Macbook Pro 2019 16 inch fan noise with Ableton

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Setup bootcamp and tried Live. The fan kicked in faster actually. Windows from what I am reading can't switch between two GPUs, so it's using the Radeon Pro from the start. I think it comes down to apple wanting to make these laptops thin and the lack of airflow is shooting up the fans like crazy. I guess we gotta live with it

Windows is tuned for the normals out there who want performance

They actually fixed the lack of airflow in the 16 by changing the heat sink design and ramping up the fans. It’s possible to install an app and have a different fan curve to make it quieter. Reportedly 75c is ok for a computer to run at but do your own research

I much prefer the laptop form factor so i just might install those three apps (fan curve adjustment, disable turbo boost, gswitch) and live with something less than an imac quality display.

Its annoying shrug

I actually have the 2018 fully hooked up macbook pro. So, I'm probably on the shittier end because that's when they had the i9 issue. I honestly regret buying it over windows now because I mainly use Ableton on this and light browsing. The noise is so freaking annoying and I've tried every solution possible with no difference. Logic runs perfectly fine unless I have a lot of tracks running with VSTs and stuff. But, ableton kicks in fans way earlier then if I were to do similar project in Logic. I'm too scared to install those apps and overheat. I do have Gswitch downloaded, is it supposed to be on default settings of dynamic switching?

Windows seems to be tuned completely for performance

Reportedly the 15 inch models are tuned to run quieter than the 16 at the expense of performance. You can try getting a setup where you run the macbook from outside the room or from a closet but that also comes with risks

I suspect a 1080p or 1440p monitor will help it stay quiet.

I have tried the app that turns turbo off, it seems to work fine as it reduces heat not increases it. But obviously DYOR and don’t blame me if something goes wrong

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I actually have the 2018 fully hooked up macbook pro. So, I'm probably on the shittier end because that's when they had the i9 issue. I honestly regret buying it over windows now because I mainly use Ableton on this and light browsing. The noise is so freaking annoying and I've tried every solution possible with no difference. Logic runs perfectly fine unless I have a lot of tracks running with VSTs and stuff. But, ableton kicks in fans way earlier then if I were to do similar project in Logic. I'm too scared to install those apps and overheat. I do have Gswitch downloaded, is it supposed to be on default settings of dynamic switching?

I'm in the same situation as you are (2018 MacBook with i9). But with Turbo Boost Switcher it's almost perfect. I never missed the Turbo Boost, yet. So my advice would be to give this tool a try. It's for free and with this tool you really don't have to be scared because of overheat. This tool even holds your MacBook a lot cooler! And quieter!

Does it work well when you use an external 4k monitor?

[[jur]]

I actually have the 2018 fully hooked up macbook pro. So, I'm probably on the shittier end because that's when they had the i9 issue. I honestly regret buying it over windows now because I mainly use Ableton on this and light browsing. The noise is so freaking annoying and I've tried every solution possible with no difference. Logic runs perfectly fine unless I have a lot of tracks running with VSTs and stuff. But, ableton kicks in fans way earlier then if I were to do similar project in Logic. I'm too scared to install those apps and overheat. I do have Gswitch downloaded, is it supposed to be on default settings of dynamic switching?

I'm in the same situation as you are (2018 MacBook with i9). But with Turbo Boost Switcher it's almost perfect. I never missed the Turbo Boost, yet. So my advice would be to give this tool a try. It's for free and with this tool you really don't have to be scared because of overheat. This tool even holds your MacBook a lot cooler! And quieter!

Does it work well when you use an external 4k monitor?

External monitors always worsen the situation as the mbp HAS to run on the dedicated graphics to run them.
I have no experience with 4K or other insane monitor resolution but I imagine it makes things even more crazy.

[johidi]

I actually have the 2018 fully hooked up macbook pro. So, I'm probably on the shittier end because that's when they had the i9 issue. I honestly regret buying it over windows now because I mainly use Ableton on this and light browsing. The noise is so freaking annoying and I've tried every solution possible with no difference. Logic runs perfectly fine unless I have a lot of tracks running with VSTs and stuff. But, ableton kicks in fans way earlier then if I were to do similar project in Logic. I'm too scared to install those apps and overheat. I do have Gswitch downloaded, is it supposed to be on default settings of dynamic switching?

I'm in the same situation as you are (2018 MacBook with i9). But with Turbo Boost Switcher it's almost perfect. I never missed the Turbo Boost, yet. So my advice would be to give this tool a try. It's for free and with this tool you really don't have to be scared because of overheat. This tool even holds your MacBook a lot cooler! And quieter!

Just bought pro version. What settings do you use for best results?

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I'm in the same situation as you are (2018 MacBook with i9). But with Turbo Boost Switcher it's almost perfect. I never missed the Turbo Boost, yet. So my advice would be to give this tool a try. It's for free and with this tool you really don't have to be scared because of overheat. This tool even holds your MacBook a lot cooler! And quieter!

Does it work well when you use an external 4k monitor?

External monitors always worsen the situation as the mbp HAS to run on the dedicated graphics to run them.
I have no experience with 4K or other insane monitor resolution but I imagine it makes things even more crazy.

It’s 2020 you can’t be sure your laptop monitor combo that might cost well over $3000 can do a core task well enough. I suspect an egpu + turbo boost disabler will do the trick, but that setup is way more expensive

I hope apple will release an ARM macbook soon but ableton will have to surprise us by releasing a version of ableton for it

[LQdb.Music]

This is known an issue with Ableton and GPUs, had contact with the Ableton support, they sent me a OPTION.TXT that disables GPU support temporaly on start up for my windows10 machine, (Win10, i7, Nvidia GPU).

