Following up on a number of online conversations about the Mac Studio’s whistling noise: I think it could shed some statistical light on how wide spread the issue is. The poll is NOT about the classic fan blowing noise that most Macs/PCs produce, but about the distinct and relatively high-pitched noise that’s reported by (many?) users. Feel free to elaborate in the comments (specific model, date of purchase or whatever you find relevant).
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Poll: Mac Studio whistle noise or not?
- Thread starter Think77
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Mine (studio max, bought at launch) did not, for about the first year, then a couple months ago it developed a noise that sounded to me like "coil whine". Doing a search for it at that time, to see if anything new had been discovered since the original reports, I found one site:
basicappleguy.com
that suggested that the noise was being made by how air was passing through the tiny holes in the back. Testing with mine, it seemed believable that that could be the case, although I didn't find as immediate a small area being the source, as he found.
I ended up doing a few things:
The Case of the Singing Studio — Basic Apple Guy
I have something to whine about regarding the Mac Studio.
basicappleguy.com
that suggested that the noise was being made by how air was passing through the tiny holes in the back. Testing with mine, it seemed believable that that could be the case, although I didn't find as immediate a small area being the source, as he found.
I ended up doing a few things:
- mine had been running 24/7, and with the new noise was now bothering me when I wasn't using it, so I started sleeping it when I wasn't using it
- since it had been running 24/7 (and I hadn't kept up with it) it had collected a fair amount of dust. I vacuumed the rear air holes and picked up the Spigen stand to provide a little more dust filtering
I think Apple likes one-piece aluminum enclosures… but yes, would make sense (if indeed, the cumulative collection of dust is the culprit).
No. I have faint fan sound which is to be expected and is effectively inaudible as I have the Studio mounted under my desk. I have no whine or whistle.
My hearing is fine, I can hear the sound on videos people have posted. My Ultra which was delivered in July last year doesn't do it.
My hearing is fine, I can hear the sound on videos people have posted. My Ultra which was delivered in July last year doesn't do it.
I have mine since March 2023. It's been running 10-12 hours a day, sitting on my desk at approximately 70-80 cm away from me. I mostly use Xcode with a bunch of simulators open, large scenes in Unity with complex lighting calculations and 3D modelling in Maya. My work environment is fairly quiet and I have pretty good hearing.
No whine or whistling so far. Just the faint sound of the air expelled at the back of the machine, which is barely audible except maybe at night, when the room is in complete silence.
I clean the bottom and back grills twice a week, so maybe that helps.
No whine or whistling so far. Just the faint sound of the air expelled at the back of the machine, which is barely audible except maybe at night, when the room is in complete silence.
I clean the bottom and back grills twice a week, so maybe that helps.
I have had my Studio Ultra since day one and except for some fan noise when I am driving the computer hard have not had any other noise issues. Certainly no whistle noise. In the other tread I have been told, I my hearing is not good enough, that I don't recognize the noise but it is there, that the background noise in my room is too loud to hear it, I'm too old to hear it and a few other insults.
I too can hear it on the recordings folks have posted here. The noise from what I have seen in posts is about 2.2kHz which is well within anyone's normal hearing as we age we may lose some of our highend hearing, but 2.2kHz is not where most people lose their hearing it is usually above 12kHz. My office is very quiet especially at night no more than 28 dB, I leave in a pretty rural area where I am well away from any roads, rail roads and neighbors. Neither of my kids or grandkids can hear any whistling sound. So I am very confident that my Studio does not make any noise has has not in the almost 14 months I have owned it.
Purchased my Max Studio from the local Apple Store around October 2022 and it doesn't have the high-pitched whine sound that you can hear in a couple of YouTube videos.
I use a microphone for creating YouTube videos and it will pick up the normal fan noise if it is too close to the Studio and I can hear the fan noise on my videos if it is too close. I assume that it would pick up the whine as well - and I can hear the whine on YouTube videos where it is present.It will be interesting to see what the percentages are when the number of voters gets large. My feeling is that it is nowhere near the majority but enough people here have it and there are YouTube videos demonstrating it, that it isn't a trivial percentage.
Problems with five or six posts indicate bugs that are exceptionally rare. I've had a few of them and they are very annoying but it's nice to have this forum where you report a problem and a couple of other people say that they also have it. It helps with my sanity.
Of course it isn't. I got fed up with repeatedly stating that mine doesn't have a whine in the other thread.
This is another reason why I gave up on that other thread. It's pretty toxic in places.
My personal long story 
Configuration: M1 Max (32C GPU), 2 TB SSD, 64 GB RAM
I had 3 units, all almost identical (whistle present) and kept the third one. I ordered them online, directly from Apple.
First unit: Ordered sometime during last summer. Was the worst: I had also fan whistle and PSU "crickets" coming from the bottom intake. Returned to Apple Store.
Second unit: I waited for the refund and placed another order on Apple Store. Same config. Received the second one somewhere at the beginning of September. This unit was somewhat better, it didn't have those PSU "crickets" but the same whistle signature remained identical with the first unit.
