So how silent is the M2 Pro Mac Mini?

[CarlRichard]

Dear community,
I hope for your experiences and combined knowledge. Like many here, I would like to have the most quiet Mac Mini M2 possible. I would be happy if you could help me regarding these points:
1) If I understand it correctly, there does not seem to be a difference in noise between the M2 and M2 pro?
2) Is one of the M2 Pros more quiet than the other? I assume, the stronger one might be louder (is it??), then again, it might not be due to, say, or bigger heatsink or such like stuff.

Thank you so much in advance!

 

[fisherking]

Dear community,
I hope for your experiences and combined knowledge. Like many here, I would like to have the most quiet Mac Mini M2 possible. I would be happy if you could help me regarding these points:
1) If I understand it correctly, there does not seem to be a difference in noise between the M2 and M2 pro?
2) Is one of the M2 Pros more quiet than the other? I assume, the stronger one might be louder (is it??), then again, it might not be due to, say, or bigger heatsink or such like stuff.

Thank you so much in advance!

i have not once heard the fan on my m2 mini. i also have never put my ear against it, to see if there's any fan noise. i use logic pro regularly, final cut occasionally. and so far it's been quiet.

the bigger issue is... what will you doing on your mini? that will more determine what could rev up the fans...

 

[CarlRichard]

Thank you - it will mainly be office work (Ms Office, Safari, etc) but at the weekends I plan to use it for Lightroom and need the power there. I don't care how loud it gets when I edit photos, but I want it to be as quiet as possible when I use it write stuff. I wonder which machine would suit that purpose better - the bigger or the smaller pro.
If the non-pro was much more quiet under office work, I would even take that, though I would atcually like to have a pro for Lightroom.

 

[Cham2000]

Dear community,
I hope for your experiences and combined knowledge. Like many here, I would like to have the most quiet Mac Mini M2 possible. I would be happy if you could help me regarding these points:
1) If I understand it correctly, there does not seem to be a difference in noise between the M2 and M2 pro?
2) Is one of the M2 Pros more quiet than the other? I assume, the stronger one might be louder (is it??), then again, it might not be due to, say, or bigger heatsink or such like stuff.

Thank you so much in advance!

I'm expecting that the mini M2 would be more silent and cooler than the mini M2 Pro. The mini M2 Pro may become warmer or even much hotter, and then noisier, depending on what we do with the computer. I hope my new mini M2 Pro will stay silent and cool for everything I'll do with it, even (especially?) when I'll play big 3D games on it. The temperature is a concern to me.

For your Office and Safari/web browsing works, get the mini M2, it will be well enough.

 

[CarlRichard]

I would expect that, too, but maybe it is wrong?
The pro might have a bigger/more effective heatsink?
Under office both might run equally cool and below a threshold where the fans might kick in?

I agree that for Office, the mini m2 will be fast enough, but I would like to have the extra power for LR if possible and if it does not interfere with my office work.

 

[l3xh2k]

I stepped away for a coffee and came back to the fan noise (first time I've ever been aware of it). istat says the fans are running at >4200rpm and that the cpu avg temp is 38ºC (which is pretty darn low, thinks I).

It's 4:30 in the afternoon, local so it's kind of an obnoxious time to be doing a fan test or some other housekeeping work. And it just as surprisingly, it stopped after 10 minutes while I typed this (fan 1600rpm, temps unchanged).

(m2 pro mini, 32GB memory, 1TB storage -- uptime, 14 days).

 

[Cham2000]

I stepped away for a coffee and came back to the fan noise (first time I've ever been aware of it). istat says the fans are running at >4200rpm and that the cpu avg temp is 38ºC (which is pretty darn low, thinks I).

It's 4:30 in the afternoon, local so it's kind of an obnoxious time to be doing a fan test or some other housekeeping work. And it just as surprisingly, it stopped after 10 minutes while I typed this (fan 1600rpm, temps unchanged).

(m2 pro mini, 32GB memory, 1TB storage -- uptime, 14 days).

While your fan was at 4200rpm, how was the noise? Was it strong or horribly noisy, or still relatively silent?

And what do you think that launched that fan activity?

 

[Freida]

4200 is very loud. Like intel jet. Audible noise starts over 2k, 3k+ is fairly loud 4k+ is crazy loud

While your fan was at 4200rpm, how was the noise? Was it strong or horribly noisy, or still relatively silent?

And what do you think that launched that fan activity?

 

[fisherking]

I stepped away for a coffee and came back to the fan noise (first time I've ever been aware of it). istat says the fans are running at >4200rpm and that the cpu avg temp is 38ºC (which is pretty darn low, thinks I).

It's 4:30 in the afternoon, local so it's kind of an obnoxious time to be doing a fan test or some other housekeeping work. And it just as surprisingly, it stopped after 10 minutes while I typed this (fan 1600rpm, temps unchanged).

(m2 pro mini, 32GB memory, 1TB storage -- uptime, 14 days).

good time (if it happens again) to check activity monitor, see what's causing this...

i got my mini on january 2, and have yet to hear the fans ramp up

 

[Cham2000]

i got my mini on january 2, and have yet to hear the fans ramp up

What have you done with your mini Pro, until now? What kind of typical "heavy" workloads?

 

[fisherking]

What have you done with your mini Pro, until now? What kind of typical "heavy" workloads?

am sure i've posted about it already...

i use my m2 pro exclusively for logic pro and final cut (mostly logic). often, automation and plugin-heavy projects (final cut is mostly music videos and short promos).

and no fans ramping up (yet). my previous 2019 imac went fan-wild whenever i bounced out a 'big' audio project...

