It’s speculated that ones built in Malaysia are quiet and china not. I don’t know where my noisy one was made but my quiet ? one IS in fact assembled in Malaysia!
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Mac studio v1 fan noise - it's going to be one of the loudest Macs at idle.
- Thread starter AdamSeen
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Interesting article: https://soyacincau.com/2022/03/23/a...o-is-actually-still-being-assembled-in-china/
Apparently some parts of the Mac Studio are made in Malaysia, but still assembled in China. It seems that the lable "Made in Malaysia" is used by Apple to avoid tariffs shipping to some countries from China. In the end, it seems, it shouldn't make a difference whether it says Malaysia or China when it comes to fan noise or coil whine.
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My MP 6,1 is inaudible at idle, the fan is at 780rpm at idle, and it "observes" a silent profile cooling, i.e. the fan ramps when needed, say above 65°C. I think you got the MP6,1 fan profile totally wrong - it is silent at idle, and ramps up when needed. At least mine does, manufactured in 2018.I’m not sure at all why anyone is so surprised. M1 Max is roughly an equivalent of i7 (and Ultra of i9/Xeon), all that in lunchbox sized enclosure. Do you guys not understand that this amount of computing power needs active cooling? Same like it was with Mac Pro 2013, the fans are always on to avoid ramping up and down all the time with heavy/light workloads.
The closest equivalent in PC world is Corsair One series, which is water cooled and still more noisy than the Studio.
In other words, buy Mac mini for web browsing and office work, it will be silent.
The Studio is a workstation for heavy workloads and it is whisper-quiet as Apple promised, they didn’t say “SILENT” - no one misled you, there is no “noisegate” - you either don’t understand how computers work or your noise expectations were pulled out of… thin air, let’s say
Now with the Mac Studio, what is the purpose of idling at 1300rpm and staying at 30°C? I don't see the logic here, why have so much noise at idle, when Apple could set a similar fan profile, i.e. let the CPU temperature rise to 65°C before they ramp up the fans? It is not that the M1 Max/Ultra will melt at 65, will it?
And mind you, a workstation does not mean video processing. Some of us "pros" compile code all day... and would appreciate a more silent workstation.
The fan probably needs to be always on in order to keep the large internal power supply from overheating even when not in use.
The total power consumption is below 10 W at rest, it cannot generate excess heat loss...
Agreed, but at what rpm? 1300+ seems excessive. Plus the power supply is at the bottom, the coolest part of the enclosure. The Mac Pro 2013 also has its power supply in the enclosure, as well a Xeon CPU and 2 (two) GPUs. All that I am saying in my post above is that it is OK to let the silicon heat up a little before the fans ramp up, it is not going to melt at 65-75°C is it? Also the power supply components will be OK at that temperature too, but given they are at the boom, they are the first to get cooled by the incoming air.
The side that whistles has a slightly higher surface temperature measured at the apple logo. The temperature is 76.4 °F and the whistling side is 76.8 °F. You can feel it and maybe it's more. Maybe it's normal...
I can debunk the country of origin theory, I have one built in Malaysia and it has the whistle very prominently. Tested on different outlets, with PFC UPS and without. Will probably exchange, do I have to send in this unit first then? New one is showing delivery date of May...
And the power supply has an efficiency of around 93% (source: https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/desktops/Mac_Studio_PER_March2022.pdf). This means that less than 1 W of excess heat is produced. That is barely warm.
This is why I ended up with a MacBook Pro. It wasn’t the computer I wanted and it was more money than I paid for the studio, but I need a computer and it was the only other one that offered similar power.
We don’t have enough evidence to know whether this is An issue that Apple will quietly address or if it’ll be a perpetual lottery. If the return period was long I would have waited a bit.
To get a replacement unit exactly like the one I had would have been over a month. I find the process of exchanging my computer and setting everything up again very stressful and the thought replacing over and over to find a “good” unit very off putting, especially I’d this is never “fixed” and it’s just a gamble.
That’s an odd logic.
Are you suggesting that rather than having fans ramping up and down you prefer them to have them up all the time?
I mean, if you really have that level of utilisation your fans will go up no matter what, but when I am recording an acoustic instrument through a microphone (absolute minimum CPU utilisation) I’d rather have a silent system.