Went back and forth to multiple Apple Stores, trying to listen closely on units they have on display. All of them were quiet, couldn't hear the fans at all ... Of course, the environment noise was too high to hear anything.
Made an appointment with Genius Bar, they ran their standard tests ... no issues found.
At this point It was a struggle: Didn't know what to believe, should I keep the second unit ? Should I try one more time ? All of them are the same ?
Yet, my unit, when alone in my home office, late at night in a dead quiet environment is making intermittent high pitch noises ... that I can hear just sitting in my chair and staring at the screen (arms length)
Third unit: You know what? Let's try one more time ... I decided to take the second unit back to an Apple Store and just try one more time ordering online.
I received the third unit around middle of October. It was identical with my second one. I decided to live with it and the end I kept it. My previous iMac was sold at that point, I needed a computer and couldn't afford to play this "whistle/no whistle" lottery.
After 6 months:
I think for some reason my unit had "broken-in" and got quieter as time passed and I put more "miles" on it. Once in a while I can hear it late at night but it's way more "muffled" than before.
Also, I just stopped caring and stopped paying attention. I think it's a great form factor that changed my perspective forever: I can't go back to ancient PC "towers" 😁
I am sure Apple had some issues: maybe their supply chain messed up, maybe some design flaw ... who knows.
In the end, whistle aside, is still an innovative little machine that I really love and wished it was just a little better (storage upgradability .. that's it)
Configuration: M1 Max (32C GPU), 2 TB SSD, 64 GB RAM
I had 3 units, all almost identical (whistle present) and kept the third one. I ordered them online, directly from Apple.
First unit: Ordered sometime during last summer. Was the worst: I had also fan whistle and PSU "crickets" coming from the bottom intake. Returned to Apple Store.
Second unit: I waited for the refund and placed another order on Apple Store. Same config. Received the second one somewhere at the beginning of September. This unit was somewhat better, it didn't have those PSU "crickets" but the same whistle signature remained identical with the first unit.
Went back and forth to multiple Apple Stores, trying to listen closely on units they have on display. All of them were quiet, couldn't hear the fans at all ... Of course, the environment noise was too high to hear anything.
Made an appointment with Genius Bar, they ran their standard tests ... no issues found.
At this point It was a struggle: Didn't know what to believe, should I keep the second unit ? Should I try one more time ? All of them are the same ?
Yet, my unit, when alone in my home office, late at night in a dead quiet environment is making intermittent high pitch noises ... that I can hear just sitting in my chair and staring at the screen (arms length)
Third unit: You know what? Let's try one more time ... I decided to take the second unit back to an Apple Store and just try one more time ordering online.
I received the third unit around middle of October. It was identical with my second one. I decided to live with it and the end I kept it. My previous iMac was sold at that point, I needed a computer and couldn't afford to play this "whistle/no whistle" lottery.
After 6 months:
I think for some reason my unit had "broken-in" and got quieter as time passed and I put more "miles" on it. Once in a while I can hear it late at night but it's way more "muffled" than before.
Also, I just stopped caring and stopped paying attention. I think it's a great form factor that changed my perspective forever: I can't go back to ancient PC "towers" 😁
I am sure Apple had some issues: maybe their supply chain messed up, maybe some design flaw ... who knows.
In the end, whistle aside, is still an innovative little machine that I really love and wished it was just a little better (storage upgradability .. that's it)
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M1 Max 32 GPU, 64 GB RAM, 1TB SD. Got it from B&H back in June last year.
The fan noise doesn't bother me at all as I'm used to my Intel MBP sounding like a jet engine. I noticed the coil whine when I first got mine and sometimes it's more noticeable and other times it's not too noticeable. It's still present as I'm typing this.
I thought about returning it until I realized B&H doesn't accept returns on open computers (moving forward, I'm ordering directly from Apple.) Thankfully, I've had a similar experience as MistD where I've stopped caring and stopped paying attention to it. Besides, if I have music playing or the fan/AC is running, it's even less noticeable.
Still very happy with my Mac Studio for my Graphic Design and Motion Graphics needs. As I start to dabble more into 3D now, I'll likely upgrade to the next version of the Mac Studio but with the Ultra chip and hopefully the coil whine issue will be resolved.
The fan noise doesn't bother me at all as I'm used to my Intel MBP sounding like a jet engine. I noticed the coil whine when I first got mine and sometimes it's more noticeable and other times it's not too noticeable. It's still present as I'm typing this.
I thought about returning it until I realized B&H doesn't accept returns on open computers (moving forward, I'm ordering directly from Apple.) Thankfully, I've had a similar experience as MistD where I've stopped caring and stopped paying attention to it. Besides, if I have music playing or the fan/AC is running, it's even less noticeable.
Still very happy with my Mac Studio for my Graphic Design and Motion Graphics needs. As I start to dabble more into 3D now, I'll likely upgrade to the next version of the Mac Studio but with the Ultra chip and hopefully the coil whine issue will be resolved.
