To people with 13 inch 2012 MacBook Pro! :)

[mslide]

Originally Posted by SimenD

i've always thought that macs were completely silent

If there's a spinning fan inside it, it can never be silent. Macs are no exception.

[el-John-o]

Mid 2012 MacBook Pro and that's actually one of my FAVORITE things.

The hard disk is actually louder than anything, but I run an SSD. It is SILENT in a quiet room. Unless of course you're doing intense stuff.

I made a quick video for you. I've been using it for a couple hours of basic web browsing and stuff, I took it back into the quietest room in my house, laid it on it's side (so that I could bring the camera/mic up real close to the exhaust port), and at the beginning of the video you hear me snap my finger three times as a 'sound reference'.

The only noise you can hear is actually feedback from the iPhones microphone, this thing is as quiet as my iPad unless you're 'under load'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iikaKuZqB0

Originally Posted by mslide

If there's a spinning fan inside it, it can never be silent. Macs are no exception.

Okay, I guess not 'technically', high end mic attached to a sound level / decibal meter, in a very very quiet environment, could probably detect a difference. But my human ears and many other human ears cannot tell the machine is on even in a very quiet room.

Mine only had the spinning HDD in it for about 10 minutes, but before installing the SSD (which I bought along with it) I booted it up. It spun up and made more noise than the fan.

Even when gaming or doing more intense stuff, where in fact the fans are noticeable, it's quieter than my old Windows PC at idle.

Originally Posted by SimenD

The noise really annoys me, and i have no idea why it makes so much noise...
This is my first mac ever, and i've always thought that macs were completely silent, bur its not. I just dont know if that noise is normal. Some people says its normal, others dont..

The SSD will make a world of difference. Not only will it perform better, but it'll be much quieter AND you'll get a boost in battery life.

Also, if you have a disc in the optical drive, it's likely spinning and making noise as well.

In this next video, I have the STOCK MacBook Pro hard drive inside an enclosure, running via USB. At the end of the video, I unplug it. It's not super loud, but you should get an idea for the DIFFERENCE in noise between the drive being on, and being off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ck4ga__azpk

Another thing you can do is download an app called 'SMC Fan control' to view the temp and RPM of your fan. When you notice it being noisy, note those numbers. If the fan is spooling up and the temp is getting hot, then whatever your doing is heating up the laptop so being perfectly silent is not going to be an option. BUT, you can check certain things, like making sure the 'hinge' area (which is where the heat exhausts) is free and clear, and clean.

Also, pay close attention to the video, because it doesn't SEEM like it's getting quieter because the microphone 'noise' comes back when the noise from the hard disk subsides. But if you listen you should be able to distinguish the difference and realize how quiet it really is. (Wish I had a better mic setup to record this, but I don't. Just my iPhone!)

[Blondie :)]

Originally Posted by SimenD

My macbook is only about 2 weeks old, and it's running at 2000 rpm..
Maybe it's the HHD which is making the noise.

I got my HDD replaced not long ago. It's definitely a lot noisier than my old drive. Maybe that's it.

[SimenD]

Tanks to everyone for your responses.
I put my ear to my mac, and om 80% sure that tre noise comes from the right side of my mac, not the fans... So it's probably th HHD thats making the noise.
Om going to buy the samsung 840x Pro SSD, and see how that works

[SimenD]

*NEW UPDATE*
It's definitely the HDD that's noisy... I opened up my mac, and then turned it on and i'm 120% sure that the noise come from the HHD. The fan were completely silent. It's a toshiba hdd2l13, if anyone knows if there is some way to remove or fix the noise...

Thx

[snaky69]

Originally Posted by SimenD

*NEW UPDATE*
It's definitely the HDD that's noisy... I opened up my mac, and then turned it on and i'm 120% sure that the noise come from the HHD. The fan were completely silent. It's a toshiba hdd2l13, if anyone knows if there is some way to remove or fix the noise...

Thx

No, there isn't. Apart from moving away from spinning platter hard drives and getting a SSD, which has no moving parts that could emit noise.

[el-John-o]

Originally Posted by SimenD

*NEW UPDATE*
It's definitely the HDD that's noisy... I opened up my mac, and then turned it on and i'm 120% sure that the noise come from the HHD. The fan were completely silent. It's a toshiba hdd2l13, if anyone knows if there is some way to remove or fix the noise...

Thx

Hard drives are noisy. You have a little spinning electric motor and a tiny little arm flicking back and forth.

