In this video I’m going to show you a few ways to get your new MacBook air to stop running
so loud as it's trying to prevent itself from overheating, and these are not hardware solutions
like my last video where I watercooled the Air and used a gel pack but safe permanent
solutions.
These tips can actually apply to most macs in the last few years, so if you have a different
MacBook this will apply to you as well and as a plus, you can gain a few hours of battery
life as well.
Like most people I was extremely excited for the new MacBook air. An amazing keyboard that’s
only found in the much larger and more expensive 16” MacBook. Twice the SSD capacity, and
new 10th gen CPU’s with twice the cores and new graphics which provide way more performance
for the same price.
Because of this many people are choosing the new Air over a base Pro, and I’d want to
as well but the only problem is this thing runs hotter and louder because Apple didn’t
give it a proper cooler.
Now if it only did that during super heavy tasks that would be fine, but I’m seeing
this during normal tasks as well. For example, when I opened Chrome and went to Youtube and
scrolled down the Air hit 100C.
If you have a few tabs open and flip between them quickly it hits 100C. Then I watched
a 4K 60 video and not only did the Air hit 100C within 10 seconds but it stays there
and the fan ramps up to an annoying 6000RPM.
Now I know many of you wouldn’t watch 4K on your Mac, but even 1080P 60 results in
the CPU staying at a consistent 90C but here the fan runs quieter.
My first tip is simple, don’t use chrome. Now Chrome is my favorite browser but it's
more resource intensive which means it puts out more heat.
Safari focuses on efficiency, and that same 1080P 60 video played back at 65C with the
fan completely off! Opening Youtube and quickly scrolling hit a max of 86C instead of 100,
and quickly jumping through tabs for twice as long I couldn’t get it to hit over 67C
instead of 100C.
If you’re not picky about browsers definitely use Safari on your Air, but what if you are,
or what if you’re mac is running hot and loud while doing other tasks.
For example, you want to do some light photo or video editing, or say you’re streaming
video in a dedicated app or even downloading and installing files and your fan is going
crazy. This is where the new Air personally shocked
me. I was playing back a game trailer in the Epic games app and the CPU was running at
100C with the fan being audible but not too annoying.
What really killed me was when I downloaded Fortnite. After 1 minute of downloading and
installing, the Air hit 100C and fans were running at 5000RPM and after a few more, fans
were at the max, 8000rpm and the CPU ran at 100C and it stayed that way for over an hour.
That is absolutely ridiculous.. Let me explain exactly Why this is happening and how we can
fix it.
The way Intel designes their CPU’s, when you are doing a task the CPU can at times
use more than double the rated wattage to work faster.
For example this 1.1 Ghz processor can hit up to 3.5Ghz and paired with the 10nm design
this makes the MacBook air extremly snappy at normal tasks, even beating out the MacBook
Pro, but doing those quick tasks uses more power and heats up the mac.
This isn’t a bad thing by itself, but when you pair turbo boost with a poor cooler and
apps that are more demanding the Air gets much hotter and louder than the Pro.
The other reason why is Apple's MacOS is designed to give you maximum performance when an app
asks for it and there's no power efficiency modes like windows has, if you’re doing
something that could be sped up by more CPU or GPU power MacOS will try to run your processor
as fast as possible even if it means running hot and loud.
You can see in our cinebench test that the Air keeps trying to run its CPU as fast as
possible even though the fan is really loud and the CPU is at 100C.
That is where turbo boost switcher comes in. It’s a third party app that allows you to
turn off the turbo boost function that will run the CPU at much higher frequencies even
if its not needed.
Let's start with the free version. I downloaded it and allowed it to run in the security settings,
restarted, and then turned off turbo boost.
I opened youtube in Chrome and quickly scrolled down and temps only hit 64C instead of 100C.
I then played back a 4K 60 video which is demanding, and the laptop maxed out at 85C
with the fan running at its lowest speed instead of 100C with fans being loud which is a big
improvement.
After a few min of playing back trailers in EPIC the Air stayed silent and the CPU didn’t
go higher than 75C. When downloading and initializing fortnite
as soon as I turn off turbo boost switcher you can see that our CPU goes from trying
to run as fast as possible as possible and hitting 100C to running at a constant 1.1Ghz
with a steady decline in temps and fan speeds resulting with max temps of 85C while staying
completely silent.
Now since we are limiting the power that means we’re also limiting the performance of the
MacBook Air which is a bummer with a brand new machine. Thankfully for normal uses I
didn’t notice that much of a performance difference. And it still felt noticeably snappier
than the 2019 Air. Google Chrome was still responsive when jumping through tabs and scrolling
and even 4K 60 video played back fine.
The whole system is quick and responsive, and since the CPU isn’t having massive wattage
spikes when you're doing these tasks you’ll end up gaining a few hours of battery life.
I notice some differences in performance when opening tougher apps that need the power,
so I decided to run Cinebench R20. It definitely took longer but the CPU didn’t ever go higher
than 70C and the fan ran silent at its lowest speed, instead of being loud and running at
100C.
The end result was a score of 630 instead of 955 which is a noticeable drop in performance,
performing similarly to the 2019 Air.
But keep in mind, the 2019 Air has to run hot and loud to achieve that mid 600 score
when the new one with turbo off can do so while staying cool and completely silent and
using less power.
My last tip would be to buy Turbo boost Pro which is only $10. This will be allow you
to schedule when to have turbo boost on or off, allowing it to toggle based on the app
if you have a few that always cause your air to run hot or my personal choice, auto toggling
turbo boost depending on the CPU temperature, that way you can maximize performance while
keeping your Mac running cool & quiet.
Of course I wish Apple not only upgraded the specs and lowered the price of the air but
also upgraded the cooler but they didn’t, so until Apple gives us power modes for Macs
this will make your new MacBook Air run better.
I’ll put a link down in the video description, let me know if you guys have any questions
and click up there to subscribe and if you want to see how my full review of the MacBook
Air. This has been max and I’ll see you in the next one.