And blocking a port that could be used for something else...
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Mac studio v1 fan noise - it's going to be one of the loudest Macs at idle.
- Thread starter AdamSeen
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
A thought just occurred to me. How level is your desk? I wonder if the platform that the Studio is sitting on has unbalanced the fans slightly. You can use your iPhone if you have one as a level with the compass or measure apps. It just seems difficult to believe that you've gotten unlucky 3 times in a row unless either there are a large percentage of Studios with the noise problem (quite possible) or there is something in your environment. Just a thought.
Unfortunately the noise level on the mac Studio is to loud for me. Even during times of moderate or light use it’s almost constant
And after a while becomes annoying
Unfortunately, it’s going back to Apple
And after a while becomes annoying
Unfortunately, it’s going back to Apple
Just received my Apple Studio (Max/24GPU/64GB/4TB) and it is going back. Too loud for me.
Will order a MacBookPro now and have to wait another 8 weeks.
Will order a MacBookPro now and have to wait another 8 weeks.
Wow these defective Mac studios must be loud as my 14” MBP is massively louder than my studio when doing anything intense [the exact same tasks].
I think most people here cannot stand how loud fans are at idle, not under load. Under load, IMHO, Mac Studio wins with anything with comparable CPU, be it Mac or PC.
It depends what you call ‘load’ i guess……. I buy these computers to work hard all the time.
I'm curious, what do you do that requires the computer to work hard all the time?
What are your temperatures and fan speeds while working?
When I need performance, I need it bad, but most of the time I don't. My job is very much the hurry up and wait type. So my Studio and other PC's sit idle most of the time.
I don’t sit there worrying about temps and fan speeds…
If it is quiet then it’s fine.
I have multiple apps open like CAD apps, cpu and GPU rendering, adobe cs apps and the usual (mail, safari, Evernote, zoom, music etc).
RAM use normally around 40-50GB.
I multitask around multiple apps as I like quick responses to my clients (and the reason why they remain clients).
These machines are not used for consumer purposes.
I have absolutely nothing negative to say about the fans on my studio ultra. It destroys my PC workstation in this regard.
My phone shows perfectly level on the Mac studio on all 4 corners. I used to hate when my wife is on the phone in a different room now I don't mind as it drowns out the sound. 😞
Last edited:
I think you're underestimating just how powerful these machines are. The workload you've described will probably still have the Ultra sitting at close to idle most of the time.
Unless you're literally running a render farm, some kind of heavy multi-user server, or running some kind of days-long scientific / AI calculation tailored to Apple Silicon, none of us are going to have these machines breaking a particular sweat for more than a few minutes at a time.
Note that I'm not saying you don't need an Ultra. It sounds like the Ultra is the ideal machine for you because there are times when you'll need all that power, but it's just that difficult to find non-synthetic tasks that can max out an Ultra 24/7.
Wonder if these noisy Studios all came from the same bad batch.
I know I've not got 18 year old hearing any more but it's very clear to me that complainants' computers are not as quiet as mine.
I know I've not got 18 year old hearing any more but it's very clear to me that complainants' computers are not as quiet as mine.
Mine is imperceptible but some people in here said that the noise and whine occurred after a week of being fine, so I am bracing myself. 😬
^^^ this seems very much like mine.
You can easily bring the Ultra (or latest i9, for that matter) to its knees by using several CPU hungry virtual instruments, like U-He Diva, VPS Avenger or UVI Falcon together. Especially with Logic Pro, active instrument (the one being played or recorded live) uses single core only and can overload the core easily, which results in clicks or pops. So single core performance is still crucial for music production.
Same with complex orchestral arrangements, sometimes even 128GB Ram is not enough.
Yeah, you can easily bring a single core to its knees. But that's only 1/20th of the power of the Ultra, and it's also where the Ultra isn't going to be really any faster than even a base M1.
My point is the amount of data needed to saturate all 20 cores (and additionally the GPU cores) 100% of the time, to actually get the temps up into the 70s is really difficult.
My point is the amount of data needed to saturate all 20 cores (and additionally the GPU cores) 100% of the time, to actually get the temps up into the 70s is really difficult.
I'm someone who thinks the Studio is very loud and annoying at idle.
I'm using the same app as you and with the Mac Studio off it's 22dB average, and with it on recording where I'm sitting, not right in-front of the fans it's 25dB.
So the studio is objectively very very VERY quiet.... it's still by far the loudest thing in my office though, because 3dB is a doubling in sound pressure levels.
I'm fully aware that this is such a ridiculous "first world problem" but there is something about the timbre of the noise coming from the studio at idle that is like nails on a chalkboard.
I'm using Macs FanControl, which has lowered it. I can take a measurement at the default 1300RPM if of interest.
Edit:
@1300RPM idle fan speed: Min 24dB, Max, 35dB, Average 30dB
@3500RPM (full blast): Min 45dB, Max, 58dB, Average 56dB
Last edited:
Sounds like you're sensitive to that particular frequency/white noise. Do you not have background music on? With my music I cannot hear the fan on idle at all. My MacBook Air (Intel) is way, way louder than the Mac Studio, let alone the old Mac Pro 2010.
So true. In the Gearspace forum one user got his 20 cores to play 304 audio tracks in Logic, each with 15 space designer plugins. That’s 4,560 convolution reverbs for goodness sake!
Obviously playing synths / samplers is more taxing to the CPU than just playing audio files, but it’s still an impressive result.