PSA: Coil Whine on MBP 16

[impulse462]

So, did you record this in an anechoic test chamber, or in your living room? While there are clearly sounds that come and go, how can you possibly be certain of the source? Sorry, but "I know coil whine when I hear it" does not cut it. Your audio recorder (iPhone) has an automatic gain control. Absent louder noises, it's going to keep raising the gain until it finds a discernible signal.

I spent over 25 years in recording and broadcast studios. I can produce a very long list of noise sources that even in the best of facilities would drown this out, starting with velocity noise (moving air), which even in properly designed low-velocity studio air conditioning systems can still be discernible. I assure you my breathing is far louder than that, based on the relative loudness of the power switch. You ever record a Hammond B-3 with Leslie? How about the pedal and damper noise of a Steinway D, or the creaking chairs and rustling clothing of a string section? And when it comes to the amplifier hiss of a classic Fender guitar amp? Fuggedaboudit!

I once taught an audio recording course for radio producers, which I began with the following exercise: "Please be very quiet for the next five minutes, listen to the silence, and tell me what you've heard." The students would look at me like I was crazy; what noises could they possibly hear in a "soundproof" recording studio? If the studio was really soundproof they might have eventually detected the roar of blood flow through their eardrums, but what they actually learned was how to stop assuming and start listening, and how imperfect "soundproof" tends to be.

This thread is a classic example of the obsessive search for defects. They must exist, therefore they will be found. My question is, what practical harm are we talking about? These machines have fans that are undoubtedly louder than this, so if your intention is to record a podcast in the same room as the Mac, don't stick a mic right on top of the freaking machine - put it closer to the wheezing mouth and nose of the person you're recording. Altogether, this is not going to be the first-, or even twentieth-ranking source of environmental noise. Any Apple tech who accepts this Mac as "defective" is simply, to borrow a phrase from C-3PO, "Letting the Wookie win."

Everything you’ve said is irrelevant. I’ve used a 2017 15” MacBook Pro for 2 years in my apartment and it has no coil wine. Then I start using the 2019 16” the same way and there is coil wine. That is the problem.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Everything you’ve said is irrelevant. I’ve used a 2017 15” MacBook Pro for 2 years in my apartment and it has no coil wine. Then I start using the 2019 16” the same way and there is coil wine. That is the problem.

All you're really saying is that machine B seems to make more noise than machine A.

I could relate decades worth of stories of machine-generated noise. Sometimes there was a sympathetic vibration of laminations in an amplifier's power transformer - perhaps they ought to have been more tightly-riveted or more generously varnished. Sometimes it could have been a rattling washer from a loose hold-down screw. The environmental noise spectrum of an analog tape recorder (even the best-maintained Studer or Ampex) could be a sight to behold and the list of distortions present in the best black vinyl pressing totally depressing.

Maybe I'm just an old-timer grumbling about how the youngsters don't know how good they have things. An SSD noisy, when compared to the constant grinding of a spinning HDD??? Bearing noise from an aging muffin fan?

I stand by my previous post. As far as I know, no computer maker warrants the environmental noise output of their machines. They may have internal manufacturing/design specifications, but they most certainly don't pass every unit through an anechoic test chamber prior to packaging and they're not in violation of governmental environmental noise standards. Running audio software on the thing doesn't make it a recording instrument, any more than running medical software requires the machine to pass FDA standards for medical equipment.

This is a matter of end-user expectations; "The machines are all-solid-state, so they ought to be utterly silent." That just doesn't exist. If nothing else, thermal expansion and contraction can create the occasional creak and squeak or a particular cavity may resonate in sympathy with an external vibration. What of it? You may want to claim it's a manufacturing defect, but it's not defective if it's intrinsic to the design. You have to decide whether the design meets your standards, and perhaps a court of law is needed to decide whether every component ought to be vibration-damped as a matter of reasonable customer expectations. If coils will whine, then what you really ought to be demanding is a coil-free design. Feel free to flock to whatever manufacturer offers such a thing.

 

[_Kiki_]

return, replace, repeat again if needed, quality is falling down

 

[Pepe4life]

Do not give Apple a free pass. Keep returning until you get a good one. You are spending your hard earned money.

mine also has the coil whine but I have only heard it once since I got it last week so I’m not too concerned personally. I’m more pissed off about the dim screen

 

[maflynn]

Bunch of clowns.

Why are they clowns? I can understand your frustration, but if inventory is tight, there's nothing that can be done. The machine is indeed in tight demand, and if you have a non-standard configuration that will only exacerbate the situation.

