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maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,682
43,740
Sorry, not going to do that.
Agreed, I don't do odd things to try to find issues. I'm sitting in a quiet room right now and not a sound is coming from the MBP. I'm not going to put my ear to the keyboard to test keys, nor am I going to do that for a coil whine problem. If you have to put your ear on the keyboard to hear it, then is it really a problem because its not audible any other way ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 

maverick808

macrumors 65816
Jun 30, 2004
1,145
156
Scotland
I have it on a 13" MBP. I'm pretty sure they all have it.

Coil whine is hard to pin down and hear, because you want an absolutely quiet room and then factors that can influence coil whine include CPU load, power draw, GPU activity, bus activity, charging status and temperature. I mean the power draw and frequencies within the machine are fluctuating all the time and it can be only particular draws that will cause the vibrations to resonate in just the right way.

I find mine is dead silent if I'm not touching the machine. However, if it's been on for a while and so has warmed up a bit then if I put my ear right to the top-left and load a web-page that almost always lets me clearly hear the whine. Certain CPU loads, like Xcode compilation make the whine significantly more noticeable. When I plug in the charger and an Ethernet adapter it again becomes more noticeable. Again, even with these plugged in if it's idle then it's silent, but with them in and under load I find it's more noticeable than without these connected.

During the day when I'm sitting working in my office it's pretty much inaudible and doesn't bother me. However, at night when the house is dead quiet then even just browsing the web can be pretty annoying as I hear this barely audible but definitely noticeable irregular hiss every time a page loads. It's annoying precisely because it's right on the edge of my hearing and so irregular. I'd rather have a loud but constant fan than this irregular but noticeable low hiss.

By the way, my most recent laptops have included a 2012 MBP, 2015 MBP, 2017 MBP and this is a 2018 MBP. Every single one of these has coil whine if you give it just the right load. I think most people try to listen when their machine is sitting idle and perhaps with little plugged in and so it is almost silent and they think they don't have it... but they almost certainly do. I mean all the laptops are using the same inductors so they will result in the same vibrations under the same settings. To fix it Apple would have to use different coils, or provide more potting/insulation on the current ones to dampen it down a bit.

This 2018 one is particularly bad because whilst the others were extremely quiet and only noticeable with your ear right up at the exact place it emits from, the 2018 is often noticeable sitting normally in a quiet room.

I just got mine a couple of days ago. At the moment I'm leaning towards returning it for a refund and sticking with my 2017.
 

GiLLER

macrumors newbie
Apr 1, 2011
26
2
Copenhagen, Denmark
During the day when I'm sitting working in my office it's pretty much inaudible and doesn't bother me. However, at night when the house is dead quiet then even just browsing the web can be pretty annoying as I hear this barely audible but definitely noticeable irregular hiss every time a page loads. It's annoying precisely because it's right on the edge of my hearing and so irregular. I'd rather have a loud but constant fan than this irregular but noticeable low hiss.

Agree!

I got my MBP 2018 15" on Monday. Installed it while having the radio on. Same night I rebooted it and instantly heard the coil whine while it was booting and during use :-(

Tested my laptop inventory:
My old Macbook 12" 2017 is silent.
Macbook Pro 13" 2016 i7 + Touchbar, very little whine
Acer Spin 7, very little whine

Still considering returning the 2018 model (but will replacement be better? guess not...)
 

maverick808

macrumors 65816
Jun 30, 2004
1,145
156
Scotland
I'm returning mine, I can't take it... it's too annoying and distracting. What is the point of Apple trying to make really thin laptops with almost silent fans when they don't take the relatively simple step of ensuring the components don't vibrate too much or are well insulated? Even if I agreed with the desire for everything to be thin, light and quiet... this completely negates that.
 
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Oreotto

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 29, 2016
24
7
Sorry, not going to do that. If I do not hear it then it is not an issue to me.

Hope you find a quiet one but from what you say there is no such thing.

(my statistics sucks so correct me if I am wrong)
probability of a machine has coil whine = x,
probability doesn't have coil whine = 1 - x,
in my case x^8=1, x=1(Excel gave me 0.999992).
So you are right, it's almost 0 chance my next exchange will be silent.

I am hoping there will be a next batch that will solve this problem. Last year later batch Dell XPS 9560s had far fewer problems than earlier batches. Hope Apple will do the same.

Agreed, I don't do odd things to try to find issues. I'm sitting in a quiet room right now and not a sound is coming from the MBP. I'm not going to put my ear to the keyboard to test keys, nor am I going to do that for a coil whine problem. If you have to put your ear on the keyboard to hear it, then is it really a problem because its not audible any other way ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I agree too that if you can't hear the noise when you are using it, the noise doesn't exist.

I can hear the whine from normal working distance 50% of the time. The other 50% when I can't hear the whine and thought it's gone, I put my ear next to the keyboard just to find it's still there.

And I don't have sharp hearings. My audiophile friend said I have numb ears because I can't tell the difference between FLAC vs mp3, or beats vs Sennheiser.
 

Newtons Apple

Suspended
Mar 12, 2014
22,757
15,254
Jacksonville, Florida
(my statistics sucks so correct me if I am wrong)
probability of a machine has coil whine = x,
probability doesn't have coil whine = 1 - x,
in my case x^8=1, x=1(Excel gave me 0.999992).
So you are right, it's almost 0 chance my next exchange will be silent.

