1 month old M1 Air: "High Pitched Sound" (even tho no fan) +++ Screen Flicker?

[im_to_hyper]

Hey there! I got an M1 Air from a dear friend for Christmas. Whenever the laptop is under load there will be a "burst" of a high pitched sound and when under heavier loads the sound is endlessly sustained.

Additionally in low light situations when the laptop is at about 5-6 bars of brightness or less, the screen almost "warbles" but not quite *flickers*. It is off-putting enough to make me a bit nauseated and my migraine frequency has increased: an issue I have not had with any other Apple display.

Is this something unique to the Airs with more budget-oriented parts? Or is this something the higher end machines have too?
.....
Or is this just my specific model and my little neurological issues and hypersensitivity mean that I am hearing what are just... "normal operation noises" magically of a 5nm CPU and a cheaper display?

Is is something AppleCare+ can handle, or am I on my own unless I get my medical records in along with the claim?

Its driving me nuts! Look at my history with MR. For the first time in like 18 years I'm complaining. Aribitrary product criticism is not something I take lightly, but I have to know if another Air will fix this... or if I have to spend double on a 14" Pro for sweet, sweet silence and gloriously stable images/lighting.

EDIT: To clarify: I'm in my 30s. Hearing what sounds like a CRT TV left on with the cable box shut off from across the house in the late 90s/early 2000s is NOT what I want my ultralight laptop to sound like.

 

[3460169]

Disclaimer: I don't have an M1 Air; I actually tried to order one and Apple botched that order in curious ways and it wound up being canceled. I took the opportunity to wait for the M2. (I have a 2019 MBP now as my daily-driver and was looking at an Air for when I travel for work. Not a huge need yet.)

Regarding the flicker, I believe the Air is using an LED-backlit IPS (in-plane switching) panel. I'm no expert but I believe the brightness is controlled by PWM (pulse width modulation) such that that LEDs are basically flipped on and off at some frequency. The lower the brightness the "longer" they are "off". This may be an oversimplification but I think it's the gist of it. It's possible you're more sensitive to this and I don't think you're alone in this regard. Check this reddit link which may be of some help for you:

https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookair/comments/ngbh1p

I don't know that replacing the Air would address the "flicker" issue, if it's inherent to the display panel tech and/or you're hypersensitive to the effects. May be worth checking with the Apple Store folks, if you have access to one, regardless.

The high-pitched sound thing may be "coil whine". It's common in electronics and another one of those things that some people are more sensitive to than others. Poke around on the net for what coil whine is about; replacing the machine likely won't address this either. I get faint whine on my own MBP (nearly maxed out spec-wise btw) under load and even more ridiculously the machine has a distinct buzz sound from time to time when I simply move the external wired mouse I use. (This is likely attributed to a electrical grounding issue in the mouse itself.)

Here's a noteworthy post right here in MR about M1 coil whine and low brightness:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/whistling-sound-from-macbook-air-m1-at-low-brightness.2275955/

 

[ghanwani]

Not sure about the whine as I never heard anything.

I got really bad eye strain and headaches using the M1 Air. I don’t know what the issue is, but given the high frequency it’s unlikely PWM. There’s apparently another 60Hz flicker and then there’s temporal dithering which are 2 additional possible culprits. I don’t have experience with the new pros, but I did have the same problem with the 13” M1 MBP.