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bevsb2

Contributor
Nov 23, 2012
4,980
15,087
I got my 5th machine yesterday and I particularly went to their HQ store, thought it would be different, but nope it still has the whine.
I will keep swapping and start to video record the whine, maybe I should put it on youtube.

I'm interested in listening to your video. As a person well over 40, I want to see if I can hear it.
 

chscag

macrumors 601
Feb 17, 2008
4,622
1,946
Fort Worth, Texas
All this reminds me of when I was repairing TVs way back when. TV sets back then used a horizontal oscillator that was at a frequency of around 15KHz. I was younger back then and could distinctly hear it and the whine it made would drive you crazy after awhile.

I agree with the comments above. Older folks like myself can no longer hear with clarity (or at all) higher frequency noise. No coil whine with any of my devices. Are they whining? Probably, but since I can't hear it, it doesn't bother me. I suspect member "Oreotto" has very good and sensitive hearing. Good for him! But bad when buying a new MacBook Pro. :p
 

jerryk

macrumors 604
Nov 3, 2011
7,421
4,208
SF Bay Area
I got my 5th machine yesterday and I particularly went to their HQ store, thought it would be different, but nope it still has the whine.
I will keep swapping and start to video record the whine, maybe I should put it on youtube.

If you are under 22 or so just wait a year or two. You won't hear it any more unless it is really loud. There are actually devices that target teenagers because of their hearing is beyond the range of most adults.
 

Lennyvalentin

macrumors 65816
Apr 25, 2011
1,431
794
As a person well over 40, I want to see if I can hear it.
Coil whine can manifest in many different ways, the sound depends on the pattern in which the device draws power from its voltage regulators, and as voltage regulators often run at switching frequencies somewhere around 40-70kHz IIRC, and modern high-powered processors typically work anywhere from hundreds of megahertz to low figure gigahertz. So with this in mind I would assume there's a lot of harmonics in any sound created, meaning a fairly wide frequency spectrum. So not just high frequencies (50+ kHz is at or maybe even above bat territory, much less adult human.)

I've never heard stated anywhere else than in this thread that coilwhine is so high frequency that some adults can no longer detect it, I'm well over 46 years old and I easily hear coilwhine from a number of my PC devices, and also stuff like my Braun shaver's charger for example, and I doubt my hearing is particularly exceptional.
 
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bevsb2

Contributor
Nov 23, 2012
4,980
15,087
Coil whine can manifest in many different ways, the sound depends on the pattern in which the device draws power from its voltage regulators, and as voltage regulators often run at switching frequencies somewhere around 40-70kHz IIRC, and modern high-powered processors typically work anywhere from hundreds of megahertz to low figure gigahertz. So with this in mind I would assume there's a lot of harmonics in any sound created, meaning a fairly wide frequency spectrum. So not just high frequencies (50+ kHz is at or maybe even above bat territory, much less adult human.)

I've never heard stated anywhere else than in this thread that coilwhine is so high frequency that some adults can no longer detect it, I'm well over 46 years old and I easily hear coilwhine from a number of my PC devices, and also stuff like my Braun shaver's charger for example, and I doubt my hearing is particularly exceptional.

I listened to 2 youtube videos of coil whine on the Dell XPS 13 and I could hear it there, but maybe because the sound was augmented for the video. I can hear nothing at all on my 2018 15" base model in a quiet room.
 
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BLUEDOG314

macrumors 6502
Dec 12, 2015
379
120
Oddly enough my 2017 15" has an extremely subtle coil whine when downloading over ethernet at gigabit speeds using TB2 to ethernet and TB2 to TB3 adapter. Weird because it's when downloading specifically, and does not occur when I transfer data from my Samsung T3 which is obviously faster than gigabit internet. Not too worried tbh because I don't download consistently enough for it to upset me.
 

hezt

macrumors newbie
Jul 23, 2018
2
0
Hello Oreotto,
I can hear whine too, in a quiet room.
I think whine is common in MacBook Pro 2018, every machines have the coil whine.
So if you can notice this kind of noise, you will always hear it.
Someone who can't hear whine at the first time will never hear it.

Actually, I want to demand a exchange too, but it will waste too much time and seems won't change this kind of situation.
 

Oreotto

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 29, 2016
24
7
Hello Oreotto,
I can hear whine too, in a quiet room.
I think whine is common in MacBook Pro 2018, every machines have the coil whine.
So if you can notice this kind of noise, you will always hear it.
Someone who can't hear whine at the first time will never hear it.

Actually, I want to demand a exchange too, but it will waste too much time and seems won't change this kind of situation.
Hi, thanks for the reply. Do you have your exchange? Please let us know.

I replaced it again, now it's my 6th machine, and guess what, the whine is still there.

Now since I have tried 6 machines and each one of them has coil whine, I tend to believe all 2018 MBP 15s(i7 2.6ghz) have this problem. I simply run out of energy and gas for another replacement and I will just keep this whining thing.

And I have a solution: drink sparkling water while using this machine, so that I couldn't tell whether the noise comes from the whine or the bubbles, and it's less annoying.
 

hezt

macrumors newbie
Jul 23, 2018
2
0
Hi, thanks for the reply. Do you have your exchange? Please let us know.

