You will find absolutely nothing for M1 though - something has changed.Same with M3.
ð m3 coil whine site:www.reddit.com - Google Search
www.google.com
M2 Whine.
ð m2 coil whine site:www.reddit.com - Google Search
www.google.com
Confirmation bias is strong when some one wants to push agenda or prove a point. There are always certain small number of devices that are prone for whining be it M3, M2 or M4. Return if you have one of those machines with whine. Apple sells millions of devices, if it was normal the blogs and media and lawyers will have a field day.
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Coil whine is the new normal
- Thread starter appleincognito
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A few years ago it became quite normal for certain graphics cards to have coil whine, and even then it wasn't in every instance of that vendor/model, it was very much a luck of the draw type situation. If you bought a 6800XT and it whined at high FPS, you were one of the unlucky ones.
Considering the number of people in this thread who have no coil whine on their M4, and the fact that M2/M3 have been shown to have coil whine, lets just say we know it exists, and there is an element of poor luck if you get an M4 exhibiting the issue to an extent that its actually an annoyance.
The fact 5 out of 5 M4's you tested are unbearably loud, perhaps you should consider buying a lottery ticket next.
Considering the number of people in this thread who have no coil whine on their M4, and the fact that M2/M3 have been shown to have coil whine, lets just say we know it exists, and there is an element of poor luck if you get an M4 exhibiting the issue to an extent that its actually an annoyance.
The fact 5 out of 5 M4's you tested are unbearably loud, perhaps you should consider buying a lottery ticket next.
There are plenty for M1. It’s like bend gate, one guy posts and every one tries to put their head to keyboard to hear minutest of the noises. Like I said if you go looking for smallest of problems you will find it.
Not sure if you ever used those Intel Macs but they were really noisy and ran hot. I will take any M series laptop when it comes to noise.
OMG, yes. Remember the butterfly keyboard days? Let's never do that again. Oh, and I haven't heard a dang thing from my M4 Mini--except the VERY quiet fans.
Compared to my Acer Predator Helios Neo 16" RTX 4060 (which is known for its quiet in "balanced" mode)? My Mini is so quiet.
Then again, given my tinnitus maybe I'll let the youngins talk this one out.
2016-2019 MBP were one of the worst laptops Apple ever made. I was so ready to move on from Macs after using my 2019 MBP, ran hot, too loud and keyboard, Touch Bar made it all worse. If M4 whine on a finless M4 is bad, my RTX 4090 under load has a whine louder than my M4 Max MBP fan. I don't have the luxury to sit in silent room given my compute needs, I just put my headset/ AirPods and work if its too noisy.
ð m4 coil whine site:www.reddit.com - Google Search
www.google.com
Which does not prove the issue is as universal as you claim. Sorry, but extrapolating your personal experience to the entirety of the M4 Mac install base is disingenuous at best.
This is what I tried (all Apple refurbished):
I need a new Mac at this point and I'm not sure what to get. I would love a silent machine 90% of the time if possible, knowing that I won't be pushing it all the time.
@appleincognito any thoughts?
- Mac mini with M4 Pro 14/20 — silent, but coil whine occurs under extreme GPU load (LLMs)
- 14-inch MacBook Pro with M4 Pro 14/20 — random coil whine and happens under normal GPU load. There was also some random clicking, which has been reported on other devices on Reddit
- 14-inch MacBook Pro with M4 — silent, but a small amount of coil whine occurs under extreme GPU load (LLMs)
I need a new Mac at this point and I'm not sure what to get. I would love a silent machine 90% of the time if possible, knowing that I won't be pushing it all the time.
@appleincognito any thoughts?
My thoughts remain the same that all m4 series have varying degree of coil whine.
Most of the time it won’t be a constant sound. For example with the m4 air, it’s extremely shrill and high pitched when you first run the command in the OP, but eventually it goes away as the chip throttles and heat builds up.
In real life, it can still be annoying though. For example when I open certain heavier apps on my m4 air, I can briefly hear the frequency come and go. Or if I copy a large file to the Mac SSD, same thing.
I think we’ll have to learn to live with it and understand it’s a trade off they’ve made with this new series.