There is no evidence that this whistle is coil whine, in fact as many people have been able to change the level by adjusting fan speed or covering some of the rear panel holes, everything suggests it’s air whistling through those holes.
Can we stop calling it coil whine please because that’s misleading as it blatantly isn’t any kind of coil whine. It seems to be caused by the level of air flow through the holes on the back panel.
Can we stop calling it coil whine please because that’s misleading as it blatantly isn’t any kind of coil whine. It seems to be caused by the level of air flow through the holes on the back panel.
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Current poll results indicate that 1 out of 5 M1 Mac Studios have the whine issue. It may not be 100% representative, but I wonder if it comes close to the actual unit return rate (or number of issue reports) that Apple has recorded over the last 14 months. And has it been sufficiently problematic that Apple has actually identified and corrected the design error before producing and releasing the M2 Mac Studio?
EDIT: I’m very close to going with a new M2 Mac Studio over an M2 Mac Mini if the whine issue has been resolved (I will probably need more than the maximum 32 GB RAM in the Mini).
EDIT: I’m very close to going with a new M2 Mac Studio over an M2 Mac Mini if the whine issue has been resolved (I will probably need more than the maximum 32 GB RAM in the Mini).
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Good question. I don't think we have any way of knowing, until a new Studio comes out and people can evaluate it.
I tend to agree, but actually we may be able to tell during the presentation if the small air vent holes on the back turn out to be visibly redesigned (given that the problem was actually caused by these holes as suggested by some users).
Apple could make it easy if they admitted the first design wasn't always perfect, but I don't expect they will. I'll definitely be looking and listening to any description change for it though! I was one that said it might be the holes, but I could be just as wrong, It really sounds like a whistle to me and dust buildup could account for it getting worse. It's been real humid too...
My whine has getting worse now, I can't take it anymore. If there isn't any design change, then I'll trade the studio in on a Mini Pro and just eat the difference in capability. (and cost)
This poll is pretty much useless since it doesn't consider when the whining Macs were manufactured or purchased. I think they made changes in the power supply design or components (my best guess), or the fans to remedy the problem last year and very few new units will still have it. The number of reports of newly purchased units fell off dramatically after January in the much bigger thread.
And it isn't 20% of the units that have problems. People who have problems come here to look if others have it and report their problems. People without the problem are far less likely to do that.
(And no, I don't think the cause has anything to do with the holes - some people report whine on new units when there can't be any dust in the holes - other report whine only after using them for weeks or months and suggest dust clogged holes cause it. It can't be both dust in the holes causing it, and holes without dust causing it.)
And it isn't 20% of the units that have problems. People who have problems come here to look if others have it and report their problems. People without the problem are far less likely to do that.
(And no, I don't think the cause has anything to do with the holes - some people report whine on new units when there can't be any dust in the holes - other report whine only after using them for weeks or months and suggest dust clogged holes cause it. It can't be both dust in the holes causing it, and holes without dust causing it.)
Sure it could, depending on how well those holes are machined and how within spec they are. (and just where they're out of spec.). Humidity and air density probably has something to do with whether they whistle or not too.
I'm just as sure it's not coil whine, I know that sound, and this isn't it. But neither of us can be sure either way, nobody has provided incontrovertible evidence....
I've had my Mac Studio M1 Max since August 2022.
I was one of those, who noticed the whine and could stop it by covering parts of the rear holes with my hand.
So definitely not coil whine in my case, I guess, but some issue with the cooling air passing through the machine.
Just today I noticed that the whine has gone. I cannot say, when it stopped. Or if it is just intermittent.
I remember that I still heard it a few weeks ago and it was getting a little bit on my nerves and I made a comment about it in the other thread.
At the moment, only sound is the air being moved, which is clearly audible, bot not really bothersome.
So what am I voting?
I guess, yes, since I’ve had the whine in the first place.
But as someone mentioned above, maybe the machine has now settled in for some reason.
I wonder, if and when the whine will come back...
I was one of those, who noticed the whine and could stop it by covering parts of the rear holes with my hand.
So definitely not coil whine in my case, I guess, but some issue with the cooling air passing through the machine.
Just today I noticed that the whine has gone. I cannot say, when it stopped. Or if it is just intermittent.
I remember that I still heard it a few weeks ago and it was getting a little bit on my nerves and I made a comment about it in the other thread.
At the moment, only sound is the air being moved, which is clearly audible, bot not really bothersome.
So what am I voting?
I guess, yes, since I’ve had the whine in the first place.
But as someone mentioned above, maybe the machine has now settled in for some reason.
I wonder, if and when the whine will come back...
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Also take into account that some people can have the same issue but don’t hear it , have louder environments, loves Apple too much to admit
… or just don’t care.At this point for sure Apple had some issues, who knows at what scale (they definitely “downplayed” it, it’s just what Apple does) and hopefully they fixed in the upcoming iteration.
I know 1000% for a fact that i had 3 “whinny” units in a row, one after another (and kept the last one)
In my opinion, this is related to components: PSU coil whine (i had those “crickets” coming from the bottom intake) , Fan components (ball bearing etc) … and so on.
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