I am hoping there will be a next batch that will solve this problem. Last year later batch Dell XPS 9560s had far fewer problems than earlier batches. Hope Apple will do the same.



I agree too that if you can't hear the noise when you are using it, the noise doesn't exist.

I can hear the whine from normal working distance 50% of the time. The other 50% when I can't hear the whine and thought it's gone, I put my ear next to the keyboard just to find it's still there.

And I don't have sharp hearings. My audiophile friend said I have numb ears because I can't tell the difference between FLAC vs mp3, or beats vs Sennheiser.

Sounds like you future is with Dell!

Enjoy!
 
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Balders

macrumors member
Oct 12, 2008
72
32
UK
i9 purchased on Monday. Seems I'm one of the lucky ones finally. Absolutely no coil whine whatsoever, driven CPU hard and no sign of it even in a quiet room with ear up against keyboard. I know what coil whine is as I had multiple iPhones with the problem and could hear them clicking and chirping away from the other side of the room but this thing is silent (apart from the fans :)).
 

Lennyvalentin

macrumors 65816
Apr 25, 2011
1,431
794
The 7th/8 gen intel cpu are notorious for coil whine.
This is entirely wrong; the CPU doesn't have any coils to whine with. The whining comes from the voltage regulators next to the CPU (or GPU, DRAM, other ancillary electronics); they're not part of the CPU. It's the builder of the motherboard who controls what components go into the voltage regulators, and thus decide the potential for coilwhine.
 
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jerryk

macrumors 604
Nov 3, 2011
7,421
4,208
SF Bay Area
I'm returning mine, I can't take it... it's too annoying and distracting. What is the point of Apple trying to make really thin laptops with almost silent fans when they don't take the relatively simple step of ensuring the components don't vibrate too much or are well insulated? Even if I agreed with the desire for everything to be thin, light and quiet... this completely negates that.

Everything I have read about coil whine suggest it is not a trivial task to completely eliminate it. And insulation and cooling a system seem to be at odds with each other.
 

Oreotto

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 29, 2016
24
7
Edit: Ignore me, didn't realise this thread is for 15".
Well, I tried to order a base 13'' model with 16g ram to check it out after reading your previous comment, but the order didn't go through because education discount only allows me to buy one notebook per year.
I sold my 2016 13'' which was "dead silent," and I haven't got a new one for back to school which is in 2 weeks.
 

SDColorado

macrumors 601
Nov 6, 2011
4,360
4,324
Highlands Ranch, CO
Mine is also dead silent, yes I even held my ear up to it. I did not, however, borrow my wife's stethoscope. The good news is I do not have any coil whine with my 2018 15" MBP, the bad news is my Xfinity X1 DVR does. I kept hearing that whine so had to move to a quieter room to listen to the MPB.

Well, I tried to order a base 13'' model with 16g ram to check it out after reading your previous comment, but the order didn't go through because education discount only allows me to buy one notebook per year.

Do you only have a single Apple iD?
 

Oreotto

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 29, 2016
24
7
Mine is also dead silent, yes I even held my ear up to it. I did not, however, borrow my wife's stethoscope. The good news is I do not have any coil whine with my 2018 15" MBP, the bad news is my Xfinity X1 DVR does. I kept hearing that whine so had to move to a quieter room to listen to the MPB.



Do you only have a single Apple iD?

Thanks for the hint and it worked. I was kind of worried because I have only one .edu email address but there was no verification process during the purchase.
 
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Fishrrman

macrumors Penryn
Feb 20, 2009
29,284
13,381
The OP wrote:
"I sold my 2016 13'' which was "dead silent," and I haven't got a new one for back to school which is in 2 weeks."

Just wait a few more years, young man.
Then "coil whine" won't bother you any more... (sigh)...
 

happyhippo1337

macrumors 6502
Jul 3, 2013
260
143
My last MacBook Pros were dead silent, my new 2018 15“ was as well.

Now I can even hear the static hizzing noise in a loud room with a window opened next to the street.

For me it is occurring when the device is writing to the internal disk. Sucks a lot.
 
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Oreotto

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 29, 2016
24
7
I returned my MBP 15" mainly due to the coil whine - did you get the 13" ? Any issues? I'm considering this model instead

My 13'' arrives next Monday and I will update.
[doublepost=1535093119][/doublepost]
My last MacBook Pros were dead silent, my new 2018 15“ was as well.

Now I can even hear the static hizzing noise in a loud room with a window opened next to the street.

For me it is occurring when the device is writing to the internal disk. Sucks a lot.

I think it's a different batch now. The most recent 15'' I got required no MacOS update, while previous ones all require MacOS updates and a reboot.
 

happyhippo1337

macrumors 6502
Jul 3, 2013
260
143
My 13'' arrives next Monday and I will update.
[doublepost=1535093119][/doublepost]

I think it's a different batch now. The most recent 15'' I got required no MacOS update, while previous ones all require MacOS updates and a reboot.

Maybe I wasn't clear on that. I didn't have a 2018 version before. But several ones from 2010-2016, non had even the slightest coil whine. And my current unit didn't as well. Until about a week ago.
 
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