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A colleague of mine recently got a MacBook Pro, whenever they plug in an external monitor the fans are pretty much fully on when doing not much at all. They no

by Jonnax 6y ago

A colleague of mine recently got a MacBook Pro, whenever they plug in an external monitor the fans are pretty much fully on when doing not much at all. They now loathe using it. These computers are so expensive. They seem to have a ton of issues with ridiculous repair costs. What's going on? The keyboard issue from before is another example. Clearly they have the profit margin to ensure their products work well. And not charge unreasonable prices for repair.

chrisseaton 6y ago
Not sure you can extrapolate one user reporting an issue to 'a ton of issues'. If they 'recently got' it then it will still be in warranty and Apple will probably fix it for free.
- sharms 6y ago
  This thread alone on Apples site, with no official response, is over 250 pages long: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250878229 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250878229
blkhawk 6y ago
Louis Rossmann has something to say about the cooler design in the newest Macbook Aris. https://youtu.be/iiCBYAP_Sgg?t=46 https://youtu.be/iiCBYAP_Sgg?t=46 Not sure is the Pro is much better.
mgraupner 6y ago
Ask your colleague if he is charging the MacBook on the left or right side, it may be the cause of excessive heat and therefore higher temperatures/fan noise. Source: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/363337/how-to-find-cause-of-high-kernel-task-cpu-usage/363933 https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/363337/how-to-find...
ubermonkey 6y ago
Something is wrong with your colleague's machine, or something else in his toolchain, because that's not normal. The keyboard issues were really jarring precisely because Apple had, up to that point, a really great reliability reputation - in my experience, on par with the super-overengineered late-90s ThinkPads (IBM, not Lenovo). I retired several PowerBooks and MacBooks at 6 or 7 years old that were still physically fine, but no longer appealing to use for Moore's Law reasons. My wife's using my old 6 year old 13" Pro, and while I now find the keyboard weird, it's utterly capable of anything she needs to do with it -- which is pretty much a regular human duty cycle (ie, she's not running virtual servers on it like I was in its initial life). We then passed on the small Air she'd been using for like 8 years; it's in daily use at a friend's house now as a spare platform (which turned out to be a big deal, given quarantine). My guess is that Intel Macs are about to hit a gate with the shift to ARM, and you won't be able to get 8 years out of one purchased in 2020, but I could be wrong about that. (I mean, I definitely am if you have relatively simple needs -- even if you get stuck at the last rev of Intel-friendly OS X, there's software for you there that will keep working.)
- andreasley 6y ago
  Actually, loud fans are a regular occurrence when using external displays with current high-end 15" MacBook Pros. It gets hot fast, especially when driving a 4K display and charging at the same time. The 13" MacBook Pro on the other hand is basically silent in most circumstances.
  - ubermonkey 6y ago
    I have a high-end current 15" Pro, use a high-def monitor, and do not have this problem.
dcx 6y ago
I had this issue. I found people with the same problem up and down the web, across tons of MacBook models (examples: [1] [2]). Most people blamed it on bad drivers, GPU issues, bad graphics ports, firmware issues, and so on. What actually did the trick - opening the case up, flushing the dust from both fans using compressed air, and replacing the thermal paste on the CPU & GPU. My MacBook is totally silent now. I'm sure there is more than one possible root cause, but I feel this solution is not nearly as well known as it should be. Laptops generally run hot, and MacBooks have great fans, but they do trap dust. So there are a ton of people running around with old MacBooks which are being absolutely crippled by throttling. I ran some rough benchmarks and performance has approximately doubled. It's super noticeable. IMO Apple is incentivised to do a poor job in highlighting this (and say, setting up a service program), because when your laptop starts to feel slow after a few years, people tend to feel like maybe it's time to buy a new laptop... [1] https://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-computers/1322323-macbook-pro-16-quot-external-monitor-nonstop-fans-anyone-else.html https://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-computers/1322323-macb... [2] https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2017-15-mbp-fans-run-w-external-monitor.2103793/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2017-15-mbp-fans-run-w-...

by Jonnax 6y ago

chrisseaton 6y ago

Not sure you can extrapolate one user reporting an issue to 'a ton of issues'. If they 'recently got' it then it will still be in warranty and Apple will probably fix it for free.

sharms 6y ago
This thread alone on Apples site, with no official response, is over 250 pages long: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250878229 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250878229

blkhawk 6y ago

Louis Rossmann has something to say about the cooler design in the newest Macbook Aris. https://youtu.be/iiCBYAP_Sgg?t=46 https://youtu.be/iiCBYAP_Sgg?t=46 Not sure is the Pro is much better.

mgraupner 6y ago

Ask your colleague if he is charging the MacBook on the left or right side, it may be the cause of excessive heat and therefore higher temperatures/fan noise. Source: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/363337/how-to-find-cause-of-high-kernel-task-cpu-usage/363933 https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/363337/how-to-find...

ubermonkey 6y ago

Something is wrong with your colleague's machine, or something else in his toolchain, because that's not normal. The keyboard issues were really jarring precisely because Apple had, up to that point, a really great reliability reputation - in my experience, on par with the super-overengineered late-90s ThinkPads (IBM, not Lenovo). I retired several PowerBooks and MacBooks at 6 or 7 years old that were still physically fine, but no longer appealing to use for Moore's Law reasons. My wife's using my old 6 year old 13" Pro, and while I now find the keyboard weird, it's utterly capable of anything she needs to do with it -- which is pretty much a regular human duty cycle (ie, she's not running virtual servers on it like I was in its initial life). We then passed on the small Air she'd been using for like 8 years; it's in daily use at a friend's house now as a spare platform (which turned out to be a big deal, given quarantine). My guess is that Intel Macs are about to hit a gate with the shift to ARM, and you won't be able to get 8 years out of one purchased in 2020, but I could be wrong about that. (I mean, I definitely am if you have relatively simple needs -- even if you get stuck at the last rev of Intel-friendly OS X, there's software for you there that will keep working.)

andreasley 6y ago
Actually, loud fans are a regular occurrence when using external displays with current high-end 15" MacBook Pros. It gets hot fast, especially when driving a 4K display and charging at the same time. The 13" MacBook Pro on the other hand is basically silent in most circumstances.
- ubermonkey 6y ago
  I have a high-end current 15" Pro, use a high-def monitor, and do not have this problem.

dcx 6y ago

I had this issue. I found people with the same problem up and down the web, across tons of MacBook models (examples: [1] [2]). Most people blamed it on bad drivers, GPU issues, bad graphics ports, firmware issues, and so on. What actually did the trick - opening the case up, flushing the dust from both fans using compressed air, and replacing the thermal paste on the CPU & GPU. My MacBook is totally silent now. I'm sure there is more than one possible root cause, but I feel this solution is not nearly as well known as it should be. Laptops generally run hot, and MacBooks have great fans, but they do trap dust. So there are a ton of people running around with old MacBooks which are being absolutely crippled by throttling. I ran some rough benchmarks and performance has approximately doubled. It's super noticeable. IMO Apple is incentivised to do a poor job in highlighting this (and say, setting up a service program), because when your laptop starts to feel slow after a few years, people tend to feel like maybe it's time to buy a new laptop... [1] https://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-computers/1322323-macbook-pro-16-quot-external-monitor-nonstop-fans-anyone-else.html https://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-computers/1322323-macb... [2] https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2017-15-mbp-fans-run-w-external-monitor.2103793/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2017-15-mbp-fans-run-w-...