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2018 Mac Mini coil whine

russell_314 said:
Are you sure the sound isn't coming from the built in speaker because of some glitch?
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Good point. Makes you wonder how many of these reports are truly coil-whine and how many are just EMI/EMF interference on the audio speaker.

While not really OK either, it is more of a common computer problem. And of course, the fix is totally different.
 
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russell_314 said:
No audio apps. I wonder how only audio apps would cause this strain but not other programs. Are you sure the sound isn't coming from the built in speaker because of some glitch?
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I thought about a speaker glitch too at first.
The built in speaker is located right behind the USB ports.
When I listen closely (my ear stuck to the frame) I can tell the sound is precisely coming from where the CPU is located. I can surly say it is in this 2 inches radius area cause further it fades away. My only guess so far is that audio production softwares use CPU a way it behaves really differently, like cycling operations that we can hear in this very case with the 2018 mini design. Otherwise it works great, much better than the other ones I got first.
 
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Jean Du said:
I thought about a speaker glitch too at first.
The built in speaker is located right behind the USB ports.
When I listen closely (my ear stuck to the frame) I can tell the sound is precisely coming from where the CPU is located. I can surly say it is in this 2 inches radius area cause further it fades away. My only guess so far is that audio production softwares use CPU a way it behaves really differently, like cycling operations that we can hear in this very case with the 2018 mini design. Otherwise it works great, much better than the other ones I got first.
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Do you know any audio software that has a free trial or free that's causing your mini to make noise? I would like to test and see if it does the same on mine.
 
russell_314 said:
Do you know any audio software that has a free trial or free that's causing your mini to make noise? I would like to test and see if it does the same on mine.
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https://www.ableton.com/en/trial/

Once you installed it, go to preferences in the software menu/ audio tab / adjust buffer size to 32 and sample rate to 48000Hz then listen closely, you should hear it.
I know it’s very specific and that is why it doesn’t bother me that much
 
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russell_314 said:
I did that. It makes the whine when you export or just play something?
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It does as soon as you open the app. But you have to almost stuck your ear on it. The noise goes bigger as soon as you load more plugins and instruments.
I’d say I can hear it a feet away when the cpu reaches above 25% usage.
Otherwise it is almost silent.
And to make it weirder, I realized yesterday that if I open Safari while ableton is open, the noise stops . Maybe another app running behind changes the cpu operations pattern or somewhat. I’m loosing it a bit there ...
Where are you living and when did you buy yours ? I wonder if the power voltage could have something to do with it
 
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palebluedot said:
confirmed coil whine is expected/do not recommend replacing it
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Does giving it a good hard whack on the side fix it?

Presumably when Apple says "do not recommend replacing" what they mean is that they won't swap out a noisy machine for free, even during the first month.
 
Jean Du said:
It does as soon as you open the app. But you have to almost stuck your ear on it. The noise goes bigger as soon as you load more plugins and instruments.
I’d say I can hear it a feet away when the cpu reaches above 25% usage.
Otherwise it is almost silent.
And to make it weirder, I realized yesterday that if I open Safari while ableton is open, the noise stops . Maybe another app running behind changes the cpu operations pattern or somewhat. I’m loosing it a bit there ...
Where are you living and when did you buy yours ? I wonder if the power voltage could have something to do with it
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I heard the noise and it sounds about like it does when I play some games. I was able to hear it with my ear about an inch away. I'm in the USA so it's 120V. I would think that would only effect the power supply. I put my ear to the bottom of my Asus laptop and I can hear a similar noise but not as clear. Maybe it's because of the plastic case vs the mini's metal. You people have me holding computers against my ear like a seashell... I'm soon to be locked up in the crazy house lol.
 
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mac heads like to whine more than any thing or one !!!
coil whine is a modern technology issue NOT a mac issue

it is known to sometimes go down with some short time use ?

bummer it happens but its the time we live in till they figure out how to make things without it

have had lots of my computers since I am 55 the fact we have computers so quiet we can hear coil whine over other components is AWESOME !!!! cause even ten years ago that would have been near impossible !!! 🙂

who owned a G5 hahahahahahahah you could live near a airport and when doing work it would have drown out the jets landing and taking off !!!! those who had one know I am not joking to 🙂 hahahahahahha


maybe its my laid back island attitude 🙂 no worries about tings like dat mon !!!!
 
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No "whine" here on 2 new 2018 Mac Minis. Neither has 512GB and we use external speakers.

My wife, whose hearing has been tested and is better than normal (we were told she has the hearing of a wolf) would hear anything like that and would not accept it.
 
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I had a WD HDD plugged in for TM, that thing always made some type of noise with the spinning disk. It seemed to spin almost all the time.

I recently replaced it with a Crucial MX500 1TB and a Cable Matters USB3.1 Type-C Gen 2 External Sata SSD Enclosure. Now all I can hear is the clock on the shelf ticking.
 
