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First review about sound... fan noise

Patrickf73 said:
I’m not sure what you’re doing to get fan noise. I use my M4 Pro Mac Mini every day, and I’ve never heard the fan. Perhaps under GPU-intensive tasks, the fan might kick in, but for those, a Mac Studio would be a better choice. For less GPU-demanding tasks like music production, I don’t think anyone would ever hear the fan.
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I've heard the fan on my M4 Pro Mini when installing an app from MacPorts. Watching the activity monitor, it looked like all 10 of the Performance cores were being utilized at the time that the fan kicked in. I don't think any of the GPU's were being used. The sound was predominately airflow, don't remember any whine from the fan blades.
 
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IvyKing said:
I've heard the fan on my M4 Pro Mini when installing an app from MacPorts. Watching the activity monitor, it looked like all 10 of the Performance cores were being utilized at the time that the fan kicked in. I don't think any of the GPU's were being used. The sound was predominately airflow, don't remember any whine from the fan blades.
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I have the 12 core Mac Mini M4 Pro, the 14 core might get hotter because of more CPU and GPU cores (as I wrote in an older comment someone had fan noise with the 14 core M4 Pro but no noise with the 12 core). The 12 core M4 Pro is very silent, even the fan of my Studio Display is louder (and no, the Studio Display fan is not loud)…
 
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Patrickf73 said:
I have the 12 core Mac Mini M4 Pro, the 14 core might get hotter because of more CPU and GPU cores (as I wrote in an older comment someone had fan noise with the 14 core M4 Pro but no noise with the 12 core). The 12 core M4 Pro is very silent, even the fan of my Studio Display is louder (and no, the Studio Display fan is not loud)…
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The degree of perceived noise varies from one person to another.
 
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SmallDane said:
I don't care what a Windows desktop does or doesn't do. I'm buying a Mac and spending a lot of money on it. So excuse me if my expectations are high.
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My expectations are high too. Like you, I have become accustomed to silent or imperceptibly quiet computing. I used to spend a lot of money jumping through my own butthole trying to quiet down x86-based computers with special fans, fanless power supplies, sound-insulated cases, etc. It's doable, but any high-load event makes those x86 systems noisy. So I choose Apple, and I choose the models known to be quiet.
 
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Admiral said:
My expectations are high too. Like you, I have become accustomed to silent or imperceptibly quiet computing. I used to spend a lot of money jumping through my own butthole trying to quiet down x86-based computers with special fans, fanless power supplies, sound-insulated cases, etc. It's doable, but any high-load event makes those x86 systems noisy. So I choose Apple, and I choose the models known to be quiet.
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OMG! We are the same! I remember my first x386 fan replacement!
 
Admiral said:
My expectations are high too. Like you, I have become accustomed to silent or imperceptibly quiet computing. I used to spend a lot of money jumping through my own butthole trying to quiet down x86-based computers with special fans, fanless power supplies, sound-insulated cases, etc. It's doable, but any high-load event makes those x86 systems noisy. So I choose Apple, and I choose the models known to be quiet.
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Sounds like the upcoming M4 Mac Studio is for you, not the Mac Mini. That's the one I'm waiting for, anyways...

People also tend to downplay (or block out) annoying issues during the "honeymoon period" with their new shiny Mac - including things like fan noise (regarding the new Mac Mini).
 
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Well that's disappointing. Bought the new M4 Pro and there is indeed quite a bit of fan noise. I can hear it starting at about 1900rpm, which is far lower than my 2018, which I could only really notice above 3000 rpm. The M4's fan activates far quicker, and keeps climbing, even when the total system power is about the same as the 2018 Intel with turbo boost off (if you've seen my last post, you'll know what I'm talking about).

Turning Macs fan control on keeps it silent (for me) at around 1700rpm. Doesn't seem to affect performance too much anyways.

Considering this is in a fairly cool room already, I have to say that I am quite disappointed by the thermals. Curiously, the exhaust doesn't even feel that hot. I wonder if there's bad thermal paste application.

I wish I could get the Studio, but I just can't justify spending another $1000 because I need more RAM.
 
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!!! said:
Well that's disappointing. Bought the new M4 Pro and there is indeed quite a bit of fan noise. I can hear it starting at about 1900rpm, which is far lower than my 2018, which I could only really notice above 3000 rpm. The M4's fan activates far quicker, and keeps climbing, even when the total system power is about the same as the 2018 Intel with turbo boost off (if you've seen my last post, you'll know what I'm talking about).

Turning Macs fan control on keeps it silent (for me) at around 1700rpm. Doesn't seem to affect performance too much anyways.

Considering this is in a fairly cool room already, I have to say that I am quite disappointed by the thermals. Curiously, the exhaust doesn't even feel that hot. I wonder if there's bad thermal paste application.

I wish I could get the Studio, but I just can't justify spending another $1000 because I need more RAM.
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What were you doing with the Mini when your fans became noisy?
Is this a common scenario for you, or were you just running stress processes for kicks?
 
Wando64 said:
What were you doing with the Mini when your fans became noisy?
Is this a common scenario for you, or were you just running stress processes for kicks?
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I regularly run FFmpeg as well as compilations that can take a while.
 
