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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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I've listened to a lot of YouTube videos with sounds - coil whine. They are different kinds of sounds and some are similar to the whistling sounds I know. Others resemble the whirring of bearings. If it was a power supply, the sound would have to be partially audible from the bottom where it is located. The sound was only heard from the back.
I think a lot of workloads are relatively bursty, where you need power when you need it, but you're also doing a fair amount of work more or less at idle. I do a lot of data analysis and programming around those analyses, which has something analogous to a software developer type of cadence (relatively idle until running tests or compiling; you don't always have enough of those to have the machine consistently busy in the background while working on something else).
It's probably that kind of workload that made them settle on a relatively fixed fan speed so that the fans wouldn't be spinning up and down with load. To me, that's a reasonable call, and I'd be fine with that. The whine was the dealbreaker with my unit.
The fan speeds of the Max and Ultra are the same, but here you can see quite a difference in thermal output.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213100
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213100
No offense, friend, but the only person in this room that doesn't understand anything is you. You are very arrogant in thinking you are the only person here understanding "what the Mac Studio is" and you believe that this weird nonexistent fan curve must be Apple's genius design. It's the typical Apple fanboyism that excuses just about everything Apple does, good AND bad.
What you really do not understand is the fact that as much as this *could* be Apple's deliberate design choice, it could just as much be an issue with the firmware (wrong fan curve applied) or even a hardware issue. It wouldn't be the first time an Apple product has a "bug".
Even if you are not bothered by the fan noise (I am not, either), the fact that the fans constantly spin at the same speed at every temperature level should give anyone with even the slightest sliver of basic tech understanding reason to pause. The alleged coil whine that some units exhibit even more so.
That being said, if it doesn't bother you, why are you even here? You keep telling people it's all good, it's "how Apple designed it" (a statement both extremely arrogant and extremely ignorant). Why don't you just bugger off and let the people who are bothered or interested talk about it?
You are very annoying.
Max for me. Very loud. I can hear it easily with even 40 decibels background noise.
So no weird noises even when you put your ear to the back of the Mac? How long have you had the Mac at home?
Two questions:
1. Has anyone, anywhere, actually had one of the "almost silent" Studio's AND one of the "roaring" Studio's in the same room at the same time? (I refer to fan noise and not the "whine")? I wonder why there isn't video somewhere of someone comparing an example of two vastly different (as described in this thread) Studio's as perceived by the same person in the same room at the same time?
2. Does anyone have one of the "roaring" Studio's that does NOT have the "whine"? (Plenty of people have said they have an "almost silent" Studio, but with "whine", so that combination seems covered.)
I get some Studio's have whine and some don't - mine clearly does not. I'm curious if there are really differences between the fan noise in some units (which would have nothing to do with the 2 different power supply versions we know exist).
1. Has anyone, anywhere, actually had one of the "almost silent" Studio's AND one of the "roaring" Studio's in the same room at the same time? (I refer to fan noise and not the "whine")? I wonder why there isn't video somewhere of someone comparing an example of two vastly different (as described in this thread) Studio's as perceived by the same person in the same room at the same time?
2. Does anyone have one of the "roaring" Studio's that does NOT have the "whine"? (Plenty of people have said they have an "almost silent" Studio, but with "whine", so that combination seems covered.)
I get some Studio's have whine and some don't - mine clearly does not. I'm curious if there are really differences between the fan noise in some units (which would have nothing to do with the 2 different power supply versions we know exist).
It would take volunteers from one town. This test would be interesting. 😉
The better question would be why are people putting their ear to the back of their computer. Are they smelling their computer for unusual smells as well? It just seems a bit weird. I couldn’t imagine being IT support and having someone call saying when they put their ear to the back of the computer they could hear noise.
I will gladly volunteer to take someone’s Mac Studio off their hands to give them a great review of the noise it makes. If it could be the ultra model that would be best 😂
It's like shining a light on just one part. Just separate the surroundings from the sound. That's what I thought.
At idle. It’s not that hard to get it quieter because the GPU fans aren’t spinning up at idle and there’s an over specced AIO cooler that keeps it very cool. The fans are all 120cm sitting inside a small case (sliger 580).
In terms of electricity cost, the PC is for gaming and occasional ML usage. So it doesn’t have the same use case as the Mac, so it’s not really comparable.
I remember some of the discussions about the Mac mini saying similar things. I even got to the point just to see if there was some sort of noise. I felt like a crazy person because I was resting my head against the top of my Mac mini just to hear a slight hum. I did it just to see if what other people were saying was true but it was so silly. If anyone has an office that quiet with coworkers in the same building I am extremely jealous!
It just takes someone with multiple Studios that posts video on the internet to post a video demonstrating they sound different. Several people with multiple Studios have posted video's, but no one has demonstrated they have one with a "roaring" fan and one with an "almost silent" fan in a video. Or someone here that gets a replacement before sending back their original could do an audio recording (but I'd like to see/know how the recording was done).
Only one studio here, and while I wouldn't call it roaring, I have a loud studio Max without the whine. It's louder than my Thinkstation P340 at idle, but the thinkstation is about twice as loud under load as the Studio. It's just odd, there's no way I should hear it at idle. (and that's from my normal sitting position, not with my ear to the machine or behind it.)
If it’s whining where you can hear it at idle then that would be slightly annoying. I wonder if it is different Mac Studios. Also idle isn’t idle. Just because you’re not actively doing something with that computer doesn’t mean it’s not doing something. Perhaps if it’s new it’s indexing the drive or doing a backup. Not saying that makes much of a difference if you’re sitting at your desk but it would make a difference testing different units because they could be at different states doing different things.
There were quite a few posts with people complaining about the noise of it. I never heard mine unless I literally pushed my ear against the top of it. Of course if you’re in a recording studio with no sound then it’s different. It was in my apartment with just nominal background noise
It's not new anymore, I've had it for weeks, and I do know how to check to see if it's idle or not... I've only had the fans go up to the 1500's under heavy load and there's not that much difference in sound.
I'm not in a studio, it's just my bedroom/computer room. (only 4 computers on and one asleep)
I remember my very first mini I could hear if I remember correctly, but just barely. The last 3 including the newest (2020) intel mini I can't hear it all, but I don't put my ear to it.
My base Max remains fast and quiet with no excessive fan noise or coil whine.
Part of that may be the result of using a select few/vetted browser plug-in's, avoiding Chrome, Safari and Firefox (DuckDuckGo browser FTW!) and ripping out all of the horrid Adobe creative cloud resource hogging crapola that I do not need.
Part of that may be the result of using a select few/vetted browser plug-in's, avoiding Chrome, Safari and Firefox (DuckDuckGo browser FTW!) and ripping out all of the horrid Adobe creative cloud resource hogging crapola that I do not need.
People put their ear to listen cause they can't believe Apple actually fit a full sized chalkboard inside with nails dragging across said chalkboard. "Can't innovate anymore, my ass!" 🤣
Ironic to make a 10 year old joke about innovation, but at least your little emoji liked it.