 

[Cham2000]

I'm wondering why some guys have the fan in their mini go wild for a time, while doing nothing with their mini... What may trigger this?

 

[fisherking]

I'm wondering why some guys have the fan in their mini go wild for a time, while doing nothing with their mini... What may trigger this?

they need to open activity monitor when this happens, to see what's happening. it's not common, or consistent. and there may be different processes ramping up the fans for different users...

 

[l3xh2k]

Sorry for the content free response but I legit don't know why my fan(s) was going crazy. CPU utilization was minimal, I had very little going on (I'm a firmware dev; in general, I know when I'm pushing a machine). I have free memory, so minimal (no?) paging (even with the super fat processes: Vivaldi (browser) with way too many open tabs and VSCode).

It will remain a mystery (at least) until next time.

 

[Swissfashion]

Strangely, I had just finished watching a video today when the fan spun up, and was quite loud. The body was its normal cool temp, the cpus were doing nothing. It stayed on for maybe 10 minutes, then went back to normal.

I have the M2 Pro Mac Mini 10/16/16 with 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD and experienced something similar recently.

It was a way from my desk, and when I returned, the fans were very audibly blowing. The Mac mini felt cool to the hand. I rebooted the Mac and the fans stopped blowing, but the Mac was very sluggish until a few reboots later.

iStat menus showed me that the CPU usage had been very high for a short period of time, but as it doesn’t give me temperature readings, I might have to reinstall it.

Activity Monitor didn’t identify any specific app that may have been the culprit.

 

[Swissfashion]

Sorry for the content free response but I legit don't know why my fan(s) was going crazy. CPU utilization was minimal, I had very little going on (I'm a firmware dev; in general, I know when I'm pushing a machine). I have free memory, so minimal (no?) paging (even with the super fat processes: Vivaldi (browser) with way too many open tabs and VSCode).

It will remain a mystery (at least) until next time.

Same here.

 

[mysticmanix]

I just had the same thing happen today, thought I was crazy, but to read at least 3-4 other cases makes me wonder if there's something wrong. I was just watching youtube and browsing in Brave, and the fans start spinning to 4000+ rpm but the temp is low and power draw is normal, and RAM and CPU usage was low. Thought it was my coffee mug that was letting out steam at first, but got way louder and realized it was the machine. I felt the air blowing out and it was ice cool as well. I just restarted because I didn't want it to keep going that long.

 

[Cham2000]

I just had the same thing happen today, thought I was crazy, but to read at least 3-4 other cases makes me wonder if there's something wrong. I was just watching youtube and browsing in Brave, and the fans start spinning to 4000+ rpm but the temp is low and power draw is normal, and RAM and CPU usage was low. Thought it was my coffee mug that was letting out steam at first, but got way louder and realized it was the machine. I felt the air blowing out and it was ice cool as well. I just restarted because I didn't want it to keep going that long.

View attachment 2170339

Is it possible that this wild fan behaviour may be caused by the probing software itself, i.e the app that reads the temperature and fan rate? It may be a bug.

What's the app that draws those info in the menubar? The value 4311 shown on your pict, is it the fan rate in rpm?

 

[mysticmanix]

Is it possible that this wild fan behaviour may be caused by the probing software itself, i.e the app that reads the temperature and fan rate? It may be a bug.

What's the app that draws those info in the menubar? The value 4311 shown on your pict, is it the fan rate in rpm?

Possibly, I don't know. It's called "istats Menus". Do we all use that? If so, that may be the problem.

 

[Swissfashion]

I just had the same thing happen today, thought I was crazy, but to read at least 3-4 other cases makes me wonder if there's something wrong. I was just watching youtube and browsing in Brave, and the fans start spinning to 4000+ rpm but the temp is low and power draw is normal, and RAM and CPU usage was low. Thought it was my coffee mug that was letting out steam at first, but got way louder and realized it was the machine. I felt the air blowing out and it was ice cool as well. I just restarted because I didn't want it to keep going that long.

View attachment 2170339

I wonder if it is MacOS Ventura related.

 

[Think77]

I just had the same thing happen today, thought I was crazy, but to read at least 3-4 other cases makes me wonder if there's something wrong. I was just watching youtube and browsing in Brave, and the fans start spinning to 4000+ rpm but the temp is low and power draw is normal, and RAM and CPU usage was low. Thought it was my coffee mug that was letting out steam at first, but got way louder and realized it was the machine. I felt the air blowing out and it was ice cool as well. I just restarted because I didn't want it to keep going that long.

View attachment 2170339

What variant of the M2 Mac mini are you using?

 

[Cham2000]

Possibly, I don't know. It's called "istats Menus". Do we all use that? If so, that may be the problem.

I have a very old version of iStat (actually the widget version for Snow Leopard). I don't know the latest version for Ventura. Many ppl are using it here. Maybe it's a bug, I don't know. If the wild fan happens again, close iStat menu and see if the wild fan happens again after a while.

 

[mysticmanix]

What variant of the M2 Mac mini are you using?

M2 Pro Base model, 512GB SSD 16GB RAM

 

[dotnet]

Perhaps this is a scheduled self-cleaning procedure? To blow the dust out of the ducts? That would be a novel thing for Apple. My 2015 27” Retina iMac sure could have used something like that…

 

[Cham2000]

Perhaps this is a scheduled self-cleaning procedure? To blow the dust out of the ducts? That would be a novel thing for Apple. My 2015 27” Retina iMac sure could have used something like that…

Hmm, but then the stronger air intake (from below the mini) would bring more dust in the interior, so what gives?

That wild fan behavior seems like an anomaly to me.