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Considering the M2 Pro 16/512 from a 2015 iMac. A few questions for @PatNaf you if you don't mind:
  • What was your computer before the Mini Pro and what config did you purchase?
  • How much snappier do you feel like LR became with the Mini? Did you get a nice bump in speed using LR with previews drawing, etc? I know this is subjective.
2018 6 core i5 mac mini. Lr is definitely much faster at building previews and exporting.
 
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2 months in; a lot of logic pro, some final cut work... no fan noise, not once.

the m2 pro mini is my new favorite mac 👍
I have my mini M2 Pro since a full week now. I never heard the fan once yet. Ok, I didn't had time to do some "heavy" work on it, but I installed a lot of things (apps, files, updates...), played music while browsing the web and doing a lot of multitasking (I keep all my apps open, about 15 or 20 of them, and keep lots of web pages open in three web navigators ...). The mini stays dead silent. The temperature inside is always around 38-39C (up to now).

The "heavy" work (lots of LaTeX compilations, Mathematica running and crunching numbers, photo editing with Pixelmator Pro or Gimp, some games...) will start later, during this summer. So I'll see how the mini behaves then.
 
My day to day work (Photoshop), it's dead silent.

I've been learning Blender and so far even after a 4+ hour run, still quiet.

I've not used FCP yet, don't really have any screen recordings to work on.
 
Happened again... I collected the following info:

Fan speed: 4247rpm
temp sensors all between 30 - 40C
cpu: 91% idle
memory: 26GB of 32GB used
uptime: 38 days

then a real life interruption maybe 5-10 minutes, fan still blowing... at some point while googling for this thread it just as randomly dropped down to it's usual 1600-1700rpm -- core temps slightly higher but average is still 38C.

My guess/hope is that this will magically vanish with a firmware update -- hate that those happen without release notes, but that's another story.
 
Happened again... I collected the following info:

Fan speed: 4247rpm
temp sensors all between 30 - 40C
cpu: 91% idle
memory: 26GB of 32GB used
uptime: 38 days

then a real life interruption maybe 5-10 minutes, fan still blowing... at some point while googling for this thread it just as randomly dropped down to it's usual 1600-1700rpm -- core temps slightly higher but average is still 38C.

My guess/hope is that this will magically vanish with a firmware update -- hate that those happen without release notes, but that's another story.
which mini is this? and does a reboot help?
 
edit: just checked again, and it seems I was reading the chart wrong. The fan is either off, or running at 1700RPM (never higher) and it's spent more time off than on. I'm attaching a screenshot of the chart - the peaks are 1700RPM and the valleys are 0RPM.
I believe you're the first reporting that the fan of the M2 mini Pro is able to be 'off', just like the latest MacBooks. During the short time I had a M2 mini Pro(?), the fan was constantly running. (Please confirm that your model is indeed the Pro model...)
 
I believe you're the first reporting that the fan of the M2 mini Pro is able to be 'off', just like the latest MacBooks. During the short time I had a M2 mini Pro(?), the fan was constantly running. (Please confirm that your model is indeed the Pro model...)
I have a mac mini M2 Pro base model and can confirm via iStat history log that the fan does indeed shut off in sleep mode. This is assuming iStat is running even when Mac OS is sleeping.
 
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Had it happen to me for the second time. Was across the room on a couch and heard it spin up. Fan RPM was at ~4300rpm, base M2 Pro 512/16. Waited ~10 mins and wouldn't stop so I just restarted, before that probably was running for a month without shutting down. Also force quit all istats menus processes running, so I'm pretty sure that's not the problem, it's some software bug in macos.
 
So update with a new variable. Recently, our cat (who's my creative director), has taken to napping on my Mini while I'm working. Messing around ion Blender, listening to YouTube stuff, and having a ton of tabs open in Safari, my Mini seems to top out at 105F/40.5C fan's pretty constant at 1700.

Cat Tax
 

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So update with a new variable. Recently, our cat (who's my creative director), has taken to napping on my Mini while I'm working. Messing around ion Blender, listening to YouTube stuff, and having a ton of tabs open in Safari, my Mini seems to top out at 105F/40.5C fan's pretty constant at 1700.

Cat Tax
is that a usb cat or a thundercat? 🤔
 
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So update with a new variable. Recently, our cat (who's my creative director), has taken to napping on my Mini while I'm working. Messing around ion Blender, listening to YouTube stuff, and having a ton of tabs open in Safari, my Mini seems to top out at 105F/40.5C fan's pretty constant at 1700.

Cat Tax
Probably warm enough to feel really good to a cat. That's awesome, though. 👍🏻
 
Screenshot 2023-04-14 at 13.07.39.png

This just happened after exporting a photo from the photos app. Very audible fan noise. Returned to normal (1700 rpm) after about 5 minutes.
 
Two months on with my M2 Pro Mini and I love it. I am a noise paranoid (according to my wife) and I have no complaints about this machine. Fast and quiet. OK, so one complaint: VENTURA! I wish I could fall back to a more stable version of macOS. Like maybe Snow Leopard.
That's funny! Why Snow Leopard?
 
That's funny! Why Snow Leopard?
That's the last version of macOS (AKA OS X) that I really liked and felt comfortable with. With Ventura, it's a new issue every day. Today I opened up a 25-page PDF in Preview and it locked. Did a force-quit and agreed to send a report to Apple. The problem report itself then locked up. Reboot time. Try the PDF again. Preview locked up. Tried opening the PDF in Firefox. No problemo. And don't get me started on Apple Mail.

The hardware is fantastic. The software bites the big burrito.
 
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