How noisy is the Mac Studio M1 Max?

I received the replacement Mac Studio today. Same whine at 2Khz. I am now pretty sure this is a design issue. Since the whine only occurs at certain frequencies, and those frequencies seem to be different for each Mac Studio, it could be that some people don't hear the howling because they are using the default speed of 1350 rpm. If they were to manually change the fan speed, they would probably hear it too.

I gave my Studio back today - also because Apple support since almost two weeks couldn't provide me any hints whether they are working on the topic or not (or if they see this as a topic at all). That was the computer I was waiting for years to come but I am noise-sensitive and I know that I would always be disappointed. I think there is also no easy answer to the technical problem i.e. not sure if a software update can fix it.

2khz resonance as described in YouTube. It's not really loud because I limited the fan speed to 1100rpm, but when you know it's there, you always focus on it while you work.

I'm coming from a Mac Pro (and wife also using a mini too), so it's much quieter for me. The Studio fan noise is between a Mac Pro and Mac mini. So it really depending on what you're used to.

My fans are running 1325 RPM. What are the people complaining about noise doing. If they are running some stressful benchmarking program of course the fans will speed up. Yes the heatsink here is copper and will sink heat better but the M1Max runs so cool in my notebook I really doubt it runs very hot in the Studio.

I have the M1 Max CPU with 32 GPU cores in my Mac Studio. I also have 2 external disk drives for additional storage and Time Machine backup. The Mac Studio is quieter than the spinning disk drives for comparison.

in my case it is a relatively "clean ffffffff"

Thanks for the hint with the Macs fan control. Just installed it and made some more measurements:

at 3500 rpm (maximum) > 56 dB

at 1520 rpm > 29,6 dB

at 1250 rpm > 23,8 dB

at 1100 > 20,5 dB

on auto mode it goes to 1300 which is then as described earlier (uncomfortable)

so when going to 1100 rpm it is actually fine.

However the question is if I can do harm the computer with this

Or will the 1100 rpm as a minimum prevent this ? Anyone experienced with this ?

Actually I think Apple over engineered this. They tried to build something special with big fans and overshoot.

I’ve the Studio, and I’m based in the UK, I can hear a faint b-f-b-f. . . . . noise, but I don’t think it’s coming from the fan. It’s like from the Power Supply, but induced by the rotating magnetic coil of the fan. The power supply is not shielded correctly. This is why the noise is more pronounced in EU and UK.

In regards to the noise, if you face the back to a low density audio panel it pretty much fixes things. One of the reasons i go mac is for the silence though, especially working late on something i do in silence like rotoscoping or motion tracking an alternating fan can drive me insane. Does effect audio mixing /recording? I would say probably not, at least not to a concerning level that may effect the mix.

So if there is ever a fix i will most definitely go for it but for now its not bad enough to return, at least with the audio panel. And its worth remembering its still far more quite than most pc builds would be. I will most unlikely be looking into building a silent pc on my next move and just dealing with using Windows again…. I don't think i could back to those days.

I do not live in the UK and I’m on my 3rd one. I don’t know where people assume it’s more rampant in the Uk as all 3 of my base max have the high pitched whine. Apparently there are 2 different power supplies and this is a power supply lottery going on for sure. My new one so far fingers crossed does not yet make beeping and chirping noises. I may just live with it. With the base 16” MBP and 16 GB memory I was getting choppy playback just on YouTube with one 8 k HDR playing and testing a 4 k hdr video in the background at the same time. The max is the best way to get 32gb memory in a Mac under $2000. I notice a world of difference in in just std non menial task. Just YouTube and macOS hits as much as 19 GB of memory used on this 32 GB system with no memory swap what so ever.

If it's just a white noise from the fans, you're in luck. Just use "Macs Fan Control" app - as mentioned earlier - and set the fan speed to 1100 rpm or use a different slope for the fans - and it will be silent.

I found that on the room I am using, when trying to record voice over material, I had to keep the mic directed away from the unit, as Side on to it, I could hear the weird metallic clicking… ask I can do is wait for future revisions, so am not wanting to use a laptop for my work…

I made a video showing the relationship between the fan speed and the annoying high-pitched sound using a spectrum analyzer. To me it seems to be superimposed resonances that can occur at any fan speed. Hopefully Apple will see the video as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO07_k3mors

Totally agree about the fans when a MBP never comes on. Totally mind blowing. Same temperatures are reported even if the fans run at 1,100 RPM. And obviously running them at 1300 vs 1100 acoustically is a night and day difference. I kind hear whine when the fans slow down and wind back up but in general the high pitch noise is better at 1,100 RPM Double post trying to reply Dunan

Maybe I am slightly deaf? I have have the Mac Studio M1 Max for about a week now. I have a video file that I ran on my old iMac Late 2012 to test the download speeds using Final Cut Pro. My iMac took about 25 minutes, and I could hear the fans spool up. The Studio did it in just over 10 minutes, and I did not hear a peep out of it. So I don't know what to say. Either I am hard of hearing, or maybe not as sensitive to fan noise as others. Seems totally quiet to me.