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!!! said:
Well that's disappointing. Bought the new M4 Pro and there is indeed quite a bit of fan noise. I can hear it starting at about 1900rpm, which is far lower than my 2018, which I could only really notice above 3000 rpm. The M4's fan activates far quicker, and keeps climbing, even when the total system power is about the same as the 2018 Intel with turbo boost off (if you've seen my last post, you'll know what I'm talking about).

Turning Macs fan control on keeps it silent (for me) at around 1700rpm. Doesn't seem to affect performance too much anyways.

Considering this is in a fairly cool room already, I have to say that I am quite disappointed by the thermals. Curiously, the exhaust doesn't even feel that hot. I wonder if there's bad thermal paste application.

I wish I could get the Studio, but I just can't justify spending another $1000 because I need more RAM.
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Is this the 12 or 14 CPU core version of the M4 Pro?
 
Fan noise and thermals are a problem only for M4 Pro or the issue is present also on Mac Mini M4?
 
No heat issue or sound for my base M4 Mac Mini. However I have only used it for basic tasks like browsing the web, checking my calendar, watching YouTube videos and an assignment in Pages.
 
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polee said:
No heat issue or sound for my base M4 Mac Mini. However I have only used it for basic tasks like browsing the web, checking my calendar, watching YouTube videos and an assignment in Pages.
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Expected behavior. Those task barely even use 10% of the efficiency cores and the fan only starts spinning when you're pushing the CPU/GPU over 80% with sustained activity.

mosher said:
Fan noise and thermals are a problem only for M4 Pro or the issue is present also on Mac Mini M4?
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Entirely depends on what you're doing with the machine.
 
!!! said:
I regularly run FFmpeg as well as compilations that can take a while.
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For sustained CPU-intensive workloads, even continuous encoding with ffmpeg, I can highly recommend Mac Studio. My Mac Studio with M2 Max is silent even when running for hours (or days, I suppose) at a time.
 
So what do you think, is there a difference in fan noise between 12 and 14 core versions of Mac mini m4 pro?
 
Since a lot here care about the noise from the Mac mini 4 - do any have trouble with or noticed the buzzing noise there's some talk about? From what I can here its the power supply, and the Mini even buzz low when connected to a power outlet, but otherwise shut down. Problem increase with some devices connected to the Mini mostly Screens via HDMI.

There's a thread on this forum but here is an example from a thread from apple's own forums.

M4 Mac mini - Buzzing/Vibration sound - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com discussions.apple.com

Im on the fence buying one, but can't really decide if better to wait or if this really is only a issue for a few machines.
 
de1tas said:
Since a lot here care about the noise from the Mac mini 4 - do any have trouble with or noticed the buzzing noise there's some talk about? From what I can here its the power supply, and the Mini even buzz low when connected to a power outlet, but otherwise shut down. Problem increase with some devices connected to the Mini mostly Screens via HDMI.

There's a thread on this forum but here is an example from a thread from apple's own forums.

M4 Mac mini - Buzzing/Vibration sound - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com discussions.apple.com

Im on the fence buying one, but can't really decide if better to wait or if this really is only a issue for a few machines.
Click to expand...

Mine base Mac Mini M4 16GB was buzzing as soon as any display was connected, either to HDMI or via USB-C. Tried different cables, different power outlets, no way to fix it. Yes it was buzzing when turned off but connected to outlet too. My desk is pretty flimsy Ikea desk so i literally felt vibrations on desk. I have very quiet room and honestly couldnt stand it, my desktop full tower PC is more quiet. I returned it.

I watched teardown video and dude said that power supply components in Mac Mini M4 are low quality, everyone is using japanese components but not Apple in Mac Mini, i suspect this is power supply shielding noise or something.

Someone posted this on reddit:

"At first I thought it was the fan but then realised it's coming from the power supply which is on the top of the dice if you rest your hand on it, it stops because it's vibrating."

It is indeed true, if you put a hand on top of it and press, it stops buzzing. Must be bad quality coils.
 
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Thanks for reply. Probably should wait to a store with good return policy get them in stock here in Denmark then :)
The local supermarked just had them in stock so was about to purchase there.
 
de1tas said:
Thanks for reply. Probably should wait to a store with good return policy get them in stock here in Denmark then :)
The local supermarked just had them in stock so was about to purchase there.
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I live in Poland, ordered from official Apple Store online and return was smooth, no problems. I would wait a bit, from what i read online buzzing is only happening in Europe, so its probably something related to our 230v power grid, i suspect they might have designed something that was only well tested with US 120v, maybe there will be new revision/batch with fix soon.
 
Yeah, might be best til hold off or order directly from apple.

Did you just return or did you get an exchange and a unit without the problem then?
 
de1tas said:
Yeah, might be best til hold off or order directly from apple.

Did you just return or did you get an exchange and a unit without the problem then?
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I returned it and got money back. My plan is to wait couple months and order again directly from Apple online to try again, big companies like Apple sometimes make tiny production fixes in new batches of hardware even without changing revisions. From what I read problem is well known on Apple community forums so maybe they will try to fix it.
 
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