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Apple Studio Display - Owners Thread
- Thread starter KPOM
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Like I said - check the electricity in your home. The wiring, the grounding, and all. It's a common issue, especially in old buildings with ancient electrical wiring - I've had many electronic things buzz at various old houses I used to live in.
Call an electrician if you're inexperienced since you might get electrocuted if you don't know what you're doing. I'm willing to bet 50 bucks it's the wiring and chances are other electronic devices are also buzzing at your place, so you might want to check that just to be extra sure it's the wires.
Call an electrician if you're inexperienced since you might get electrocuted if you don't know what you're doing. I'm willing to bet 50 bucks it's the wiring and chances are other electronic devices are also buzzing at your place, so you might want to check that just to be extra sure it's the wires.
Thanks for a suggestion [ali još bolje, hvala brate :—)]. All in all, I will be moving to a new place (which is also a new building) in the near future. We'll see then.
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I’ve had two since (I believe) the first month they were available to order.
I have used them in two different locations, no buzzing at either, and I am quite sensitive to electronics whine.
@zoga "...and you proved my conclusion wrong."
No, only that the ASD performs without 'buzzing' in a country with monitored mains supply waveforms, and with enforced standards to ensure that nearby local users of the mains supply don't 'pollute' the waveform for everyone else with 'dirty' non-standard power factor current-draw equipment...
No, only that the ASD performs without 'buzzing' in a country with monitored mains supply waveforms, and with enforced standards to ensure that nearby local users of the mains supply don't 'pollute' the waveform for everyone else with 'dirty' non-standard power factor current-draw equipment...
You're totally right. It could be the external factor above which I have zero control. However, I will be testing out the ASD at friend's new apartment which is also located in a brand new building. We'll see how it goes.
Voltage Stabilizers are a thing, and they may fix the problem. UPS systems may also offer the same function.
If you believe it or not I've heard about them and was also reading about people that were trying to fix the ASD buzzing issues with them but were mainly unsuccessful.
On the other hand I'm not really sure Apple has anticipated to use the aesthetically-minimalistic design of ASD with a large black or white box next to it. Then it would make more sense if they've just designed an external PSU like the one we see on the M-series iMacs. Heck, they don't even let you remove the power cable.
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I wonder how many people with buzzing ASD tried taking their display to another building, preferably a distant one, plugging it in and seeing whether the problem persisted?
Do we have good reason to believe the buzzing is predominantly in one country or certain countries? If so, what are the characteristics of that area - 110 vs. 220 volt power, etc...?
This is a wild guess on my part; if someone with an ASD buzzing on 220 volt power were to use a voltage converter (not just an outlet adapter, an actual converter - which is less common) to switch it to 110 volt power, I wonder if that would help?
Are there any other devices with a reputation for doing this sort of thing? It would be great if there was something cheap and reliable for it that could act as 'canary in a coal mine' to predict whether there was likely to be trouble in a given setting.
I assume the issue is presumed to be the electrical current supply entering the ASD; if it were energy fields transmitted through the air, it stands to reason some sort of partial 'shield' could be built around it to block the external signal (I dunno; rubber maybe, something non-conductive?), to see if that improved the matter.
If the buzzing does turn out to be worse at 220V then the most likely culprit would be the filter capacitors on the line input. The high k dielectrics used in most of of these capacitors have some serious piezoelectric response with audible noise a known problem with switching supplies. I'd be interested in an analysis of the buzzing sounds to determine if there are line frequency and harmonics thereof in buzzing.
If the buzzing occurs with the monitor plugged into a UPS but not when plugged directly in an outlet, then the problem would be the inverter used in the UPS.
I've had some experience in hearing buzzing from LED lamps being fed by a dimmer switch that wasn't rated for dimming LED lamps.
My buzzing happened with an APC pure sine UPS or plugged directly into the wall. I suspected harmonic RF noise on my powerlines but never did an oscilloscope analysis to get a definitive answer. My problem was solved when I moved.
Note the old house (buzzing) was an 1894 with ~4 generations of electrical work. House voltage usually sat near 135V from the wall. The new house (no buzzing) is 1940 with only three generations of electrical work, most of it from the mid 2000s, and the house voltage sits at 122V from the wall. And a new panel and feeder line from the street.
Powerline harmonics could be screwing around with the power factor correcting controller in the power supply. The APC UPS is most likely connects the UPS outlets directly to the UPS AC input in normal operations, so power line harmonics will not get filtered out. An old house may be connected to an almost equally old utility service.