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M3 Pro Coil Whine -> fixed with M4 Pro?

A

Ascn

macrumors member
Original poster
May 10, 2020
48
25
Hi, I have an M3 Pro MacBook Pro 16-inch, and I love it, except for the coil whine it has when using it.
It is really only subtle, but my inner monk is hating it.
I know that all M3 Pros have this problem (I exchanged it first, and the second one had the same noise), because the M4 Pros look like they are more efficient (22h vs 24h of battery life). Could this be an indicator that the coil whine is gone?
Hopefully, when someone using an M4 Pro or M4 Max of the future enters this thread, could you notice coil whine?
 
I bought the 14" MacBook Pro model with a maxed out M4 Pro chip (20 GPU cores and 48GB RAM) and I hear coil whine from time to time. It is because I heard coil whine and got worried something was wrong with my computer that I started doing research and found your post. It's not coming from the fans or speakers. Don't really know what to do now. You said you had this with your M3 model and had it replaced but the coil whine wasn't gone. Should I now also just keep the one I have? I don't hear it all the time, actually mostly not, but when opening Facebook in Safari the whining starts. I find this weird because that shouldn't be too heavy of a website I thought. To test I closed Safari and it went away. Opened it again and it was back. I can even hear an intensity difference between having it on the screen versus minimized in the dock. I opened a game on Steam and there was none.

For the rest the laptop is great. It is incredibly fast and the display as well as speaker quality is amazing.Had not heard of coil whine and did not expect this from Apple, especially since I paid €3.133 ($3.300) for this machine.
 
I have the 14/20 M4 Pro 14” and it’s completely silent unless I play Baldur’s Gate 3. Otherwise it’s silent and cold and the first laptop computer I’m not afraid of using on my lap.
 
PBG4 Dude said:
I have the 14/20 M4 Pro 14” and it’s completely silent unless I play Baldur’s Gate 3. Otherwise it’s silent and cold and the first laptop computer I’m not afraid of using on my lap.
Click to expand...
Have you tried running your game at maximum settings with the speakers off and had a listen then? Is it then still silent?
Weirdly I feel like the laptop is quiet when running games, like Stray, at the highest settings, but not when running for example statistics software that I though would be less intense for the computer.
In case there is really no sound I might want to return mine as it is not enjoyable.
I asked my girlfriend earlier and she didn't hear it at first and said I might be a little sensitive to such sounds.

Thanks in advance!
 
Gaut said:
Have you tried running your game at maximum settings with the speakers off and had a listen then? Is it then still silent?
Weirdly I feel like the laptop is quiet when running games, like Stray, at the highest settings, but not when running for example statistics software that I though would be less intense for the computer.
In case there is really no sound I might want to return mine as it is not enjoyable.
I asked my girlfriend earlier and she didn't hear it at first and said I might be a little sensitive to such sounds.

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
The only thing I hear is the fans, and those don’t even sound like they’re running at max speed, or if they are, they’re incredibly silent, for a fan. Turned everything up to high/ultra at max res (3024x1964) and it’s running smooth as butter. I’m only in the beginning area of the game though; I know the final act is supposedly very CPU heavy but didn’t want to spoil story elements so didn’t look farther than that.

Edit: at full res I was only getting 30fps in ultra. At 1512x982 I’m averaging 70fps.
 
PBG4 Dude said:
The only thing I hear is the fans, and those don’t even sound like they’re running at max speed, or if they are, they’re incredibly silent, for a fan. Turned everything up to high/ultra at max res (3024x1964) and it’s running smooth as butter. I’m only in the beginning area of the game though; I know the final act is supposedly very CPU heavy but didn’t want to spoil story elements so didn’t look farther than that.

Edit: at full res I was only getting 30fps in ultra. At 1512x982 I’m averaging 70fps.
Click to expand...
Damn, that sounds great! Am happy for you...

While I played Stray at max settings it ran super smooth as well, and that without any noise too.
While using PhotoShop it ran quite for 99% of the time. It seems to only make sounds under very specific circumstances.

If anyone has any recommendations as to what to do with this issue and whether or not sending it back is worth it, any input might help. Am still conflicted as sending it back would mean I might be without one for a while in the middle of the exam season, and/or I will need to set up another one from scratch, again.

Thanks for your response @PGB4 Dude!
 
Gaut said:
I heard this is more common with the MAX series in general.
I didn't hear many people complain about coil whining with the MX Pro series.

Some people say they are silent... makes me worried about mine ://
Click to expand...

Does your M4 Max also have whine?

I think it's the power draw, in low power mode it's essentially silent.
 
@Gaut - ah I read above you have the Pro (top spec). This seems extremely common. It's also not a sign of quality from everything I've read. It's about power draw and resonance.

Even from o1:

Coil whine is not necessarily an indicator of poor component quality. It commonly occurs when inductors and other power-delivery elements vibrate at audible frequencies under certain electrical loads and switching conditions. While it can be influenced by the design and build of components, it primarily arises from the resonance of these parts when subjected to specific currents and frequencies—not just particular voltages.
 
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