 

[laflame]

Why are they clowns? I can understand your frustration, but if inventory is tight, there's nothing that can be done. The machine is indeed in tight demand, and if you have a non-standard configuration that will only exacerbate the situation.

the support hotline told me they could replace it but I would have to wait until mid December to get it. online store showed that if I ordered a new one it would be delivered within a week. they also told me they can't check if my local apple store has them in stock. later I checked myself and was able to see that the store had them in stock.

I bought the base configuration which should be the most produced one.

support at the apple store was much better even though my new MacBook has the same issue.

 

[donawalt]

I am very sorry folks are having this issue with their new MacBook Pro's. I am chipping in just to offer a small piece of evidence that it might be the specific model of SSD, maybe.....I have and continue to use MacBook Pro 2018, 2019 15", and the new 16" for the work I do, and every one of them has the 4 TB SSD option. I have followed the coil whine threads since the beginning, so I have been aware of the problem, and I can assure you every one of these laptops are quiet as a mouse.

I also just finished doing a text search through this thread to see if anyone has reported the whine here, on a 4TB laptop, and there are no reports. I didn't see any 8TB reports either, but that's very new; so maybe it is a problem specific to the 512, 1TB, and 2TB laptops (not every laptop, but quite a few have reported the problem, some say it's not present) but not the 4TB and up - for any laptops. Or maybe when other users read this they will chime in if they have a 4TB/8TB model with coil whine.

Good luck with getting this sorted out!

EDIT: Another point that supports my conspiracy theory - the SSD controller is on the T2 chip. Interaction issues? There are likely differences in the controller, or timing, etc. between the controller and the 512/1/2/4/8 SSDs. This could be the problem, some interaction issue between audio and SSD controller.

 

[Donnation]

Mine runs totally silent. Base i9 and I’ve pushed the SSD and it doesn’t make a peep.

 

[suyangz]

Mine runs totally silent. Base i9 and I’ve pushed the SSD, and it doesn’t make a peep.

What is the device name of your SSD? You can find it in "apple" - "about this mac" - "system report" - "storage". The SSD on my device is "APPLE SSD AP1024N" and it makes noise noticeably.

 

[_Kiki_]

What is the device name of your SSD? You can find it in "apple" - "about this mac" - "system report" - "storage". The SSD on my device is "APPLE SSD AP1024N" and it makes noise noticeably.

it's only apple firmware, usually SSD chips are Samsung or Toshiba

 

[ThisBougieLife]

So, I've come up with a sure-fire way to reproduce the coil whine sound on my MBP:

Scroll through my music library on the Music app. It works every time. The sound lasts as long as I scroll, when I stop, the sound stops. I'll see if I can record it somehow.

Anyone else able to hear the sound this way?

I should note that there is also a sound made when I scroll through the library on my 2016 MBP. It's just much quieter and I really have to put my ear up to the computer to hear it. But it's there.

 

[Pipper99]

Also, if anyone else has the max in store model that the Apple Store carries (2.4 ghz, 32 gb of ram, 8gb graphics, and 2 tb) please stress it and let me know if you hear any coil whine. Thanks!

thanks for this! I thought that the stores had only the base model of each configuration. I’m so glad that Apple has this model for in store pickup rather than having to wait two weeks. Ordered for pickup today!

 

[RigSatMe]

What is the device name of your SSD? You can find it in "apple" - "about this mac" - "system report" - "storage". The SSD on my device is "APPLE SSD AP1024N" and it makes noise noticeably.

Mine APPLE SSD AP2048M, 15" 2018, BoD, 2TB SSD, no noise, silence.

 

[transientphoto]

First, I just received my relatively maxed out 16" yesterday. I love it so far. When I started to do some photo editing today, I noticed the noise and that led me here. I thought I would pile onto this thread with two things:

#1 - There was a comment earlier that said no one with the 4TB drive had an issue. Well, I have the 4TB and can hear it under load. Wish it wasn't the case....

#2 - The suggestion to scroll through the Library on the Music App is spot on. I can reproduce the sound 100% of the time.

Now to decide if I can live with it......

 

[pshifrin]

Bought and returned a stock 2.3/16/1tb and the coil whine was clearly there and audible from a normal sitting distance while using the laptop. SSD was AP1024N i believe.

My current 15 inch 2019 2.4/32/1tb/560x has it too, but only if you put your ear directly to the palm rest / keyboard area during a write operation, which obviously i’ll never be doing while using the laptop, so it’s no bother.

The 16” was, unfortunately, pretty noticeable, so back it went.

 

[milhous]

EDIT: Another point that supports my conspiracy theory - the SSD controller is on the T2 chip. Interaction issues? There are likely differences in the controller, or timing, etc. between the controller and the 512/1/2/4/8 SSDs. This could be the problem, some interaction issue between audio and SSD controller.

