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2018 Mac Mini coil whine

jean512 said:
Got my Mac mini replacement today, and it has coil whine too...
i dunno what to do, replace it one more time ? try a different build ? go for a Hackintosh ?
Click to expand...

Would the size of the SSD make a difference? I went big and got the 1TB and don't hear a sound. I work usually at night when everyone is asleep, and I record music, so the house is quiet and the Mini is virtually silent. It has been - for all intents and purposes, dead silent. If I put my ear, literally to the machine, when the house is dead silent, I can barely hear what sounds like a mouse in the distance, playing cards. Tiny little scratching, intermittent sounds - as soon as I move 6 inches away, silence.

I have the i7, and I have tried to push this machine to get it to get hot and to get the fan spinning, and it has been so stable, and quiet and hasn't gotten hot either. So far I am really happy with it and actually glad I didn't go the iMac route this time around.
 
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I wonder why this was not caught in testing?
Surely Apple does a 90 day burn in on the first production runs?
Seems like someone failed to do their job.
I can afford to wait a year.

Of course there's always the component suppliers who switch specs on you when you go from ordering a thousand widgets to ordering two million.
 
I just noticed that my 2016 4K iMac with fusion drive makes a similar short screechy noise occasionally. Not HDD nose. Sounds like the same thing reported here. I'd never thought anything of it...it is very brief and infrequent. Does the 2018 mini make this noise all the time?
 
just turned of everything and noticed my 2012 MBA with a Toshiba 128gb does this too. never heard it in 6 years, lol.
guess I'll be ok with the new mini, unless it's considerably louder
 
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deviant said:
just turned of everything and noticed my 2012 MBA with a Toshiba 128gb does this too. never heard it in 6 years, lol.
guess I'll be ok with the new mini, unless it's considerably louder
Click to expand...

Mine was clearly audible with the Mini on my desk so I would have needed to relocate it if it bothered me. I just had enough different things bothering me that it added up to a return.

I should also mention (if I didn't already) that I have an 8 bay Synology NAS on my desk and it's loaded with 8TB WD Red drives. The Mini was clearly audible in this setting.

That being said, it won't bother some people. It's not ear splitting or anything.
 
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They make 1/8" foam pad that you can buy at craft stores. Putting that down as a base might help.
 
jean512 said:
foam pad ? for what ?
Click to expand...
5X8" and larger sheets. I've no idea what it's for. Apparently you cut it up into dragonflies and stuff in order to be creative.
It feels like a closed cell foam, so it's a bit stiff, easily cut but will muffle some vibrations. If I didn't already have a nice collection of vibration damping feet, I'd buy some to cut into little squares to stick on the bottom of hard drives, motors etc.
Open cell foam is usually better for damping chassis better, but it tends to crush down and become useless after a while.
 
Partron22 said:
5X8" and larger sheets. I've no idea what it's for. Apparently you cut it up into dragonflies and stuff in order to be creative.
It feels like a closed cell foam, so it's a bit stiff, easily cut but will muffle some vibrations. If I didn't already have a nice collection of vibration damping feet, I'd buy some to cut into little squares to stick on the bottom of hard drives, motors etc.
Open cell foam is usually better for damping chassis better, but it tends to crush down and become useless after a while.
Click to expand...
that won't help coil whine, its not a vibration that move the whole computer
 
BTW I got a 256Go Toshiba SSD pci which I connect to a computer with a USB cable.
Of course it has coil whine and I tried to press my finger on it but the sound of the coil whine was exactly the same. No less noise and no different noise (mean different frequency).
So I guess even with foam on it or heatsink there is no chance to reduce the noise.
 
Ploki said:
:Dpickup the computer or push against it.
Click to expand...
As far as I see, those facts have not yet been mentioned in this thread. So the sound is not carrying over to the case. To heck with foam. What happens if you twist your wrist back and forth while holding the computer? Did Apple put a couple components closer together than they should have or is it a single part causing the noise? The only recording I've heard sounds more like an HDD head crash than a whine.
 
Partron22 said:
As far as I see, those facts have not yet been mentioned in this thread. So the sound is not carrying over to the case. To heck with foam. What happens if you twist your wrist back and forth while holding the computer? Did Apple put a couple components closer together than they should have or is it a single part causing the noise? The only recording I've heard sounds more like an HDD head crash than a whine.
Click to expand...

yeah, but there's no HDD inside. :D
 
deviant said:
just turned of everything and noticed my 2012 MBA with a Toshiba 128gb does this too. never heard it in 6 years, lol.
guess I'll be ok with the new mini, unless it's considerably louder
Click to expand...


This is good news as it appears the noise does not mean the ssd will die quickly. So the real question is how many are like this a bit noisy but they work after 6 years of use.
 
Ploki said:
yeah, but there's no HDD inside. :D
Click to expand...
Sure. But what else makes a noise like an HDD?
Coils tend to make continuous whines, not clunks and such.
Doesn't sound like any transformer I've ever turned on.
So what is it?
Assuming it's a coil is not justified.:D
 
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Partron22 said:
Sure. But what else makes a noise like an HDD?
Coils tend to make continuous whines, not clunks and such.
Doesn't sound like any transformer I've ever turned on.
So what is it?
Assuming it's a coil is not justified.:D
Click to expand...


it is the coil people have filmed toshiba removable nvme m.2 and that coil whines.
At least we have 1 statement that a 2012 still works in 2018
 
I received my Mini today (i7, 512GB, 8GB RAM, standard ethernet), and it has the so called whine, although in my case, it is so faint that I can't hardly hear it unless I put my ear next to the Mac, and I hear very well and pay attention to any noise around me, so it is not a case of "I don't hear it so it is not there", no, it is there but (at least from my testing) it doesn't bother me.

