2018 MBP 15 Coil Whine

[Beachguy]

At the risk of looking foolish (fortunately, I am old enough not to care)... what is the coil that is whining? I've not seen the reference before, and with my crappy hearing (tinnitus) I probably wouldn't notice it anyway, but you peeps have me curious.

 

[Plutonius]

3) Yes but so far the only 2018 supplier seems to be Toshiba

I read a post that indicated that both Toshiba and Samsung drives were being used. Unfortunately, there seems to be no way of verifying this under "about this mac".

I could believe it though since that's the reason for the whine that makes the most sense.

 

[Softh]

Video of my problem / Listen with headphones
In the service I am told that this is normal

 

[Ploki]

Video of my problem / Listen with headphones
In the service I am told that this is normal

It's so "normal" that most of them don't make that sound.
Yours is not too bad tho, heard worse.

edit: oh it's the 13". guess i was lucky

 

[Meter]

I get the feeling it's just as normal as the bend iPad pros. Or the ghosting on the Macbooks. Or the coating problems. Or the CPU slowdown to save your phone from shutting down. The more noise we make about this, the more Apple sees they can't tell people this is normal. Because quite frankly it is not normal for a premium machine. Why can other Macbooks be dead silent why we have to live with annoying sounds in a 4k dollar machine? Unacceptable.

 

[Ploki]

I get the feeling it's just as normal as the bend iPad pros. Or the ghosting on the Macbooks. Or the coating problems. Or the CPU slowdown to save your phone from shutting down. The more noise we make about this, the more Apple sees they can't tell people this is normal. Because quite frankly it is not normal for a premium machine. Why can other Macbooks be dead silent why we have to live with annoying sounds in a 4k dollar machine? Unacceptable.

I agree, it's normal if it's part of the design.

my caldigit had coilwhine and they replaced it.

Coil whine is not a feature and not a design issue
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I read a post that indicated that both Toshiba and Samsung drives were being used. Unfortunately, there seems to be no way of verifying this under "about this mac".

I could believe it though since that's the reason for the whine that makes the most sense.

you quoted my post

Anyway, i doubt samsung vs toshiba supply anything other but the chips themselves (dead nand) since controller is on the T2 chip. I don't think coils in questions are different, and i don't see how one SSD over the other could make coil noise.

 

[kesha-antonov]

I get the feeling it's just as normal as the bend iPad pros. Or the ghosting on the Macbooks. Or the coating problems. Or the CPU slowdown to save your phone from shutting down. The more noise we make about this, the more Apple sees they can't tell people this is normal. Because quite frankly it is not normal for a premium machine. Why can other Macbooks be dead silent why we have to live with annoying sounds in a 4k dollar machine? Unacceptable.

Same thoughts. Stand for your rights.

 

[Meter]

So, got a call from the Apple store in amsterdam today that they inspected it and called with Apple Engineers. They explain the device is fully functional (duh, that wasn't the complaint) and the noise is considered normal because there is so much power in the GPU and CPU. I got pretty mad with this, asking why other Macbooks don't have this. All in all he sounded like he knew Apple is telling this is normal while it is ********. Apple calls this 'normal' because probably every 2018 Macbook has this issue and they can't do anything about it.

Ofcourse, they don't want to offer everybody a refund so they just say this is acceptable noise. It's ****ing ridiculous and don't really know what to do now, anybody got an idea?

 

[scinetic]

Yesterday I went to the store to get my macbook for the 4th time from repair. Apple has stated that the laptop works as intended and they did not hear any noise. I had sent them tens of videos of the annoying scratching noise but filmed in a quiet room since that is the only environment in which you can hear it. They choose to just deny it.

It is outrageous that I have paid 3000EUR for a laptop that I cannot use, because that noise drives me crazy!

 

[Ploki]

Ofcourse, they don't want to offer everybody a refund so they just say this is acceptable noise. It's ****ing ridiculous and don't really know what to do now, anybody got an idea?

can you go into an apple store and see of those make noise?

Yesterday I went to the store to get my macbook for the 4th time from repair. Apple has stated that the laptop works as intended and they did not hear any noise. I had sent them tens of videos of the annoying scratching noise but filmed in a quiet room since that is the only environment in which you can hear it. They choose to just deny it.

It is outrageous that I have paid 3000EUR for a laptop that I cannot use, because that noise drives me crazy!

this is poor quality control unfortunately.
my guess is more worker right in china is making it harder for apple to retain the same profit margins (Which are more than healthy anyway given the price of the machines), and they rather have a more lenient QC because most people will ignore or not notice the noise...

i feel for you both. If mine made this noise i'd return it the very next day. Try to persist. Find a macbook that doesn't make such noise. Mine doesn't, not mini, not the 13" neither did the 15" but I'm probably too far away to help.

 

[kesha-antonov]

Yesterday I went to the store to get my macbook for the 4th time from repair. Apple has stated that the laptop works as intended and they did not hear any noise. I had sent them tens of videos of the annoying scratching noise but filmed in a quiet room since that is the only environment in which you can hear it. They choose to just deny it.

It is outrageous that I have paid 3000EUR for a laptop that I cannot use, because that noise drives me crazy!

