I’ve gotten the fans and temp under control with iStat Menus and Turbo Boost Switcher Pro.
After 5-6 hours of testing and research with every combination of monitor, cable, adapter, and connection configuration and display settings configuration that you could think of, I’ve concluded that there isn’t a solution using the hardware and software that I currently own.
Someone asked about applications. It’s always the same applications using the most CPU. Generally Windows Server and whichever app I playing video with. Browser apps like Slack or Chrome will generally be right next to Window Server. The same goes for any media player, aka VLC, that I might be using. I also tested with video conferencing applications such as Webex and MS Teams. They all cause my Macbook Pro’s temperature to go into orbit. Basically, anything that plays video will turn my Macbook Pro into a pizza oven.
Solutions that might exist but I can’t test because I don’t possess the hardware or Apple has to create a fix or because they don’t fit my requirements.
- eGPU - offload the driving of external displays to an external card.
- Native USB-C Display - None of my displays have USB-C ports, so I have to use adapters to connect them to my Macbook Pro. The adapters may be increasing power draw and therefore also increase heat. A native USB-C display would remove that as a possible issue.
- Don’t use external displays. For this, I’d need to change my workflows from dual 27" to fit a single 16" display. For posture and vision( I wear glasses ) reasons, I’d need a stand to hold the Macbook Pro up to the correct eye level and distance from my eyes. This would definitely solve the heating issue as I tested it. The Macbook Pro stays at 41C no matter what applications I’m running when using only the built-in display.
- Radeon Driver Update - On macrumors.com forums, people smarter than me analyzed the Radeon drivers and settings and they believe the issue is with the driver, which Apple has not updated (according to file date ) since Catalina’s initial release. A drive update may fix the issue. I can share the thread here, it’s about 45 pages of posts, so it isn’t a quick read.
- This one is out there. A few people suggested using third party utilities to change the refresh rate from default 30Hz to 60Hz. I noted that for my displays, Catalina doesn’t expose refresh rates when using the option + scaled method of view display configurations. So I would need a 3rd party tool such as SwitchResX.
For my use case, either the Catalina driver update or the purchase of USB-C displays would be the easiest. My workspace setup is shared between my Macbook Pro and my employer’s Macbook Pro since I’m working from home these days.
Right now all my peripherals either connect to my CalDigit dock( which I bypassed during testing ) or my Display’s USB port. To switch Macbook Pro’s , I swap the dock’s usb-c cable from one Macbook Pro to the other. Easy peasy!