In fact, the Mini is so silent I am surprised that I considered my current (until now) Mac Mini 2012, a silent Mac.

Unless it can become more audible with time/SSD use?
 
Here is the result of my research :

I got 3 Mac mini 2018, all have coil whine.
At work we have several Toshiba laptop with Toshiba M2 SSD, I took a closer look at 5 of them and all have coil whine.
At apple store they confirmed my Mac mini has coil whine and many customers called about it.
On the web there is many thread about coil whine on Toshiba SSD.

My conclusion :

All Mac mini 2018 have coil whine because of the Toshiba SSD.
You need to be in a quiet room to hear it. People who say they don't hear coil whine it's because they are too old or don't have good ears to hear coil whine frequency.
 
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jean512 said:
Here is the result of my research :

I got 3 Mac mini 2018, all have coil whine.
At work we have several Toshiba laptop with Toshiba M2 SSD, I took a closer look at 5 of them and all have coil whine.
At apple store they confirmed my Mac mini has coil whine and many customers called about it.
On the web there is many thread about coil whine on Toshiba SSD.

My conclusion :

All Mac mini 2018 have coil whine because of the Toshiba SSD.
You need to be in a quiet room to hear it. People who say they don't hear coil whine it's because they are too old or don't have good ears to hear coil whine frequency.
Click to expand...

Good summary.

One thing that I'd add.. if you've had a video card that does coil whine at high FPS, this is considerably more subtle.
 
jean512 said:
Here is the result of my research :

I got 3 Mac mini 2018, all have coil whine.
At work we have several Toshiba laptop with Toshiba M2 SSD, I took a closer look at 5 of them and all have coil whine.
At apple store they confirmed my Mac mini has coil whine and many customers called about it.
On the web there is many thread about coil whine on Toshiba SSD.

My conclusion :

All Mac mini 2018 have coil whine because of the Toshiba SSD.
You need to be in a quiet room to hear it. People who say they don't hear coil whine it's because they are too old or don't have good ears to hear coil whine frequency.
Click to expand...
Maybe it is years of playing guitar - but I have been in music production on Macs for 10 years now, and this Coil Whine issue has really put the "whine" in this charge against the mini. Not old and I actually have a very good ear - the Coil whine is a total non-issue for me. There is no such thing as a totally silent computer, they will have faint sounds if you put your ear right on them. I record in the evening and my neighborhood gets dead silent, and my i7 is completely silent to my ears at 2 feet away. I have the 1tb SSD - and I haven't seen many people order that option, maybe that is the most silent of the options, I don't know - it is all I have to compare to. Maybe the smaller SSD's have a more pronounced coil whine?

This may effect 2%-5% of people out there - and if you are that sensitive to it, then normal background noise of life must be ear blasting. People like to complain, just a simple fact of life. Life is about compromise and if you expect perfection, outside of Olympians, good luck.
 
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dmsea1 said:
Maybe it is years of playing guitar - but I have been in music production on Macs for 10 years now, and this Coil Whine issue has really put the "whine" in this charge against the mini. Not old and I actually have a very good ear - the Coil whine is a total non-issue for me. There is no such thing as a totally silent computer, they will have faint sounds if you put your ear right on them. I record in the evening and my neighborhood gets dead silent, and my i7 is completely silent to my ears at 2 feet away. I have the 1tb SSD - and I haven't seen many people order that option, maybe that is the most silent of the options, I don't know - it is all I have to compare to. Maybe the smaller SSD's have a more pronounced coil whine?

This may effect 2%-5% of people out there - and if you are that sensitive to it, then normal background noise of life must be ear blasting. People like to complain, just a simple fact of life. Life is about compromise and if you expect perfection, outside of Olympians, good luck.
Click to expand...

I mean I didn't find it that bothersome, but I could easily hear it from 3-4 feet away. We're all different and our eyes/ears/brains all interpret things differently.
 
jean512 said:
Here is the result of my research :

I got 3 Mac mini 2018, all have coil whine.
At work we have several Toshiba laptop with Toshiba M2 SSD, I took a closer look at 5 of them and all have coil whine.
At apple store they confirmed my Mac mini has coil whine and many customers called about it.
On the web there is many thread about coil whine on Toshiba SSD.

My conclusion :

All Mac mini 2018 have coil whine because of the Toshiba SSD.
You need to be in a quiet room to hear it. People who say they don't hear coil whine it's because they are too old or don't have good ears to hear coil whine frequency.
Click to expand...
As I said in my post, I hear very well, and I am aware of any noise/detail, but for me at least, the 512GB SSD that came with my Mac does a very faint scratching sound (most call it the coil whine), which is much lower sounding than my previous HDD scratching sound when in use.

Maybe my SSD has a lower whine, or it doens't even have a coil whine and the scratching sound I hear is something else (I listened to the samples provided in this thread and it checks out to what is described, but still...).

I agree with @dmsea1 "There is no such thing as a totally silent computer", but my Mini is a lot quieter compared to the 2012 Mini that I also have, and I work in a very quiet environment, I can hear the humm from my speakers, the (actual) whine from one of my monitors. This so called coil whine of my Mini doesn't bother me for now (let's see if it worsens or not with use).
 
What I will say is, I dived head first into my MM purchase knowing about this issue.

Additionally, had I not read this thread before purchasing, I definitely would have taken it to apple.
 
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