Totally agree. I’m waiting for logic board replacement in the end of the week. Will post here how Apple reacts in my case

 

[scinetic]

Totally agree. I’m waiting for logic board replacement in the end of the week. Will post here how Apple reacts in my case

They replaced my motherboard as well and it did not change anything. I hope it helps in your case!

can you go into an apple store and see of those make noise?


this is poor quality control unfortunately.
my guess is more worker right in china is making it harder for apple to retain the same profit margins (Which are more than healthy anyway given the price of the machines), and they rather have a more lenient QC because most people will ignore or not notice the noise...

i feel for you both. If mine made this noise i'd return it the very next day. Try to persist. Find a macbook that doesn't make such noise. Mine doesn't, not mini, not the 13" neither did the 15" but I'm probably too far away to help.

This is not quality control issue. It comes from the SSD or CPU.
And you cannot hear the noise in the apple store because the place is noisy. As I said, it could only be heard in a relatively quiet room.

 

[Meter]

They replaced my motherboard as well and it did not change anything. I hope it helps in your case!



This is not quality control issue. It comes from the SSD or CPU.
And you cannot hear the noise in the apple store because the place is noisy. As I said, it could only be heard in a relatively quiet room.

The more research I do, the more I get the feeling it's this Toshiba SSD. It makes sense if you also see that the noise is being produced when Blackmagic Speedtest runs. This indicates that a lot of electricity running through the SSD makes some coils vibrate. Anyway, does anybody know if you can file a complaint at Apple other than the Apple store which is packed with ignorant so called 'geniuses' who don't give a flying **** about you and your little coil whine noise.

 

[Ploki]

This is not quality control issue. It comes from the SSD or CPU.
And you cannot hear the noise in the apple store because the place is noisy. As I said, it could only be heard in a relatively quiet room.

How it's not a QC issue if some have it and some don't?

 

[Meter]

So I got my Macbook pro back and did some further research. When I unplug my expensive hyperdrive USB-C adapter with cinema display USB plugged in, the coil whine is gone! It only produces the sound with this cinema display USB plugged in. I can still use my cinema display with a 3 dollar aliexpress adapter, so I'm pretty happy.

All in all I'm pretty damn sure it's USB hubs and other power hungry USB devices that cause the coils to whine because of a high voltage. My tip would be try unplugging external devices and check.

 

[Softh]

So I got my Macbook pro back and did some further research. When I unplug my expensive hyperdrive USB-C adapter with cinema display USB plugged in, the coil whine is gone! It only produces the sound with this cinema display USB plugged in. I can still use my cinema display with a 3 dollar aliexpress adapter, so I'm pretty happy.

All in all I'm pretty damn sure it's USB hubs and other power hungry USB devices that cause the coils to whine because of a high voltage. My tip would be try unplugging external devices and check.

I have nothing connected to my laptop. Given the variety of symptoms, it can be assumed that the components on the motherboard are ****

 

[Meter]

I have nothing connected to my laptop. Given the variety of symptoms, it can be assumed that the components on the motherboard are ****

I agree, the components are definitely not top notch but if it will stay like this, I can live with it. What exactly are you hearing? I still have the chirping sound, but that's barely noticable. The high pitched sound is gone.

 

[Softh]

I agree, the components are definitely not top notch but if it will stay like this, I can live with it. What exactly are you hearing? I still have the chirping sound, but that's barely noticable. The high pitched sound is gone.

I hear whistling, rustling, squeaking. In general, it is an electric sound. a little higher there is my post from the video where this sound is heard

 

[kesha-antonov]

I’ve got logic board replacement. Still hearing the sounds. But less than in previous one.

 

[fokmik]

i have 2018 MBP and new Lenovo thinkpad X1 extreme and also the new surface laptop 2...all of them in a quiet place have this SSD sound. So this will be the new "normal" of ssd power

 

[Ploki]

i have 2018 MBP and new Lenovo thinkpad X1 extreme and also the new surface laptop 2...all of them in a quiet place have this SSD sound. So this will be the new "normal" of ssd power

Yeah it seems all have it; but some have it less. the problem is you don't know how loud it's going to be until you get one, unlike fan noise which is consistent everywhere

 

[kesha-antonov]

i have 2018 MBP and new Lenovo thinkpad X1 extreme and also the new surface laptop 2...all of them in a quiet place have this SSD sound. So this will be the new "normal" of ssd power

It’s also because of graphic cards. I have louder noise when using discrete graphic card in MBP.

 

[fokmik]

yes, maybe, but on surface laptop 2 i dont have dGPU and is still there...but like Ploki said, it makes a huge difference if its an normal thing to hear it in a quiet room when you are close to the machine, or if its an issue when you can hear it every-time

 

[Melodyne]

I have a coil whine issue with my new 15" 2018 MPB (2,6GHz i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB, 560X) as well. Getting some not too bad whine from the SSD when installing apps or running the Blackmagic disk speed test (only when "read" though). The worse thing is the whine I get during GPU intensive task such as video editing. Constant coil when when scrubbing through the timeline (get's louder the faster I scrub around), but at certain tasks already when I only move around the cursor (like while moving the cursor in DaVinci Resolve's LUT gallery). It's even worse in FCX.

So I guess this can't be fixed other than trying to get a replacement. Since - from what I've read here - most people get replacement units with the same issue, I guess getting it replaced doesn't make much sense. Had the same issue with the Dell XPS 15 I had before and I absolutely love the MBP otherwise, so not quite sure if I should send it back.

 

[Ploki]

if its bothering you send it back. be aware new one might be worse, but likely better