities to undervolt and limit boost clock
ben-schaaf 7y ago
In my experience there are 15" laptops with adequate cooling solutions for Intel's 45W parts. They just turn out to be heavier, because a proper metal heatsink is just heavy.
proverbialbunny 7y ago
>Also not to defend Apple but I do find the MacBook Pro cools down and gets quieter quicker than the Dell does although that could down to my personal setup Apple tunes itself to spin down it's fans later, which is why you're noticing this. This is because when the average user runs a cpu intensive task it is unlikely you will run another one seconds later, so the cpu can cool off without all the fan noise.
Joeri 7y ago
I have a thinkpad t460p, it has a 45w cpu and stays quiet under load, even after years of use. It is two times as thick as a macbook pro. Newer thinkpads are thinner and louder. As long as people buy for sleekness first and thermals second this is the outcome you get.
- 7y ago

greedo 7y ago

Perhaps try https://www.rugarciap.com/turbo-boost-switcher-for-os-x/ https://www.rugarciap.com/turbo-boost-switcher-for-os-x/ This can extend your battery a decent amount, and obviously would cut down on fan noise.

gruez 7y ago
...at the cost of speed. A big % of a computer's performance comes from its turbo clocks. For instance, the 16" MBP with 6 cores is 2.6GHz base, up to 4.5GHz turbo. Disabling turbo in this means you're slowing down the computer as much as 40%. Also, it's questionable whether running at lower clocks saves power overall. Apparently it's more efficient to run higher clocks, but for shorter periods of time than it is to run medium clocks for extended periods of time. [1] https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/race-to-sleep https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/race-to-sleep
- Zarel 7y ago
  I think there's a difference between turbo boosting for short workloads and turbo boosting for long workloads. Especially since a big cause of turbo boosting for long workloads is because of a bug in some app I'm running, like an infinite loop doing nothing useful. Turbo Boost Switcher's website says it can adjust Turbo Boost based on fan speed (only in its Pro version). This is probably the best way to do it: disable Turbo Boost only when it's running for long enough to turn on the fan. I honestly think a "no fan noise" setting should be a built-in feature.

vpEfljFL 7y ago

Laptops isn't designed for serious workloads. It's a small portable devices to hash some errands at starbucks. You can't change physics laws unfortunately to make all the heat disappear somewhere. Keep in mind Intel marketing as well which advertises CPU with way less heat than they expose in real life. The way you have this machines is because apple is commercial company and they should follow market demands. "10 cores", "silent": you can only choose one. If you want a reliable silent machine, use the proper tool for the job. I.e. mac mini / imac. There is the only way to get proper cooling. You can't have silent cooling in your laptop. Especially if it's "a top spec".

derefr 7y ago
In theory, laptop manufacturers that use aluminum in their chassis could just put the CPU die right up against the chassis, Remove the bottom feet, and then tell you to only ever use it sitting on top of a table designed to function as a top-down heat pipe (i.e. the kind they use to make “scraped” frozen yoghurt.) The table would become the CPU’s direct-contact heatsink. Not practical at all, of course, but this is well within the laws of physics. (And people do lesser things all the time, using e.g. those laptop “cooling stands” with clearance and fans built in.)
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- BenjiWiebe 7y ago
  It would be practical to at least have some form of heat transfer to the case for passive cooling advantage, but this can have the downside of the end user getting burned/uncomfortable and saying, Why does my computer get so hot? The recent metal-cased RTL-SDR's from rtl-sdr-blog have this "problem". The metal case actually helps the chip run cooler, but it gets hotter to the touch then the early insulating plastic models.
alltimenoob 7y ago
"10 cores", "silent": you can only choose one. No. It's "10 cores", "silent", "5mm thick": choose two. Personally I don't see the point in having a laptop thinner than 20mm. I would pay very good money for a 25mm thick, reasonably powerful laptop with super quiet cooling. The Thinkpad T440s was dead quiet. It was the first generation of thinkpads with a 15W CPU instead of 35W. A current mobile CPU configured to 15W TDP would be powerful enough for basically any task that you would throw at a single computer. Instead of keeping things quiet, manufacturers focus on making laptops thin enough to replace a knife. On current laptops, the noise level tends to follow the system load very closely. Just putting a bit more thermal mass into the cooling system would allow for a much more steady noise level, which is much less annoying (and the fan would not have to spin up at all on short load bursts like starting a VM).

virtue3 7y ago

have you considered using a laptop cooler? If you get two large fans they will be quite quiet. I have found that "gaming" on my macbook almost requires it as for whatever reason, the system will NOT spool up when intel gpu gets hot.

Razengan 7y ago

The core thermal management of macOS seems to be better than Windows: https://youtu.be/LGOmbNRlZdM?t=495 https://youtu.be/LGOmbNRlZdM?t=495 (8:15) And I've always gotten better battery life on average on MacBooks than other laptops, and in macOS than in Windows on the same Mac. The problem is when there are bugs (of which there are many) in the other higher-level daemons and third-party apps that get stuck in some task and cause the CPU to unnecessarily shoot up. For example I try to do things like renice +20 for every Steam process, because it's a bad macOS citizen and suddenly shoots up to 100% CPU for no reason, but it doesn't help until I terminate them. Even the TextInput etc. daemons get randomly wonky and have to be terminated.

zozbot234 7y ago
Running at 95C all the time is not "better".
- Razengan 7y ago
  What runs at 95C "all the time?"
- bb123 7y ago
  If the hardware is designed to handle it, why not?
IanSanders 7y ago
Important clarification The core thermal management of macOS seems to be better than Windows on the same mac device

newscracker 7y ago

This seems like a hardware issue. If you haven’t tried App Tamer [1], check it out (I’m not affiliated with it in any way). [1]: https://stclairsoft.com/AppTamer/index.html https://stclairsoft.com/AppTamer/index.html