A way to test that theory would be to install macOS on an external hard drive, boot off of it, and see if the system still emits whines during use. Unfortunately, I don't have any high speed external hard drives at the moment to test this, but encourage anyone that does to try it, and report back.
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How do I open a case with Apple about this?

Sorry for the delay. Go to Apple Support, click Mac, then click Mac Notebooks, click Hardware Issues, then click The Topic is Not Listed. Then enter in the text box "coil whine", and follow the directions for either online chat or phone call. You'll need your serial number too.

 

[bsbeamer]

Clone system to any external and boot from it. Even a SATA SSD in a USB enclosure. Then can also run disk tests for internal system drive to see if it can be triggered at all.

In that same vein, is there a mix of people using FileVault and not using FileVault experiencing this issue?

 

[milhous]

Clone system to any external and boot from it. Even a SATA SSD in a USB enclosure. Then can also run disk tests for internal system drive to see if it can be triggered at all.

In that same vein, is there a mix of people using FileVault and not using FileVault experiencing this issue?

I still hear the whines before and after enabling FileVault. The first week of having the machine, I was so distraught from the noises that it was left unconfigured for a whole week, running stock without restoring from a Time Machine backup. I've since performed the migration and enabled FileVault, no difference.

 

[Donnation]

I don't get it unless this isn't universal for all of them buy I absolutely do not have this issue. I've tried scrolling through photos, music, ran disk tests, and nothing. I'm hoping it doesn't show up but it should give some hope that it does not affect all of them. Either that or I am going deaf and just don't know it yet.

 

[milhous]

Just had a great idea. The MBP 16 touts a Studio‑quality three-mic array with high signal-to-noise ratio and directional beamforming. So let's put these awesome features to good use, and skip recording from the iPhone entirely.

Here's another clip, recorded by the MBP 16 itself. Download and take off the .pdf extension to listen. Here's the timeline:

0:01: I'm right-clicking on iMovie.
0:02-0:03: I click Duplicate to make a copy of iMovie.
0:08-end of clip: The Finder dialog appears and begins to duplicate iMovie. The whine continues until the end of the clip, once duplication has completed.
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I don't get it unless this isn't universal for all of them buy I absolutely do not have this issue. I've tried scrolling through photos, music, ran disk tests, and nothing. I'm hoping it doesn't show up but it should give some hope that it does not affect all of them. Either that or I am going deaf and just don't know it yet.

Take a look at the YouTube video in post #46. That's the type of sound to be looking for. Or try what I just did by duplicating iMovie and listen. If you're not able to hear the whine in that YouTube video, then it's unlikely you'll hear it from the system.

 

[Zoraka]

I mostly hear it when playing YouTube video's. And it's more pronounced while using Safari compared to Chrome. And also quite loud at the selection screen when you can select to boot windows or osx (bootcamp).

 

[-narcan-]

Think I hear it when running Geekbench, sounds like an old mechanical HDD seeking.

 

[randomgeeza]

I've got it quite bad. i9 32G 1TB 8G GPU option. You can definitely hear it when you Option boot. My unit screams. And the SSD sounds like a old HD when writing, which I kinda like. It reminds me of days gone past. But, I don't expect it from such an expensive machine. Needless to say, I have ordered another unit and will compare them when it arrives. Whichever unit is quieter stays, with the louder one going back.

I've also got the popping speakers (YouTube), diminish screen, yellow tint (when compared to my 2017 unit) but it's not really noticeable on its own, and some very slight light bleed top of the screen...???

Aside from that it's in mint condition... go figure!

 

[Krevnik]

So, I've come up with a sure-fire way to reproduce the coil whine sound on my MBP:

Scroll through my music library on the Music app. It works every time. The sound lasts as long as I scroll, when I stop, the sound stops. I'll see if I can record it somehow.

Anyone else able to hear the sound this way?

I should note that there is also a sound made when I scroll through the library on my 2016 MBP. It's just much quieter and I really have to put my ear up to the computer to hear it. But it's there.

That sounds like coil whine... very similar to what I can get from my eGPU in Affinity Photo.

I am not surprised. One power supply for the whole system, there’s probably multiple ways to make the coil whine audible.

 

[zainiak]

I just opened my new 16 inch up and have the exact same issue when scrolling through my Apple Music library. It's almost funny how well that reproduces it. I haven't decided what I'm gonna do yet. I really like this laptop so I might just deal with it and hope it goes away. It's a pita to swap these things out, esp when I have a trade in to send back.

BTO config: 2.3 i9, 1TB, 32GB RAM, 8GB 5500M

Edit: my 2016 model does not make any noise.