Mac Studio Owners Complain of Irritating High-Pitched Noise

[justwannagohome]

I have my M1 Max Mac Studio for 5 days now (base 32GB RAM, 2TB SSD) and haven't noticed any sound at all. The fan noise is very very minimal and only really noticeable if I put my ear close to the machine. Very happy with it so far, it's blazing fast compared to my old iMac from 2017.

US, I guess?

 

[justwannagohome]

It returned 2 Studio base models. Both had the high pitched whine.

Are you based outside North America?

 

[vgmrm]

What to expect from a video game console?
Soldered memory, soldered disk, I don't understand why people complain about a nano-noise at all.

 

[justwannagohome]

I returned my Mac Studio Ultra. I'm working in a very quiet office, and the constant fan noise and occasional high-pitched whining noise was too loud and annoying for me. Too bad.... I was very impressed by the performance. Going back to a MacBook Pro now.

May I ask: Where do you live?

 

[justwannagohome]

Mine has a definite resonance whine at certain fan rpms. I hear it as the fans ramp up and down (using a dan control app) through certain speeds. It’s there at the default which is irritating but, oddly, I can make it go away by either blocking some holes in the back temporarily or by tapping the studio on the side.

I wonder if it’s either an artefact of having two fans running almost at the same frequency or a misalignment in the bearings or something like that.

It’s weird and it comes and goes. I can live with it for now and will see how the noise develops as I use the machine.

May I ask: Where do you live?

 

[Mr. Rod]

US, I guess?

Yes, I bought it from the online Apple Store. I also have it connected to a Studio Display.

 

[JamieLannister]

The amount of “whine” a typical apple customer makes is enough to create ear plugs made of solid gold for Tim Crook. You guys can are the definition of OCD when it comes to anything.

You know how you fix that whine issue? It’s simple: Ignore it.

 

[justwannagohome]

Yup, lots of PS5 units had it. In later units they used more resin in the psu module to reduce/prevent whine. I have been lucky with mine, no issues.

Do you live in the US?

 

[The Mad Kiwi]

I can hear a high pitched sound when I'm using my Mac Studio.... but that's just my tinnitus. Not much Apple can do about that.

 

[HylianKnight]

Worth pointing out that Apple sourced power supplies from at least two different companies.

 

[justwannagohome]

Yeah, well if there is a sound, I can't hear it on mine, but then I have tinnitus. So who knows?

Seriously, zero sound coming from mine. I have yet to hear the fans. But I have two OWC 4M2 RAIDs sitting next to it that have pretty noisy fans, but what does one expect with eight NVME SSDs running inside those boxes? Also on the desk is a SanDisk Thunderbolt 3 12TB G-Drive and it's darn silent too.

On a side note I had to replace a fan on one of the 4M2 raids, and OWC doesn't carry replacement parts for the original version. So I had to pull it out and track down the manufacturer. I got them to ship me two of the fans from China ($11 each, shipping $35). No more OWC proprietary purchases for me.

Do you live in North America?

 

[Schaufelmann]

May I ask: Where do you live?

Germany.

 

[dunanos]

I have a whistling Ultra CTO, so it's not just the Max version. ?

 

[antiprotest]

MacRumors IS it's users.

No. The comment I was answering thought MR was partnered with Linus. The for-profit web site is not the same as the users, otherwise I would be paid for writing this.

 

[justwannagohome]

Germany.

I had a noisy Mac Studio myself (mostly fan noise). Returned it. I’m based in Switzerland.

 

[orbital~debris]

Have you noticed a high-pitched whine from your Mac Studio? Let us know in the comments.

Have you noticed a high-pitched whine from your Mac Studio? Let us know in the comments?

 

[justwannagohome]

I have a whistling Ultra CTO, so it's not just the Max version. ?

Where are you based?

 

[antiprotest]

LTT is a strange one. They like to do Apple vids for the clicks but he is a major hater of Apple kit in general. Each to their own I guess, some of his vids on apple are just cringe.

I don't mind him bashing Apple in principle, as I like to do it too, but I think his criticisms are often unfair and inaccurate. His style also turns me off, but that's a matter of preference I guess.

 

[Apple2GS]

Are you based outside North America?

US east coast.

 

[justwannagohome]

Have you noticed a high-pitched whine from your Mac Studio? Let us know in the comments?

Not helpful.

 

[antiprotest]

but they love iJustine...

Well, we are Apple users after all. And I think Linus is considered unfairly biased, or biased while presenting himself as a knowledgeable tech guy, while iJustine is more like a "fan girl" so the kind of bias is certainly not the same.

 

[justwannagohome]

US east coast.

Ok, that’s interesting - I haven’t read many complaints about the issue from people living in the US so far. So the problem doesn’t seem to be limited to countries outside of North America.

 

[ufgatorvet]

There was a ton of whine in the iPad Air 5 threads too ...

 

[ufgatorvet]

Has there been a recent Apple product release that wasn't fraught with perceived imperfections, manufacturing defects or other product shortcomings that a "premium" product shouldn't have?

Just curious ...

 

[Fenderborn]

I am in the middle.

Are they over reacting? Depends on their environment.

It is definitely a fault in the fans and only exists in the certain RPM ranges. The whine disappears at higher speeds.

Similar to how my 3080 FTW fans are quieter at 85% vs 80%. Same high pitch noise shows up at 80%....why apple has this issue at 1300rpm tho is crazy.

Something about the resonance or range they hang out in, is 100% a fault.

Having said all that, I have to turn off EVERYTHING in my office to strain to hear it, but lord is it there!

Will be curious if it gets worse over time, I got AppleCare just in case.

I wonder if its for that reason that apple locks them at 1325. I did some tests with fans from 1% to 20% and @ 9%-ish its what apple sets them. The “extra sound” is not very audible but still present. When i set the fans to 1100rpm its also OKish. But on some serting inbetween its gets very loud. Maybe apple knows this and decided for a fix rpm, high enough to never need to ramp the fans up.