I replaced it again, now it's my 6th machine, and guess what, the whine is still there.

Now since I have tried 6 machines and each one of them has coil whine, I tend to believe all 2018 MBP 15s(i7 2.6ghz) have this problem. I simply run out of energy and gas for another replacement and I will just keep this whining thing.

And I have a solution: drink sparkling water while using this machine, so that I couldn't tell whether the noise comes from the whine or the bubbles, and it's less annoying.

Hi,
In my city, there is no Apple Store. And I'm a student, so I bought this MBP in Apple Education Store on Apple's website. This MBP is customized(32G RAM). If I demand an exchange, it will spend 2 weeks to get a new mac. It's too long. I didn't demand an exchange.
I think you are right, all 2018 MBP 15s have this problem. Maybe because of DDR4, PCIe Bus, 8th Gen CPU or SSD. I don't know.
Some people can hear the whine, but some people can't. Because we have very sensitive hearing, we can hear the whine. I think you should relax yourself and drink sparking water or just listen music when you are using your MBP. I will do the same thing to make me neglect the coil whine noise. :p
 

Huddy

macrumors member
Oct 9, 2009
58
27
Just took delivery of my 15" 2.2 and within moments of me finishing the OS config yep coil whine. High pitched frequencies that are constantly oscillating.

It's not super loud, but I'm sat here in the quiet setting the laptop up and I can hear the noise annoyingly.
 

Uhu

macrumors regular
Feb 4, 2010
128
17
I am very sensitive to any of these noises and sent back countless chargers and power supplies. I can’t hear anything on my MacBook. Maybe I’m getting old.
 
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Fishrrman

macrumors Penryn
Feb 20, 2009
29,279
13,378
OP wrote:
"I got my 5th machine yesterday and I particularly went to their HQ store, thought it would be different, but nope it still has the whine"

5th one?
Maybe you ought to consider buying something else.

Do you recall what Einstein's definition of "insanity" was?
(if not, look it up)
 

Zigman

macrumors member
Dec 9, 2012
91
50
I just bought the i7 2.6GHz, 512G version and noticed there is coil whine. It's pretty audible all the time and becomes loud when I use VM.
Anyone else having it?

I have had the same coil whine with the 2016 15" 1TB SSD model. Just had the mother board replaced and this has it too (may be even be a tad louder than the original). I think it's SSD related. When you are doing heavy SSD access you can hear it the loudest.
 

macpcf

macrumors regular
Jul 17, 2018
104
43
USA
wow this issue was associated with dell xps 15 lineup. Now its in macbook pro too? Thats too bad. The only plus side to apple is their quality control.
 

jerryk

macrumors 604
Nov 3, 2011
7,421
4,208
SF Bay Area
wow this issue was associated with dell xps 15 lineup. Now its in macbook pro too? Thats too bad. The only plus side to apple is their quality control.

It is not really a QC issue. It is a function of putting many electronic components in close proximity. This is a design decision and unfortunately a consequence of modern electronic design and the desire to have a resultant smaller devices.

Here is some technical information on the issue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetically_excited_acoustic_noise_and_vibration
 

macpcf

macrumors regular
Jul 17, 2018
104
43
USA
It is not really a QC issue. It is a function of putting many electronic components in close proximity. This is a design decision and unfortunately a consequence of modern electronic design and the desire to have a resultant smaller devices.

Here is some technical information on the issue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetically_excited_acoustic_noise_and_vibration
But why it is not found in all the machines? Because of the different hearing capabilities?
 

Lennyvalentin

macrumors 65816
Apr 25, 2011
1,431
794
It is not really a QC issue. It is a function of putting many electronic components in close proximity.
It's also an issue of not sufficiently potting the chokes and possibly also caps used in the VRMs. Components that can't vibrate also can't squeal.
 

clockworktf2

macrumors newbie
Jul 24, 2018
9
1
Hi, thanks for the reply. Do you have your exchange? Please let us know.

I replaced it again, now it's my 6th machine, and guess what, the whine is still there.

Now since I have tried 6 machines and each one of them has coil whine, I tend to believe all 2018 MBP 15s(i7 2.6ghz) have this problem. I simply run out of energy and gas for another replacement and I will just keep this whining thing.

And I have a solution: drink sparkling water while using this machine, so that I couldn't tell whether the noise comes from the whine or the bubbles, and it's less annoying.


Hey Oreotto, guy who started the thread on reddit here. Don't give up just yet! You've already spent this much effort, don't just waste it and settle. Try to exchange for the 2.2GHz 15in, I think this problem may be isolated to this specific processor model and that one may not have the coil whine.
 

Neogenz

macrumors newbie
Jul 20, 2018
4
1
Hey Oreotto, guy who started the thread on reddit here. Don't give up just yet! You've already spent this much effort, don't just waste it and settle. Try to exchange for the 2.2GHz 15in, I think this problem may be isolated to this specific processor model and that one may not have the coil whine.
Mine is 15inch 2.2 GHz :( ... and even my fourth MacBook Pro its same noise ... i keep this also, so tiring about that
 
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