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my hearing 🙂 55 that against me
around a lot of gun fire early on ! HUH WHAT WAS THAT YOU SAID !!!!
then got into DJ acid house and stuff with insane vol levels in the mid to late 80s

and yeah when your ears were bleeding cause you were around stuff so loud you realize I think something is wrong 🙂
russell_314 said:
Maybe the whining is coming from a loose nut behind the keyboard?

Sorry I had too LOL. It's a spin off of a car joke
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kinda like the "ID 10 T" errors 🙂
 
adamk77 said:
lol @Honumaui

I have 2 young children, and I often work from home. My office is in the basement and no one would say that I am exaggerating when I say that it's like an earthquake with people screaming as they run around yelling at the top of their lungs.

I wish I was joking, but I wear earmuffs for guns. Even then it doesn't completely silence the noise.
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Ha! My little G's room is right above my office and sometimes I think she must be sneaking an elephant upstairs ...
 
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adamk77 said:
lol @Honumaui

I have 2 young children, and I often work from home. My office is in the basement and no one would say that I am exaggerating when I say that it's like an earthquake with people screaming as they run around yelling at the top of their lungs.

I wish I was joking, but I wear earmuffs for guns. Even then it doesn't completely silence the noise.

So I'll see your gun fire, DJ'ing and raise you two little kids 🙂
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ahahah I have howard leight for shooting these days 🙂

I got myself some sennheiser pcx550 or something model for the noise just got them this month wish I bought them years ago
I have some other nice headphones but wanted the noise cancelation OH MAN so nice 10 and 14 year old buy my 10 year old is a big gamer so am I so ? but he is in the outer office with me all day next to me playing with his friends 🙂 hahahahahha I can so relate !!!

we have another office where wife is and I was saying maybe we can move one of the other gaming computers back in 🙂 i got "THE LOOK" hahahahahahhaha I am sure you can relate

edit to say when I game with my friends my wife often says why do you play when you are so loud and complain so much 🙂 hahahahahaha I know where my boy gets it from !!! AHHHHH THAT DUDE IS SO LAGGY !!! etc..
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D.T. said:
Ha! My little G's room is right above my office and sometimes I think she must be sneaking an elephant upstairs ...
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she is !!! you just can't see them 🙂 hahahaha

I must say though Kids are the best to make you laugh at life !!!! and realize all these computer things we talk about agree or disagree about is NOTHING 🙂 hahahahaha


OH one more thing funny gaming PC to the left of me and to the right I have a TV for the playstation kinda in my studio shooting area so when he gets off one to the other it just goes from my left ear to my right 🙂 so at least I get balanced noise 🙂
 
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My third replacement Mini has worse coil whine than the first two. Sounds like a dot matrix printer even at idle. I’m giving up though. This is obviously a common enough issue on a lot of our Minis (excluding the people who can’t hear it or have a good unit) that I don’t see the point in wasting resources on a swap. Moreover now that Apple said it is expected behavior. At least my higher quality non Apple gaming PC components are silent ^_^
 
palebluedot said:
My third replacement Mini has worse coil whine than the first two. Sounds like a dot matrix printer even at idle. I’m giving up though. This is obviously a common enough issue on a lot of our Minis (excluding the people who can’t hear it or have a good unit) that I don’t see the point in wasting resources on a swap. Moreover now that Apple said it is expected behavior. At least my higher quality non Apple gaming PC components are silent ^_^
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One month since I got mine now.
Today I can tell that the only thing I can hear is the air blowing out when fan speeds up. My mini is right under my screen before me, 2 feet away or so, couldn’t be closer.
I hear what remains of a coil whine only when I try hard to hear it (ear almost stuck and hard CPU operations)
So I can tell that I now have a coil whine issue only when I am looking for it !
Give it time and let it run and there’s a good good chance it will reduce drastically.
 
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Jean Du said:
One month since I got mine now.
Today I can tell that the only thing I can hear is the air blowing out when fan speeds up. My mini is right under my screen before me, 2 feet away or so, couldn’t be closer.
I hear what remains of a coil whine only when I try hard to hear it (ear almost stuck and hard CPU operations)
So I can tell that I now have a coil whine issue only when I am looking for it !
Give it time and let it run and there’s a good good chance it will reduce drastically.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately mine has gone the other way and gotten worse. The CPU is audible from 5 feet away when it is processing. When I scroll on websites I can hear coil whine consistent with the starting and stoping of scrolling. SSD hissing is barely audible compared to the CPU coil whine. I've since given up on the Russian roulette of QC and decided to live with it for now. Ironically the brand new super powerful gaming PC I built is a bit quieter at rest than the Mac mini is during CPU usage.
 
Just on a side note for the comments that this is not just a Mini issue, I can confirm. I have an Alienware Aurora R7, and any time I put in an M.2 drive, it makes something on the motherboard buzz like a mosquito. Same as the Mini, as CPU usage goes up (especially playing intensive games), it gets very loud. 🙁
 
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