I've mounted mine underneath my desk and now, even with no background noise, the only time I can hear the fans is if I put my head down next to the Studio. Still no whine though and this is from a launch-day machine.
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
So it has begun! Apple is starting to sell refurbished Mac Studio's. A few in the US and many in The Netherlands.
Looking at available configs might tell us something about which ones are being returned the most (Max or Ultra).
I agree too. I even have an intel Mac Mini (2020, i7) and I never hear it at all, even under load. I know it has to make noise, but my background noise is about 40db. I can hear my Studio, my NAS, and my Windows desktop though...
The US has just 1, a base Studio Max. And you save a whole $200 dollars! (really?)
With a free app on the iPhone, it shows the room level is 29.6 and with the Studio, 3 ASDs, 1 XDR, and 6 external displays on it is 31.6.
Same for mine. I can hear a slight whoosh sound if I put my ear right up against the back of the machine and that's it. I sit with my head 21" from the studio and hear nothing unless I do the above.
If the Mac Studio was ‘completely silent’ you can bet Apple wouldn’t have forgotten to mention it in their press releases
All within a norm then. Your room background noise is louder than nominal Mac Studio fan noise - that’s why you can’t hear it 👍
You can’t hear it, because background noise is masking the Studio fan noise.
Yes, but in relation to his room’s background noise, the Studio is inaudible. That’s why it “feels” silent.
I'm not going to argue with the numbers, but I will tell you that my home office is pretty silent. I have never once thought "damn, it's noisy in here," because it isn't.
If I can't hear this whine in a room like that, then I've gotta say, this is a really odd thing for people to be complaining about, and it's hard to take the complaint seriously. Prior to receiving my studio, I had wondered, based on reading all these comments, if Apple was going to respond to the issue and offer some sort of a fix. If you're telling me that I can't hear the whine because of the background noise in my office, then I feel quite confident predicting that Apple is never going to do anything about this, because it isn't a problem.
Entirely agree..... I almost didn't buy the Mac Studio based on some of the comments in this forum and when I first booted it up it shocked me on how quiet it was as I was expecting what some described. I've seen very very few complaints about the noise outside of this forum.
I think there are two different issues:
1. Some people are saying their Mac Studio is silent as in no fan noise. I was thinking Apple had conquered engineering and made a truly silent fan, or more likely had sent some fans out with less noise than others. 25 v 30 dB isn't noticeable, but 25 v 40 dB is. Some fans could have been manufactured with only 1100 rpm instead of 1300 rpm.
2. The whine issue is separate from fan noise. I think it's caused by the fan, but it's not a typical whirring noise of a fan. Mine sounds like whisper quiet white noise. It's tolerable, and unless I'm focusing on it, it fades away and adds a little background noise. The whine is a high-pitched noise that can be heard even if the fan is barely audible.
I do find it odd that my wife's MacBook Pro (16" M1 Max, 64GB RAM, 4TB SSD) is quieter than my Mac Studio and it's in a smaller case. I bet her fan probably idles at 1100 rpm. I really wonder why Apple chose to make the Mac Studio 1300 rpm instead of 1100 rpm.
maybe this thread needs to be renamed since topic 2 is totally not implied by the title
The fans on my Studio Ultra are always running at about 1335 rpm. Even on full load (all cores to max) temp remains at 65°C-70°C.
Noise remais at 33 db on my desk. I can not hear the fans at all. I have to put my ear right in front of it to hear a little noise.
This is the most quiet computer I have ever had. Computer on or off doesn't make a difference in noise in my room.
If it is coil whine (the jury is still out) then it can start happening at any time as components age. I have a 2013 Mac Pro (trash can) that was nearly silent when I bought it in 2014. Sometime recently it has picked up some coil whine. I don’t know exactly when because my office can be pretty noisy with a RAID array making a lot of noise. But I noticed it when everything else was shut off and my office was particularly quiet. It definitely started recently though.
I'm going to stop concentrating on the whisper fan noise of my Mac Studio and just enjoy it. 
After reading all these reports I am not gonna bother risking it, not when I know I can get a Macbook pro M1 Pro, and use the screen on that as an extra display.
And as many have said, it can take a few weeks for the whining to start.
I am not willing to suffer audible noise in a recording environment.
And as many have said, it can take a few weeks for the whining to start.
I am not willing to suffer audible noise in a recording environment.
I wish I did that. I originally had a specced out M1 Max MBP but kept getting delays to the order so cancelled it and picked up whatever I could find, which was a base model Studio, as I needed it for work. Regrets!
Nightmare, its really hard to know what to do.
I am torn between the Macbook Pro M1 Max, which I have read dodgy reviews about or the Macbook Pro M1 Pro with high spec.
I hope you can manage to live with Mac Studio in someway, it really sounds like a hardware design problem
I am torn between the Macbook Pro M1 Max, which I have read dodgy reviews about or the Macbook Pro M1 Pro with high spec.
I hope you can manage to live with Mac Studio in someway, it really sounds like a hardware design problem