I am also considering returning the Mac Studio and getting a Macbook pro. For all we know they will all develop the noise.
Think your premise - that the constant fan is required to keep the PSU cool - is correct. But I don't agree with your conclusion.
Clearly there are people who find any amount of fan noise intolerable, and that's reasonable. Personally, I'd trade a small amount of fan noise for an internal PSU. I hate external bricks.
I thought I was insane hearing some kind of a faint whistle (a higher pitch sound in general) coming from the exhaust, but I'm seeing this thing mentioned in the thread.
Nothing that inspires damage (like coil whine), but definitely a peculiar sound...
Can somebody confirm the fan has a higher pitch sound?
It's not noticeable once I put some headphones on to work.
By the way my studio (M1 Ultra) is at 39• idle...
Perhaps is it the M1 Max that stays at 30?
Nothing that inspires damage (like coil whine), but definitely a peculiar sound...
Can somebody confirm the fan has a higher pitch sound?
It's not noticeable once I put some headphones on to work.
By the way my studio (M1 Ultra) is at 39• idle...
Perhaps is it the M1 Max that stays at 30?
You should listen to my 2018 Mac mini then
For acoustic or classical music recording, I’m with you. For electronic music with plenty of VIs, fans going up or down are just a nuisance, if there’s fan noise, I’d rather have it on a constant, quiet level. But that’s just me.
I’m not saying that the Studio fans shouldn’t be quieter. I was just explaining why the fans are on all the time, like with 2013 Mac Pro. By the way, wasn’t the overheating of graphic cards main problem with 6,1? So perhaps 780rpm wasn’t enough in a long term…
All Mac Studio’s have a technically audible fan, how audible depends on you and the environment, but it’s livable (if a bit annoying).
NOT all units have the odd whine. It seems to be a manufacturing variation as shown in this post:
Mac studio fan noise - it's going to be one of the loudest Macs at idle.
I played your recording through a speaker and the first image clearly shows the 2.2 kHz "whistle" about 30 dB above the noise floor. The 2nd image is my Ultra (made in Malaysia) with the same mic 2" from its rear, in fact facing its rear - not a good idea in general, but I didn't want to miss a...
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The whole machine runs pretty toasty with default settings. You can have operating temperatures approaching 70 deg celsius in an idling machine. Much safer to run a fan control app and have the fans monitor the hottest parts unless your room is rather cold. I only run default rpm settings in winter.
All Mac Studio’s have a technically audible fan, how audible depends on you and the environment, but it’s livable (if a bit annoying).
NOT all units have the odd whine. It seems to be a manufacturing variation as shown in this post:
Mac studio fan noise - it's going to be one of the loudest Macs at idle.
I played your recording through a speaker and the first image clearly shows the 2.2 kHz "whistle" about 30 dB above the noise floor. The 2nd image is my Ultra (made in Malaysia) with the same mic 2" from its rear, in fact facing its rear - not a good idea in general, but I didn't want to miss a...
Purchasing the computer was an extemely complicated process, because of spending limits on my cards, and I cannot afford waiting 3 months for a replacement (here in Europe it's like that).
The computer seems to work normally, and I can't hear the whistle while I'm on my desk; only at the back of it if I'm quite close.
So I'll keep my unit.
For a desktop machine, external or internal power supply does not really matter, you plugin it once and it rarely needs to move. But Apple's decision to use internal power supply for both the Mac Studio and the Studio Display is exactly the reason why they have to keep the fan always on on the Mac Studio, and also to put two fans inside the Studio Display. Both of which could have been avoided.
If you don't have the whistle/whine and it's just fan noise then 100% keep it. It's my ideal desktop. The normal fans were...unexpected, but not something I couldn't have adapted to. If my unit wouldn't have had a defect I'd have kept it.
This is what it sounds like.
The phone is literally 1cm from the rear exhaust.
To be fair I almost cannot hear it; it's just the paranoia of having a machine with some problem.
I was spoiled by the utter quietness of the mac mini M1, but this is still completely manageable.
My Mac Pro 6,1 has been on nearly 24/7 since May 2014. Much of the time at idle and I never had any trouble with heat. Mine has dual D500s though. Maybe the GPU problems were with the D700s?