The only way to make it quiet, is to replace it with an SSD. There are some HDD's quieter than others, but you'll go crazy trying to find one and likely you won't be satisfied. If you want a SILENT computer, you'll need an SSD. The performance increase will be amazing too.

If that's out of the question, then you'll just have to live with the noise. You can't wrap the drive in anything to make it quiet, because then it'll overheat!

How much space do you use (right click 'Macintosh HD' and click 'get info')? You can get a 256GB SSD for around $200. It's a little pricey, yes, but it will make your machine silent. It'll also improve the battery life, AND the overall performance. You may have to get rid of some stuff, or move it onto an external drive, but it'll be worth it. (If you can spring it, $400 will get you a 512GB SSD which will give you just a smidge more storage than you had before). You can then get an enclosure ($15) for your factory hard drive, like the one I showed you, and you can use your existing hard drive to store pictures, apps you don't use much, music, etc.

-John

[SimenD]

Originally Posted by el-John-o

Hard drives are noisy. You have a little spinning electric motor and a tiny little arm flicking back and forth.

The only way to make it quiet, is to replace it with an SSD. There are some HDD's quieter than others, but you'll go crazy trying to find one and likely you won't be satisfied. If you want a SILENT computer, you'll need an SSD. The performance increase will be amazing too.

If that's out of the question, then you'll just have to live with the noise. You can't wrap the drive in anything to make it quiet, because then it'll overheat!

How much space do you use (right click 'Macintosh HD' and click 'get info')? You can get a 256GB SSD for around $200. It's a little pricey, yes, but it will make your machine silent. It'll also improve the battery life, AND the overall performance. You may have to get rid of some stuff, or move it onto an external drive, but it'll be worth it. (If you can spring it, $400 will get you a 512GB SSD which will give you just a smidge more storage than you had before). You can then get an enclosure ($15) for your factory hard drive, like the one I showed you, and you can use your existing hard drive to store pictures, apps you don't use much, music, etc.

-John

Do you recomend any SSD's?... Theres so many . I don't need more than 256gb, and ye... I just want it to be silent
Btw... Thanks for your responses... Helped me alot!

[el-John-o]

Originally Posted by SimenD

Do you recomend any SSD's?... Theres so many . I don't need more than 256gb, and ye... I just want it to be silent
Btw... Thanks for your responses... Helped me alot!

They are pretty much all good. I like the Crucial M4 SSD's for two reasons, one; they are pretty reasonable price wise, and two; they are one of the only brands that allow you to update the firmware on a Mac, most others you can only update the firmware on Windows.

So here's a 256GB Crucial M4:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820148443

Other popular brands are OCZ and Samsung. The OCZ will run you about $220 and the Samsung about $250. The Samsung is a smidge faster, so if that's worth $50 to you then go for it! But you can't update it with your Mac.

Also, this one here;

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820148449

Is the same as above, but it includes a 'kit' to make switching easier. Basically, you plug the SSD into it, then plug it into your Macbook, and use disk utility to copy the contents of your drive over to the SSD. Then just swap the drives and it boots up like you'd expect! No need to re-install your OS or use time machine or anything.



Here's an enclosure you can pick up as well, and you can put your old hard drive in there. Then you can use it as a big external drive, or a time machine drive, something like that. For 12 bucks, no sense letting the old drive go to waste right?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817121087

Whatever enclosure you end up with, make sure it's USB 3.0. That'll let you take advantage of the full speed. Don't worry about thunderbolt enclosures, they are very expensive and USB 3.0 is faster than that 5400rpm hard drive. (So basically, when using a single 5400rpm platter drive like this, there won't be any difference in speed between USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt, the drive itself is just too slow)

By the way you'll really love the performance increase. With Crucial M4's my MBP boots up in 10 seconds (from power button to desktop), and I can open applications like Photoshop CS6 in around 1 second. Apps like Safari or iTunes simply pop up the milisecond you click on them.

[dylin]

Odd. i dont hear much. Is it your fan or the HDD?

