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Mac Studio M1 Max - High Pitched Whining Fans / Fan Motor

tevion5

tevion5

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 12, 2011
1,967
1,603
Ireland
My Mac Studio arrived today:
  • M1 Max
  • 32 Core GPU
  • 64GB Ram
  • 2TB SSD
At the default 1300ish RPM speed there is a noticeable high pitched whining sound. Actual fan whoosh is barely noticeable (similar to my very quiet 12-Core Mac Pro 2019 sitting on the floor which this is supposed to replace). But this whining sound is distinct and much more annoying.

What "fixes" it is manually bringing the fans down from the standard 1300 RPM to around 1200 RPM.
Makes virtually no difference to temps (stays around 55*C or so at most) even under artificial max load of benchmarks but gets rid of the whining. Minimum of 1100 RPM also works, virtually silent in every way.

Oddly if I run it at some fan speeds higher than 1300 RPM I get a louder usual fan whoosh but the whining also goes away. Some faster speeds just make the whining more intense too. So seems to me like a bit of nasty resonance on the fans / fan motor that causes whining at certain frequency intervals. Doesn't seem like coil whine or something, it's 100% determined by fan speeds.

Rather annoying because while I can basically solve it by doing manual fan control, it's ridiculous that I should have to do hacks like this on day 1! Guess I'll have to take it up with Apple support but annoyed I might have to do a, likely very lengthy, return...

 
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Sorry you had a ‘whiny’ Mac Studio. Interesting info about the noise only popping up at certain fan speeds. Hope everything gets sorted asap!

I’d be curious to see how your Studio Max performs next to your 12-core 2019 MP. Seems like they’d be quite similar in raw CPU performance, unless you use pro-res etc.
 
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Sharky II said:
Sorry you had a ‘whiny’ Mac Studio. Interesting info about the noise only popping up at certain fan speeds. Hope everything gets sorted asap!

I’d be curious to see how your Studio Max performs next to your 12-core 2019 MP. Seems like they’d be quite similar in raw CPU performance, unless you use pro-res etc.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the sympathies! May wait and see for a week or so with manual fan control and weigh up a return. Could be something to be patched too because always running at 1300RPM regardless of CPU load seems… odd.

Only had it a few hours but ran some benchmarks and CPU is slightly better at multi and way better at single. General performance like web browsing and UI is also noticeably snappier than the Mac Pro. GPU pretty much same performance as the W5700X in Civ VI and Borderlands 2 tbh.

But I’m currently running the migration Assistant over Thunderbolt so eager to see how it really performs in Logic Pro!
 
CodeSpyder said:
At around 1300 rpm, you may be hitting a resonance. As you go lower or higher than 1300, you go off of the resonance frequency. If that's the case, I think you need to take your Studio into Apple or return it.
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Exactly !

OP may want to try different harmonics (650, 2600 RPM) and see if that changes the pitch of the fan.

Shouldn't happen at all but sounds like maybe the fan's bearings or direct drive motor is not to spec ?

Glad my Studio base Max I got on launch day is as silent as my M1 Mini that it replaced.
 
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I agree with the last two posters in that it sounds (pun intended) like a defect. The only sound my Mac Studio makes is the whooshing noise of the air passing through and that is only noticeable if I push the fan speeds up manually. Other than that, it is virtually silent under normal operation.
 
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CodeSpyder said:
At around 1300 rpm, you may be hitting a resonance. As you go lower or higher than 1300, you go off of the resonance frequency. If that's the case, I think you need to take your Studio into Apple or return it.
Click to expand...
The fact that Apple didn't catch this before starting to sell the Mac Studio is just ridiculous IMO. Best case scenario is that there are only a few bad batches out there, but this seems to be an overall problem with the Mac Studio.
 
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BanditoB said:
I agree with the last two posters in that it sounds (pun intended) like a defect. The only sound my Mac Studio makes is the whooshing noise of the air passing through and that is only noticeable if I push the fan speeds up manually. Other than that, it is virtually silent under normal operation.
Click to expand...

Thanks to you and others for the feedback. Even with manual tweaking it's still whining after a restart, so not something I want to mess with on a daily basis... So think I'll have to get onto Apple support about a replacement, delay or no delay.
 
