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(2019) 16" is HOT & NOISY with an external monitor! :(
- Thread starter Appledoesnotlisten
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Btw, do you think that this extention will work with the 0.7m cable or there will be a loss of signal/narrow bandwidth?
https://www.amazon.com/Faracent-Ext...type+c+6ft&qid=1574962896&s=industrial&sr=1-3
Yeah. I mean I understand that it has to power less components in the MBP, but the difference is pretty big. Didn’t expect that. I’m saying this as a 15“ user though, I don’t want to confuse anyone but learned it in this thread
Ran into this before, and just now while FileVault was enabled and disabled. It could be a software/firmware bug requiring an update, but found that unplugging the power cable from the dock and plugging it back in got it working again.
I also wonder if my display (P2715Q), a 4+ year old 4K display has issues coping with the dock, as there were times I couldn't turn it off connected to my old 2013 MBP and had to unplug the monitor and plug it back in to work again.
So either software/firmware bugs with the display, dock and/or MBP.
Nope, it won't work. According to this article from StarTech, the maximum distance allowable for a Thunderbolt 3 cable to operate at the full 40Gb/s rate is 0.5m over copper, although the cable included with the CalDigit ProDock is 0.7m and works fine. Essentially the length of the wire connecting the computer to the dock needs to be short so that the electrical signals passing back and forth reaches their endpoints within a specific amount of time. Using a longer cable means that signals will take longer to travel, with bandwidth reduced in half.
But as it stands now, the dock needs to be physically close to the computer to achieve a full 40Gb/s connection, using an Active Thunderbolt 3 cable. A passive Thunderbolt 3 cable can be longer, but operate at half the speed. I'm not sure if a passive cable should be used to directly connect a 4K display, but I wouldn't recommend it.
It's pretty obvious, actually. It's math.
Heat control in almost every laptop doesn't consider the top plate as part of the heating control system. Because you wrists on the lower part of the laptop will take more heat to the top plate. Your finger on the keyboard will avoid air to be exchanged in the keyboard top. So, engineers isolate with thermal isolations the top plate from the rest of the chassis.
The lower plate is where the whole fun occurs. Heat is dissipated by the air changing. The fans throw air through thin metal parts in the heat sink, that is touching the heat pipe that touchs the CPU and GPU. Exchanging air is how the heat is controlled.
So, if you put your MacBook in clamshell the keyboard and LCD will be "safe" from the heat.
Apple has designed MacBook Pro to blow the hot air just below the display hinge. While seated on a table, there's a tiny space between the hinge and the table. But if you lift a little your MacBook from the table it will be bigger. And the air been pushed inside the lower plate will have more space. I personally use a stack of business cards below the back feet of MBP. This will give more space to the air flow and will let it in an angle.
If you close the lid and leave your MacBook in a vertical position, you will be giving the lower plate a lot of fresh air. This will be the ideal position to use your MacBook Pro while in the clamshell mode.
There's a lot of accessories out there that would help in that.
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My MBP sits on a stand so air is not a problem. I just think that the closed lid gets really warm, and the part above the touchbar is hot. I’m not sure how much hotter it is when not in clamshell mode, but it can’t be that much.
that’s why I’m concerned about the screens health.
that’s why I’m concerned about the screens health.
So, I'm thinking about buying a 32" 4K external monitor to use in clamshell mode. Thing is, my sight is not that good to use it at 3840x2160 resolution all the time, so I'm thinking about using it as a "Looks like 2560x1440" which actually renders at 5120x2880 and scales down to 4K monitor.
Does anyone know how much that affects heat and noisiness compared to running a native 2560x1440? Right now I'm using a 2560x1440 with the 15", idling + safari or other light tasks the fans are always at minimum level.
Note: I would buy a 2560x1440 monitor but haven't really found a 32", USB-C with high power delivery, not curved display that I really like. My idea right now is on the Dell U3219Q.
Does anyone know how much that affects heat and noisiness compared to running a native 2560x1440? Right now I'm using a 2560x1440 with the 15", idling + safari or other light tasks the fans are always at minimum level.
Note: I would buy a 2560x1440 monitor but haven't really found a 32", USB-C with high power delivery, not curved display that I really like. My idea right now is on the Dell U3219Q.
That's how I run mine, runs fine, cool and quiet. 1600-1800 RPM on the fans in clamshell, 2,200-2,600 RPM with the inner screen open in addition to the external.
If you want a QHD monitor, buy a QHD monitor. It's going to be moderately cheaper and less stress on your computer.
One reason I don't like downscaling is that screen capture screws up and you want up with a huge image. I'm using dual QHD right now with good power delivery but it is MDP/HDMI.
Just use a screen capture tool that supports either the real resolution or the HiDPI resolution. I use the Imgur tool mac2imgur and it lets you choose which mode you want to take screenshots in.
Thanks for sharing. By the way, do you actually know if "retina scaling" is available only on a certain type of monitors/cable setup or if it can be done on any 4K? What monitor are you using by the way?
Yeah, that's what I want to do, but really finding any good 32" with beefy power delivery is hard, and most are 4K. 27" has so much many more models to look at, but it's what I currently have and wanted something bigger.
I also have 27" 4K monitors and 27" is definitely too small but I run at native resolution anyways for trading. One feature that I've asked Apple for is to change scaling based on virtual desktop. My trading desktop runs best at 4K but 4K is awful for everything else.