For my 2019 MBP 16" i9, AMD 5500m: unfortunantely the option.txt entry doesnt seem to work on MacOS.

Neither Studio One 4 nor Logic Pro X got that kind of a problem. At least in idle mode.

If you open the activity monitor (switch to GPU view under "window") within MacOs, you can clearly see that as soon as you start Live 10 the GPU goes up 30-40% and stays there, even when just opnening up the default template.

The always-on-the-edge cooling/thermals of the new MBP 16" can't handle this for long, and the fans spin up like crazy to cool down the system. Even worse if you got a external monitor connected via one of the USB-C/TB3-Ports. The port chipset heats up quickly aswell. So you already start with a high "base heat" that's already close the edge of spinning up the fans. Abletons GPU code does the rest.

Talked to Apple Support aswell, they are aware of that problem, but no fix so far for my MBP 16", got mine sent in to Apple Support, came back, no HW issue!!, remark: please check your 3rd party accessories, lol, rude ! Tested it with different orig. Apple-dongles, Monitors, way of connecting the screens (USB-C, DP, HDMI via Dongle) no change. Had to install an analysis tool from Apple, let's see what they will find out...

personal opinion after talking to all the support guys: bad GPU code behavior and weak "always-on-the-edge" thermal design in the new MBP 16"(GPU and CPU close togehter an left side, TB3-port thermal behavior, Intel Turbo Boost heat etc.) is just too much for this machine.

Therefore I personally think, this can't be fixed in software, alone. Maybe with GPU code optimization in Live and MacOS for the TB3-ports/GPU drivers, the fans will kick in a bit later, but I doubt that the general behavior changes. Considering returning the unit.

PS: to those who write "all good, great machine": what config are you unsing ? external Screen (yes/no/which/connected via??), clamshell or open mode, which audio interface, how connected (USB, TB ??). please enlighten us

Linus Tech Tips got a great video from 2019, showing why the MBP thermal thing is happening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=947op8yKJRY

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I don't understand how you are running windows ableton without GPU exactly

Linus has a pc bias and doesn't understand the obvious reason that macs are usually tuned for silence not performance. Because music producers don't want fan noise in their recordings. Then they tuned the new 16 for performance not silence because people like Linus complained. There are apps to tune the 16 macbook for silence again, search for "don't return your macbook" on youtube and use them at your own risk.

If ableton doesn't care enough to optimize it we might have to just wait for arm macbooks or use a desktop mac

Right now I am still using 1080p monitors in 2020 because my 2015 macbook is too noisy with 4k

[LQdb.Music]

I don't understand how you are running windows ableton without GPU exactly

It doesn't disable the GPU, but it forces Live to use the Intel (internal) GPU only, instead of the dedicated GPU, via special entry in the Options.txt file which Live will process at startup.

Linus has a pc bias and doesn't understand the obvious reason that macs are usually tuned for silence not performance. Because music producers don't want fan noise in their recordings. Then they tuned the new 16 for performance not silence because people like Linus complained.

I don't know, I think he actually loves the MBP 16", have a look, the title of that video says it all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGOmbNRlZdM

There are apps to tune the 16 macbook for silence again, search for "don't return your macbook" on youtube and use them at your own risk.
If ableton doesn't care enough to optimize it we might have to just wait for arm macbooks or use a desktop mac
Right now I am still using 1080p monitors in 2020 because my 2015 macbook is too noisy with 4k

I know ALL of these apps and the video (gswitch, TurboBoost, Voltaire), but honestly I won't criple down my 3k MBP from 2020 with some 3rd party apps, to run on base clock only, or restrict to internal GPU, which BTW won't work with external monitors anyway

cheers

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Someone tested it and it does help keep it quieter but hotter even with external monitors. Yeah i get why you don’t want to do that tho.

Linus gave that nice review after apple tuned it for performance. My point was that he doesn’t seem to get the use case for silent machines

[LQdb.Music]

Someone tested it and it does help keep it quieter but hotter even with external monitors. Yeah i get why you don’t want to do that tho.

Linus gave that nice review after apple tuned it for performance. My point was that he doesn’t seem to get the use case for silent machines

Just a reminder: the issue with some MBP 16" is not that Apple tuned it to performance rather than quiet fans, the issue is that even with LOW CPU the fans come on and spin up like crazy due to whatever, only Apple knows.

Yep, that's my concern in the long run, I already had a MBP back in the days in 2011, where some orig. Apple settings grilled the dedicated GPU by temperature and Apple gave a /&%§# about it. Fortunately I had a HW insurance and the the insurance company refunded me the orig. price. That experience made me a little suspicious about running hot MBPs

Linus is mainly a Gaming Rig dude, but who also build several silent gaming/workstation machines in the past, maybe he is not aware of all aspects in a music/recording studio, idk.

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Theyve tested it and it is a more aggressive fan curve. So by tuning for performance instead of silence that’s what I mean

Im quite confused at this point if I should get the new laptop or not. Yes it will run hotter but this is my preferred form factor

[scheffkoch]

@lqdb: did you try the options.txt that reduces live‘s framerate?

[LQdb.Music]

@lqdb: did you try the options.txt that reduces live‘s framerate?

Nope, I only knew the ForceGDI-thingy on PC/Win10, which won't work on MacOS. Which option do I have to fill in ?

[scheffkoch]

try: -MaxFpsMac=15

[LQdb.Music]

try: -MaxFpsMac=15

tnx...gonna try this for sure