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Can you have other people listen to your Studio and ask if they hear the whine? I'm wondering if it's a frequency that many people can't hear. That would explain why so many people say it's silent or just a soft sound.
 
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Is it like this? While this exaggerates it, I've noticed a sound coming from my Studio as well. I have only one day left to return it.

 
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I am much older than you and I don't here anything of noise, except some of the fans of my own Mac Pro 5,1.
 
Just got my Studio Max yesterday, I can hear it and I have upper end hearing loss. (and am 62) Not enough to bother me. The smell of glue from either the packaging or the Studio itself, now that is annoying. Hopefully it'll go away!

Multitasking is so smooth on the new machine, love it!
 
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OP:

What app did you use to adjust the fan speed ?

I'm thinking that if it's a "resonance" at a particular speed, that just dropping it a small amount would "clear it up".

Have you tried it at 1175rpm?
Or... 1150rpm...?
 
Fishrrman said:
OP:

What app did you use to adjust the fan speed ?

I'm thinking that if it's a "resonance" at a particular speed, that just dropping it a small amount would "clear it up".

Have you tried it at 1175rpm?
Or... 1150rpm...?
Click to expand...

TG Pro.

1170-1175 seems quiet.
~1150 is noisy.

Not sure it's always 100% replicable though.
 
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tevion5 said:
Mine is slightly higher pitch but that sounds similar alright.

In my case it's annoying enough to be heard over background music in a game. so not that subtle.
Click to expand...
I returned mine. It was my favorite computer in a long time, but after 14 days I continued to notice the fan and pitch when doing my normal work. I don’t mind fan noise when the computer is cooling itself, but this thing sounded like my old laptop under load. Further, the whine that would come and go was just enough to be noticeable. I don’t want to have to run a fan or listen to music to use my $2,799 computer.
 
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Traverse said:
I returned mine. It was my favorite computer in a long time, but after 14 days I continued to notice the fan and pitch when doing my normal work. I don’t mind fan noise when the computer is cooling itself, but this thing sounded like my old laptop under load. Further, the whine that would come and go was just enough to be noticeable. I don’t want to have to run a fan or listen to music to use my $2,799 computer.
Click to expand...

Did you get a replacement or decide to get something else?
 
tevion5 said:
Did you get a replacement or decide to get something else?
Click to expand...
My model Mac Studio would have taken 4-6 weeks to get here and I didn't want to roll the dice on a "lottery" of sorts so I went with a MacBook Pro. They had a 14" fully-spaced MacBook Pro that actually exceeded my Studio in store so I picked that up. It was considerably more money, but I was going to need a laptop in the future anyway so I'll just have a "desktop laptop."

Performance has been the same and so far docked to my Studio Display in clamshell mode the fans aren't even running half the time. When they do come on (around 2300-2500 RPM) they are inaudible in normal working position and faintly audible if I were to put my ear 1" away from the back vent.
 
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My expertise is in control systems and I had to wrestle with resonances in one of my jobs. I come at it from the EE end and had to go to the mechanical engineers to see if they could address the issue. But they left it up to me pretty much. I became quite adapt at designing digital notch filters to notch out the resonances. It doesn't seem like that technique would work in this case. Someone earlier suggested bearings might be the cause and that would be a good place to look. Fan mounting to the chassis would be another place to check out. Perhaps there's a component that is the culprit. The gentle touch of a finger could help isolate where it's resonating. I would have thought that they had already checked out the resonances of the unit before production, so I would hope that it's an isolated problem.
 
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Traverse said:
My model Mac Studio would have taken 4-6 weeks to get here and I didn't want to roll the dice on a "lottery" of sorts so I went with a MacBook Pro. They had a 14" fully-spaced MacBook Pro that actually exceeded my Studio in store so I picked that up. It was considerably more money, but I was going to need a laptop in the future anyway so I'll just have a "desktop laptop."

Performance has been the same and so far docked to my Studio Display in clamshell mode the fans aren't even running half the time. When they do come on (around 2300-2500 RPM) they are inaudible in normal working position and faintly audible if I were to put my ear 1" away from the back vent.
Click to expand...
Glad that worked for you!

I definitely want a desktop but I'm dreading my custom config taking months to get replaced...
 
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