Any one notices the cracking/popping sound of new 16 inch MBP?

[mikethebigo]

for me, all three Mac laptops I’ve had... a 2015 Air, 2019 Pro, and the 2020 M1 Air now... they’ve all creaked to some degree, whether it’s opening the lid, etc. I’ve come to accept it at this point lol

Yeah the creaking is kind of unavoidable with thin and wide aluminum. My MBP creaked too, less, but it was also broken in. Only thing that pisses me off is my wife's Air is completely solid with no creaking at all, and she would never notice or care ?

I'm wondering if this will break in over time too. Not nearly the issue that the speaker popping was, that was legitimately infuriating and clearly an actual hardware issue.

 

[qecce]

Hi guys,

I am not sure if this was discussed before, but I can reproduce the popping/cracking sound when I am on the desktop, with the finder open. Then I hold the closing shortcut "command + q" for a while. For my machine this is the best way to reproduce it, it is clearly hearable.

My machine was just now updated to 11.0.1. Where it is still the same as before.

Cheers

 

[mac.ross]

The senior support guy got a reply from the Apple engineers and they are insisting that the 16" models are all going to make a popping noise and it's not going to get fixed because it's how the speakers work.

I've asked him to relay further information over in that it occurs over both Bluetooth and via an external USB DAC too but I'm not hopeful that I'll receive a satisfactory resolution.

I'm extremely unhappy with this MacBook and it looks like I'll just have to sell it as the type of work I'm trying to do is made very difficult with the popping noise, even if it's not something that the majority of people even notice.

 

[mac.ross]

Final update from me.

The information was passed on to Apple engineers and there response was just 'this is normal for this model, it happens with all of them to some degree' and they are refusing to do anything further.

I guess I'm just going to have to sell it.

Very disappointed in this, if I do decide to get another MacBook in the future it's going to have to be one I test in-store before leaving.

 

[Tarek S. Abdelhamed]

Final update from me.

The information was passed on to Apple engineers and there response was just 'this is normal for this model, it happens with all of them to some degree' and they are refusing to do anything further.

I guess I'm just going to have to sell it.

Very disappointed in this, if I do decide to get another MacBook in the future it's going to have to be one I test in-store before leaving.

It's astonishing how all of the youtubers basically marketed this as "the best laptop Apple has ever made" and no one mentioned this absolute failure. The only work around that proved to be effective for me a "bit" is basically utilizing this method https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ng.2217231/page-4?post=29367428#post-29367428 which in turn cools the laptop down and does not show the issue as previously, it's still there but it's not obvious 100% of the time.

One more thing that I use is the app "Loopback", since I work as an iOS Developer the simulator is the heaviest thing in my environment, which creates the popping noises when it's running some heavy tasks, I basically created a new sound adapter and threw the simulator output to it which eliminates this issue completely for me while developing.

 

[Peter.b]

Just made a account to comment here.

I have a new MacBook pro M1 13 16gb. It was working fine until i updated to the new big sur version.

Popping sound comming from my left speaker everytime i start or skip music/video.

This issue is wide spread and new devices even 13 inch have it to.

 

[tuckerdogavl]

We get the pop around 8:15p, 9:30p and 10:15p every night when the laptop is asleep but still connected to the external speakers. It's annoying because we always feel like we're being "listened to" Haven't found this covered yet at all. I turned on the firewall today, set to not allow 3rd party apps or updates when I'm not around or sending data to mysterious voids in the fourth dimension, so we'll see. Also, in security, turned off anything that appears would be something doing some sort of updates after going to sleep. I doubt it will help, but at least it felt proactive.

 

[tuckerdogavl]

It's astonishing how all of the youtubers basically marketed this as "the best laptop Apple has ever made" and no one mentioned this absolute failure. The only work around that proved to be effective for me a "bit" is basically utilizing this method https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ng.2217231/page-4?post=29367428#post-29367428 which in turn cools the laptop down and does not show the issue as previously, it's still there but it's not obvious 100% of the time.

One more thing that I use is the app "Loopback", since I work as an iOS Developer the simulator is the heaviest thing in my environment, which creates the popping noises when it's running some heavy tasks, I basically created a new sound adapter and threw the simulator output to it which eliminates this issue completely for me while developing.

You aren't going to bit the hands that feeds you. Awesome! Epic! A must! No ****.

 

[tuckerdogavl]

Unfortunately it occurs whether it's macOS or Windows 10 through Bootcamp.

Examples I have recorded can be seen here:

Doctor, there's a popping sound when I push the button.
Don't push the button.

 

[JMVB]

I think mine does the same pop, but randomly, not when playing youtube or some other player.
Even if nothing is sounding in the speakers, and even if the sound is muted...

 

[soulreaver99]

Posted in another thread but I have this issue when connected though a 3rd party display USB dongle to an external monitor on both my M1 Macbook Air and when I had the intel 16-inch and 13 inch MacBook Pro. I don't have this problem using Apple's official adapter but back to 60hz on a 144hz display is a drag.

I've tried multiple display port and HDMI adapters and all of them have the same problem. It makes the popping sound when playing YouTube videos.