I’m not saying m4 units without coil whine don’t exist, just that they are most definitely the minority, and most (if not all) have coil whine to a degree or rate not experienced on earlier series.
That sounds rather depressing. All m4 exhibit some form of coil whine. Sorry you are experiencing this!
I have experienced this only on gaming laptops with the GPU not the CPU. Since M4 has an integrated GPU it would be the only thing making the coil whine. I am not sure if there was a major redesign of the GPU in the m4? Coil whine from a GPU once you hear it is one of those things you can't un-hear and drives you crazy afterwards.
I would think if this is a widespread issue then more people will start to report about it. I doubt anyone who buys an m4 Air wants to hear any noise at all and I would return mine in a heartbeat if I heard that.
Guess we will just have to wait and see. What I would say is that you are still making a lot of assumptions and projections based on your personal experience. Maybe there is an issue and maybe there isn't. All you can say is that in the devices you tested with m4 you experienced coil whine. It could be a manufacturing issue they will get sorted out?
I would just return and wait a month or so and see if you experience the same thing. Maybe save some money and buy an M2 until m5 or m6 come out??
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I’ll probably never hear coil whine. I have tinnitus. So I hear a presumably much louder sound day and night even when I’m away from my MacBook.
Suuuuure you heard something move in your iPhone. The only significant coils in the iPhone are the ones in the Taptic Engine. Unless your phone also vibrates I assume you did in fact not hear any coil whining coming from your iPhone 7, but I'd love to be proven wrong.
What is that command and how do I turn it back off? Definitely asking for a friend not my curious self.
Edit: quitting the terminal does the trick, or so I've heard
Edit: quitting the terminal does the trick, or so I've heard
I think it's fair to say that if this affected every M4 we'd be seeing tons of threads on this.
Delete the default terminal app or any third party command line utilities, if you are bothered by whine. Or just use the laptop you bought it for and test if there is too much noise or whine.
Is it possible that you have tinnitus? I do, and it sounds exactly like coil whine.
No it was actually well documented with the iPhone 7 series at the time, the chips in those exhibited coil whine also.
I think I can tell the difference between coil whine and physical movement like the Taptic Engine or focus motor in the camera. In fact, while writing this reply, I am trying to put my ear to the back of the iPhone 16, right under the camera bump, an area which is the location of most chips, and I can hear some sounds, especially when I try to scroll or tap the screen at the same time.
Maybe not the best idea to tell them this might occur with most devices if you are extremely close to them (which is fine, physics are a thing).
There is some switching noise in most electronics if you listen carefully enough.
An Obsessive compulsive personality that goes looking for these issues by putting themselves in a situation where they try to hear the “problem” without understanding what’s happening and assuming there are defects is the real problem, because unless something is pretty wrong (e.g. M1 studio exhaust design causing resonance), it isn’t worth worrying about or even trying to find.
Coil whine can exist in actual power coils but for SMD components and high clock electronics it’s much more likely resonant frequencies and switching noise, such as with most current-gen SSDs performing heavy writes.
It’s the human behavior that should change here, because it’s not a healthy way to live. Nobody is putting their head against a laptop in use, and people aren’t using these in anechoic chambers, which Apple does during development and validation to test things from noise to signal strength etc.
This is an overly sensitive person compulsively trying to find a problem because they are compelled to, again see the extensive post history about everything from slight gaps in a phone frame and, the most unsurprising thing, a post about using a “special” iPhone case to block EMI. Let that one sink in for a minute, because you’re not going to get a good cell signal through something that doesn’t let EMI pass, and the exposure limits are very well studied, regulated, and tested both by Apple and third parties.
Can’t be a fun way to live. I really meant what I wrote to help, looking for problems will find them. Not knowing it exists is much better for people who are wired that way.
If you let it go unchecked forever it just gets worse and worse. I have had some experience with people who fell into that spiral.
Now, maybe the M4 air specifically does have something wrong, I haven’t tried one in person, but given the lack of many other reports as well as taking context into account I very much doubt it, and I certainly wouldn’t make such a bold claim that “coil whine is the new normal”.
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