[b0fh666]

[QUOTE=snaky69;16675831]Minimum fan speed is 2000rpm for all macbook pros. Reset your SMC if yours are going faster than that on a cold boot.[COLOR="#808080"]

ok... all I can tell ya it was like this since new, even SMC Fan control slider is set to a minimum of '3392' rpm (no idea why this number), and 10 SMC resets never changed it.

but, as you said it should be 2000... so I went out and found the 'Fan control' preference pane made for older MPBs (website says 2006, what was OSX back then, tiger?), and it 'sort of' works on my 2012 with ML... can read fan speed and set base speed on the SMC, just not read temperature. oddly, to have it idling at 2000 RPM I need to set base at 1900, and it can even set it lower if i want to... did not try that yet.

been running like this for a few days, temps are a bit higher (80-ish with fusion running, lower otherwise), no problems so far and it is definitely quieter.

fired up WOW and the fan spins up to 6200 like it should... so I guess it is all good.

anyway, question remains for other 13" mid-2012 with i7 (2.9 GHz), is your base fan speed 2000 or higher like mine?

cheers

[el-John-o]

[QUOTE=b0fh666;16686628]

Originally Posted by snaky69

Minimum fan speed is 2000rpm for all macbook pros. Reset your SMC if yours are going faster than that on a cold boot.[COLOR="#808080"]

ok... all I can tell ya it was like this since new, even SMC Fan control slider is set to a minimum of '3392' rpm (no idea why this number), and 10 SMC resets never changed it.

but, as you said it should be 2000... so I went out and found the 'Fan control' preference pane made for older MPBs (website says 2006, what was OSX back then, tiger?), and it 'sort of' works on my 2012 with ML... can read fan speed and set base speed on the SMC, just not read temperature. oddly, to have it idling at 2000 RPM I need to set base at 1900, and it can even set it lower if i want to... did not try that yet.

been running like this for a few days, temps are a bit higher (80-ish with fusion running, lower otherwise), no problems so far and it is definitely quieter.

fired up WOW and the fan spins up to 6200 like it should... so I guess it is all good.

anyway, question remains for other 13" mid-2012 with i7 (2.9 GHz), is your base fan speed 2000 or higher like mine?

cheers

My 2012 MBP (i5, not i7, but it has the same fan so in theory, base speed would be similar) 'idles' at a minimum speed of 1995, so, for all intended purposes... 2000 rpms.

[b0fh666]

my wife has the i5, indeed it is like yours... I always tought the i7 was different...

[el-John-o]

Originally Posted by b0fh666

my wife has the i5, indeed it is like yours... I always tought the i7 was different...

Could be, I don't know. Just my layman, not-an-Apple-engineeer mind things that a 13" MacBook Pro is a 13" MacBook Pro, and since the fan speeds are based on temperature ANYWAY, I would think the lowest fan speed would be the same across the line no matter what the configuration, though a faster CPU might spend less time at the baseline RPM and more time 'revved up' a smidge.

[Hetalia]

Only when I'm starting it up or loading a dvd or disc other than that nope.

[A Hebrew]

I have yet to hear the fans on my 13".

[Blue Sun]

Originally Posted by SimenD

The noise really annoys me, and i have no idea why it makes so much noise...
This is my first mac ever, and i've always thought that macs were completely silent, bur its not. I just dont know if that noise is normal. Some people says its normal, others dont..

It's not your MBP fans, it's the sound of your hard drive. I experienced the same thing in my MBP, until I got an SSD. Now it is 100% dead silent during regular use.

[Supa29]

My MacBook Pro is always in my room. So, nope no noise at all.

[zybersniper]

I used a software to change the fan speed to high speed, and then I can hear the fan. And the fan isn't really annoying at all even if I can hear it. It's not like the high pitched noise that comes from outer PCs I've had. Just sounds of the wind going in.

[SimenD]

Should i go for det 126gb crucial m4 SSD, or should i go for the 126gb samsung 840 Pro?

[zybersniper]

Originally Posted by SimenD

Should i go for det 126gb crucial m4 SSD, or should i go for the 126gb samsung 840 Pro?

Depends. If you want to take risks but have the fastest SSD, go for the Samsung. If you want a proven track record, then the M4.

[SimenD]

I just wan't what's easiest to setup >.<

[snaky69]

Originally Posted by SimenD

I just wan't what's easiest to setup >.<

They're no different setup wise. It's just like a regular old hard drive.

[Kabe Ayofe]

i can hear it, but it's very quiet.

[zybersniper]

Originally Posted by SimenD

I just wan't what's easiest to setup >.<

The easiest ones come with a USB to SATA kit that allows you to clone your existing HDD to the SSD so you can boot up to your current system with everything intact. I believe OCZ makes the kit as a separate accessory but make sure its Mac compatible as I believe the software to clone the SSD has to run BEFORE boot up.