In the middle important work video call today, I had to disable my external screen due to heavy throttling (kernel_task at +1000%), itself due to combination of high GPU wattage and high room temperature. Extremely disappointed with the MBP16, and I hope the issue is a buggy driver, not Radeon hardware - otherwise there is no real hope.
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I’m also having this issue across multiple machines - all very modern. Anyone got any ideas? I can see that plugging in the external forces the radeon card to activate and this seems to cause the issue. Not all the time, but often
Disclaimer: I do not own a MBP 16, so I am not able to test this.
I stumbled upon this article several weeks ago: SOLVED: MacBook Pro 16" in clamshell mode is HOT & NOISY with a 1440p external monitor! | by Alex Xu | May, 2021 | Medium
It had been mentioned in several feeds I am subscribed to. The author was able to resolve the issue by force enabling HiDPI mode.
Maybe, this is interesting or even can help somebody.
Side note, Monterey will have a Low Power Mode, hopefully it solves some issues like this one.
Installed Monterey public Beta yesterday. I’m around 16W for the GPU, down from 20W. This still is short term but it seems like an improvement. Fans still too loud to use the laptop mic for call through.
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Hey, couldnt follow the thread all the way to the bottom, so not entirely sure if the issue has been fixed, but here is my two cent - Why I RETURNED my 4k monitor // MacOS Scaling Explained! - YouTube
You can refer to this video where he nicely explains how the Mac is using GPU to do the scaling if the resolution of your monitors are not 220 PPI or 110 PPI. Maybe the resolution settings can be checked to reduce load on your Mac. Let me know if this helps!
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All these talks of fans blowing are intel MacBook Pros, right? Does the M1 still have excessive fans running when connecting to external monitors?
I have a 14" MBP with an M1 Max (32 GPU cores) connected either to a pair of 4K displays or a Studio Display and I almost never hear the fans at all. If I do hear them, it’s something that I have to double check by listening closely just to be sure that it’s the Mac and not something else in the room. This only happens during moderate to heavier workloads or on very warm days.
I don’t usually push all of the CPU cores at once, so I can’t tell you how it sounds under very heavy workloads, so I can’t comment how loud the fans can get.
For comparison, I also have a 16" MBP that is connected to those two 4K displays and it runs its fans much more audibly than the 14". The same workloads will make the that machine’s fans relatively loud. Even light work will make the fans become audible, but I don’t see the behaviour whereby just driving an external display makes the fans spin up.
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I am comforted that the M1 MBP fan does not run when connected to external displays. Currently, I own an M1 Air and as it is fanless, my computing life is so blissful. I do not want to go back to intel Macs, or any Macs that have fans. That’s why I’d be concerned if the M1 MBP fan starts firing up when connected to external displays, as the intel MBP fan will surely do. In the days before M1, the intel Mac’s fans will blow continuously and all I have are Safari, Outlook, a few Office documents and Webex session, all connected to an external display. It drives me crazy.
I think you meant your 16" intel MBP, right?
Yes, sorry! The 16" is the late 2019 i9 model. It’s eager to spin up its fans somewhat when doing anything.
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