Nope. I had the Ultra and it sounded awful.
Obviously that's only 1 data point and hopefully I was just very unlucky, but it's definitely not immune.
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Mac studio v1 fan noise - it's going to be one of the loudest Macs at idle.
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Obviously that's only 1 data point and hopefully I was just very unlucky, but it's definitely not immune.
Did you return it? Or cancel the order and get a refund?
This reminds me of “OLED (TV) panel lottery” - it’s like Forrest Gump, you never know what yer gonna git …
Have a return set up for my second unit; will decide later if I go for 3rd time lucky. Cannot send back the display which is a few hundred loss if I pass it on. But yeah, the squeal is so bad now that it actually gives me an ear ache after a few hours and the pitch is coming directly from the fans. It does sound electrical in my mind though, oh well **** happens.
I returned it for a refund.
It was a great machine otherwise and I do miss it, but given the massive wait times I couldn't be bothered doing the return dance.
Who's betting that the refurbished section will eventually have a load of studios.
In an office/studio you can’t hear such a low noise and even when maxed out.
At home people have music, television playing in the background. People working from home not shy about farting loudly. Really loudly.
So this fan noisy discussion it just nit picking and fussy over nothing. 25 decibels is heaven compared to when we made music on Power Macs.
At home people have music, television playing in the background. People working from home not shy about farting loudly. Really loudly.
So this fan noisy discussion it just nit picking and fussy over nothing. 25 decibels is heaven compared to when we made music on Power Macs.
The whine is the problem, not the decibels. I can assure you'd here it if your machine had the problem. I hear the whine over an air cleaner, TV, and whatever other noise is going on. I have background noise of ~45 decibels...
You poopooing everyone else by the statement above is actually quite insulting and irrelevant to the thread since you obviously don't have the same problem. (or maybe you don't even have a studio at all since you don't mention that.
Congratulations, you're one of the lucky ones.
I'm not, I have a Max too and the whine.
The problem is not the fan hum, it’s the whine as nearly all of us have said. We are not nit picking, we have a real problem. Though this thread with its title is not the real discussion place for it.
Hope yours does not start exhibiting the same issue in a few weeks.
25 decibels “weighted”.
A narrow frequency peaking can have a higher perceived loudness than the lower frequency background noise that that is in many rooms.
Sad to say - about 6 weeks after receiving my Mac Studio Ultra, last night I realized... it is now making a whine. Or maybe better described as a whistle. But it's a high frequency sound that slightly fluctuates, and my previous speculation was wrong, the pitch changes when I change the fan speed, but it does not go away.
I noticed it late last night, shutting things down when all was still and quiet. From my regular seating position, it's barely on the cusp of being noticeable. If I don't pay attention to it, I can somewhat ignore it. Especially when I have an external HDD running on the desk, as I often do. I think the monitor positioned above the Studio blocks some of the reflected sound from the wall, and also the IKEA sound dampening room divider panel placed against the wall behind the Studio helps some too. (Behind that is glass windows, the IKEA panel was an experiment in reducing reflected sound from all the desk tech.)
I have a UPS nearby that makes an annoying coil whine and chirp, that's louder than the Studio's whistle but I am hoping to put the UPS inside of a cabinet soon. Turning down the Studio's fans to 1150 RPM seems to drop the whistle to a frequency that blends in better with the ambient sound, sensor temps seem to be OK with the fan reduction.
I'm bummed to realize I've lost the fan lottery, well outside of my return window but at least I did get AppleCare. I can definitely live with it for a while, and it doesn't seem like there'd be any chance of getting a replacement unit soon. I think I'll wait and see if there's some kind of recall program, I wonder how many other people's Studios that seemed fine at first will develop the whine over time. 😢
Or maybe this is my excuse to trade up next year to the Studio 2 or new Mac Pro....
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Sucks man. Would AppleCare allow you to hang on to the unit until a replacement is available?
Fan noise is not the problem; it is relatively quiet. It is the coil whine produced by the PSU which is the issue (On mine anyway); I can hear it two metres away, like a squealing pig.
Thanks, my sympathy to all others afflicted too. Mine’s not as bad as some, it seems.
About AppleCare, I don’t know what they’d do. I had a previous MacBook Pro repaired under AppleCare, it was shipped to a repair facility and it took about 1-2 weeks I think. If they did the same here, I could revert back to my old Mac and live without the Studio for a few weeks, but I’d rather not. And I’m not sure they’ve really figured out the whine issue or how to fix it yet. I don’t think they’d go straight to a replacement machine without trying to repair first, could lead to some back and forth hassle. I think I’ll wait and see if/how they address this seemingly widespread issue, I got the 3-year coverage.