 

[Whomi]

Lots of posts about poping but does anybody have heavy crackling sounds?
Mine crackles really badly and my 16" MBP slows to a snails pace - Activity monitor shows kernel task at 1000+%.
It's especially bad when using Google Meets on Firefox but it happens when watching Youtube videos.
Also it seems to be getting progressively worse over time.
The big issue for me is that it's sporadic - doesn't happen all the time.
I can be watching a video on Youtube for 30 minutes and suddenly it goes nuts.
I spent several hours on calls with Apple, they took a copy of my hard drive - sent it to their tech guys and said there's nothing wrong.
They blamed it on 3rd party software - I use sound syphon for sending audio to syphon recorder when using Modul8.
I think this is ********.
They just don't want to own up that there is a serious problem with their hardware.
I've just ordered a new laptop cooler is the desperate hope this might help things.

 

[The Main Event]

Mine has a clicking sound when the machine heats up, mostly on the left hand side of the top case but I also heard it on the right side. Noticed it when I first got my computer a month ago. Thought it would eventually fade away after its "break-in" period but it seems to be getting worse. Don't think it has anything to do with the speakers.

This is a replacement computer. Might have to call Apple once again *sigh*.

 

[shtsound]

I've suffered from this issue for years and have had it carry across multiple computers via time machine. It appears after streaming or playing something for 45-55mins approximately. Can be netflix, youtube, soundcloud, watching a video via vlc or other programs, playing a mix in itunes, using traktor dj, using ableton. Anything using audio for 45-55mins straight.

The only fix I've found so far is to force quit 'coreaudiod' in the activity monitor. But this is a pain in the ass doing every time in general and has meant i can never use my laptop to dj with traktor or performing live with ableton or any music related program or presenting some sort of video presentation etc for work.

The only thing they've told me is to update my osx but because lots of plugins for ableton which are used in years of music projects won't work in anything after high sierra due to it using 64bit as apposed to 32 moving forward or something, it's not possible for me to do this. I've even had to buy older 'refurbished' macs over the latest brand new ones to keep all these files still useable.

If anyone has any other ways to fix it permanently I'd be incredibly appreciative. I've suffered with this issue for 10+ years.

 

[astroturfme]

I experience the same annoying popping as well (16" M1) - rebooting seems to fix it for some time. This definitely warrants a front-page post by Macrumors.

 

[nquinn]

I experience the same annoying popping as well (16" M1) - rebooting seems to fix it for some time. This definitely warrants a front-page post by Macrumors.

Old thread I know, but I'm hearing this all the time on my 16" M1 Max

 

[timelessbeing]

I have this on my 2019 MBP. Sounds degrades as the CPU gets more loaded.
But this still happens on the M1? ... wow.

 

[unfunfionn]

I upgraded to an M1 14 inch last year and sadly the problem is just as bad on the new machine. It goes in phases, but today I can't listen to music at all because the popping is so bad. Switching to 48.000Hz has no effect. I really don't understand how this issue can appear on multiple machines released a couple of years apart and it's still not fixed.

 

[nquinn]

I upgraded to an M1 14 inch last year and sadly the problem is just as bad on the new machine. It goes in phases, but today I can't listen to music at all because the popping is so bad. Switching to 48.000Hz has no effect. I really don't understand how this issue can appear on multiple machines released a couple of years apart and it's still not fixed.

I'm still getting it intermittently. (16" M1 Max 24core)

Does anyone know how often a new machine will resolve this? Like is this happening to 100% of units and it's just a built-in engineering flaw? Or are certain ones doing it worse than others?

Seems hard to gauge since I bet a lot of people think it's just normal.

 

[Alex W.]

Just got my 16" speakers are perfect and zero issue. i wonder if you're all dealing with a hardware issue in manufacturing.

Device is 10/10 audio wise, i hammered the system and zero audio issues as per this thread, cannot replicate.

 

[nquinn]

Just got my 16" speakers are perfect and zero issue. i wonder if you're all dealing with a hardware issue in manufacturing.

Device is 10/10 audio wise, i hammered the system and zero audio issues as per this thread, cannot replicate.

Really doesn't seem like hardware to me because sometimes killing coreaudiod or rebooting will solve it. Then again it could just be a certain state the hardware is stuck in or something.

 

[pshufd]

I had this problem back around 12.0 or 12.1 but I haven't had it since around early 2022. I will say that it was quite annoying though it only happened to me watching videos and it might have happened, at most, once an hour on a long video. I've played around in the Hackintosh world and one of the biggest problems with getting them to work with KVM/QEMU is audio and you get to see how the stuff works (or doesn't) if you try to debug those problems.

 

[Alex W.]

Really doesn't seem like hardware to me because sometimes killing coreaudiod or rebooting will solve it. Then again it could just be a certain state the hardware is stuck in or something.

Hardware stuck in states could be hardware issues btw, killing a service could just mean writing a 0 along an IC gate or voltage modification being fed to speakers upon service being killed off. The issue itself could still be hardware.

16” 2019 had this issue on release it got patched by basically nerfing the speakers quality, they were less loud after this. So even with their software fix, it was a workaround due to some hardware issue btw.

If you guys haven’t done a factory OS clean install it’s prolly worth trying to negate audio issues, if it still does it off a fresh install and stock apps, likely hardware.

If it doesn’t pop, likely software.

Currently I cannot replicate this under any method listed here.

 

[astroturfme]

I have this on my 16 M1 Max - and unfortunately experienced it on a zoom with 12.5 RC. I’m livid.