I don't know that 4K would be that much better at 32 inches. I find 25 inches perfect for QHD. I haven't tried 27 inches but I'm sure that it would be fine. There are 32" QHD monitors but they are previous generation and quite inexpensive. It's kind of a problem with tech where you want some of the previous generation features and some of the current generation features.
What you might look at is to see if you could set the monitor resolution to QHD so that the monitor does the scaling instead of the laptop. It wouldn't look quite as sharp though.
Can work on any 4K Monitor
I'm using the Dell U2718Q and I think the picture quality is amazing. They released a firmware update for this monitor almost a year ago which you could apply yourself using a USB cable and that fixed all the colour issues it had (if you were to Google and find those, thought I'd mention it).I'd highly recommend this monitor, rock solid stable works with my PC and Mac perfectly and works via my Thunderbolt 3 dock too. Here is what the scaling options look on it:
You can see under the display it lists the "Looks like 2560 x 1440" option. It looks super sharp though due to it rendering at 5K then down scaling to 4K panel. Before I got this monitor (almost two years ago) I was thinking about getting a 5K but after owning this I don't feel the need at all, it gives me the same desktop space and looks incredible.
Going back to this thread title - it is neither noisy nor hot - at least for me.
Attached two istat temps on idle - one without and one with external monitor (Benq 4K)
i9 2.4, 5500 with 8GB, 32GB RAM, SSD 2T connected with Apple USB-C Digital AV Multiport dongle.
Environment relatively fresh - around 19st C
1. MBP without external monitor working on iGPU: ~35st C, fans minimum - not audible
![Screenshot 2019-12-01 at 14.06.49.png]( "Screenshot 2019-12-01 at 14.06.49.png")
2. MBP with external monitor (4K, 60hz, standard scaling) working on 5500M GPU: ~50st C, fans minimum - not audible.
![Screenshot 2019-12-01 at 14.14.29.png]( "Screenshot 2019-12-01 at 14.14.29.png")
Yes - there is temperature difference but not noticeable.
Attached two istat temps on idle - one without and one with external monitor (Benq 4K)
i9 2.4, 5500 with 8GB, 32GB RAM, SSD 2T connected with Apple USB-C Digital AV Multiport dongle.
Environment relatively fresh - around 19st C
1. MBP without external monitor working on iGPU: ~35st C, fans minimum - not audible
2. MBP with external monitor (4K, 60hz, standard scaling) working on 5500M GPU: ~50st C, fans minimum - not audible.
Yes - there is temperature difference but not noticeable.
Can work on any 4K Monitor
I'd highly recommend this monitor, rock solid stable works with my PC and Mac perfectly and works via my Thunderbolt 3 dock too. Here is what the scaling options look on it:
You can see under the display it lists the "Looks like 2560 x 1440" option. It looks super sharp though due to it rendering at 5K then down scaling to 4K panel. Before I got this monitor (almost two years ago) I was thinking about getting a 5K but after owning this I don't feel the need at all, it gives me the same desktop space and looks incredible.
![bwDyzKJ.png]()
Just for reference, with those configurations which seem to be pretty similar... what about light workloads? Like watching a 10-min YouTube video in fullscreen, does CPU/GPU ramp the fans up while scaling all those pixels to 5k and back down to 4k? Not talking about 4K videos trough Chrome (which I know are a different beast because of VP9 encoding) but something like 1080p YT videos in Safari. Thanks in advance!
This is my 8 core 15" with a single youtube video running fullscreen at 1080p in Safari.
It's silent to me most of the time. But it's on the edge, and minor load will definitely trigger the fans.
I know mine is not a new 16" MBP (just an old 2015 13"), just wanted to report that running a 4K monitor has not caused the fans to come up, not even once. It is not logical that the new state of the art laptop should heat up like that.
13" has a no dGPU so generates less heat. 15/16" have CPU and dGPU to cool so generated considerably more heat. The 13" use iGPU in the chip and has poor graphics performance. But if you aren't doing anything that is graphic intensive it works OK. It displays text and web pages fine.
Here you have below:
I've run 1080p in Safari for approx 5 mins on 4k (scaled by apple to 1080 as usual), running on battery (not sure if its a factor). Screenshot taken during playback of the last minute. Fans inaudible as before.
One more observation - I've reported before ~35 deg C on idle without external monitor. I have the same CPU temp during light web browsing (~10-12tabs of macrumors opened in safari, no external monitor). Really happy with the performance - dead silent for casual usage. Noisier during video editing but that's expected and desired
. Looks like apple finally did it right.no, running a higher refresh rate does not increase video memory usage. It will increase GPU load, but I am running a 3440x1440@120Hz display and my MBP is still whisper quiet when in clamshell mode. I have a VM running though Parallels + a dozen or so tabs in Chrome, VS Code and the fan isn't audible unless I run something that really stresses the CPU. This is on the i7/5300M model.
The MBP 16" is the quietest laptop I've owned by a large margin. On my old Surface Book the fans used to kick up just doing regular web browsing.
Yes, I am using a AW3418DW with my 16" currently at 3440x1440 and 115 HZ. It's quiet if I dont open Chrome. Using it in clamshell mode is way quieter than leaving the lid open. Like a night and day difference. But I never see my temps for CPU go below 60 degrees celsius. Not even at idle.
Just received my 32" 4K LG, and I'm happy to report that in clamshell mode, 2560x1440 HiDpi, the MacBook sits at a cool 47°C and gets up to 51° after 5 minutes of YouTube video, room temp 24°C. Of course with fans not moving from their minimum speed! Will do some more testing in the next few days with the display open.