Maybe I should contact Applr support about it soon even if not intending to seek repair right now, probably will just so they have a record of the issue, if they are tracking these at all.
I can't imagine they don't know the cause of the problem. It's either a fan squealing (which I doubt) or a bad component on the power supply board (a coil or transformer, or a bad batch of caps). It only takes one sample of a bad Studio to isolate which is causing the whine. You swap the power supply with a known silent board and see if it goes away, and then you swap the fans with known silent fans, and see which eliminates the whine.
Then it's just a matter of correcting the root cause. If it was a fan, I'd expect it would have been eliminated quickly (and then fixed) because it's mechanical (some batch of parts out of tolerance, or not being prepped or assembled right, etc). And they would have known good fans around by now to do repairs instead of replacing entire Studios. Since they haven't eliminated the problem in almost 3 months since introduction, I really doubt it's a bad batch of fans.
If a component in the power supply is singing it may take a design change (new circuit, new PCB layout, etc.), as opposed to a simple faulty part change to fix. If it is in the power supply (and remember we know there were two different power supply boards with different designs in use in both the Max and Ultras - and they may be behaving differently) I'd think they would have that solved that by now too. But that would depend on their suppliers ability/capacity to design and then produce new boards in quantity, and how much power supply stock was already in the pipeline. There's no indication they actually shutdown the production line waiting for a fix, so maybe they feel the actual number of replaced units is so small they are just using up existing stock without trying to cull out bad boards.
I've been designing electronic products for over 40 years, and I must say I'm surprised they haven't been more pro-active getting rid of the problem faster.
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About 4 weeks for the whine on mine to kick in but like you it's not currently annoying enough to do anything about. I bought 3 years Apple Care for this reason, so hopefully if it gets worse then Apple will fix it but with the supply chain issues being what they are and needing the machine for work, hopefully that'll be later rather than sooner.
Delta has better reputation than Lite-On. Also, if you notice Lite-On has fewer components such as capacitors.
Holy moly! I wonder if there's a terminal command to show us the power supply manufacturer/version/code/etc.
I've got the whine as well with my Studio Max, but found a way to get rid of it:
Setting the fan to a slightly higher speed seems to solve the problem for me. Using Macs Fan Control, I've set it to 1383 RPM and the whine is gone.
According to the Crystalidea blog, the Studio's fan has a constant speed, so setting it to a higher static speed seems to be ok.
Setting the fan to a slightly higher speed seems to solve the problem for me. Using Macs Fan Control, I've set it to 1383 RPM and the whine is gone.
According to the Crystalidea blog, the Studio's fan has a constant speed, so setting it to a higher static speed seems to be ok.
UPDATE: After a back and forth with AppleCare+, it was determined that returning the Mac Studio within the 15-day period to the Apple Store was the only course of action. They would have to evaluate and test on their end, and fan noise is not something they typically diagnoise or fix anyway. So I returned the first one and placed an order for another Mac Studio M1 Ultra. It took quite a while for this second Mac Studio M1 Ultra to arrive (about 2 months). I have had it for about ten days now. No annoying high pitched sound anymore. Much happier. I do still hear the fan, even at idle. But the anoying high pitch sound is gone. What I have now is extremely more tolerable. And so much quieter than my 2019 Mac Pro. It's faster too. Keeping this one!
Good luck... but mine appeared after 30 days or so and is seemingly getting louder. So it seems like it can develop any time. I'll have to get mine repaired but hoping to hold off til supply chain issues ease up. Very much regret cancelling my MBP order for the Studio. 🙃UPDATE: After a back and forth with AppleCare+, it was determined that returning the Mac Studio within the 15-day period to the Apple Store was the only course of action. They would have to evaluate and test on their end, and fan noise is not something they typically diagnoise or fix anyway. So I returned the first one and placed an order for another Mac Studio M1 Ultra. It took quite a while for this second Mac Studio M1 Ultra to arrive (about 2 months). I have had it for about ten days now. No annoying high pitched sound anymore. Much happier. I do still hear the fan, even at idle. But the anoying high pitch sound is gone. What I have now is extremely more tolerable. And so much quieter than my 2019 Mac Pro. It's faster too. Keeping this one!