MacBook Pro 14-inch 2021 - Microphone cuts out every ~2 seconds

On my MacBook Pro 14-inch 2021, running Sequoia 15.3.1, I'm experiencing that the microphone is cutting out every 2 seconds or so. I have tried restart, and changing the audio input level to different levels (~80%, 60%, 40%) - to no avail.

Looking for help to fix this - this renders the Mac unusable in any online conference call (zoom, Teams, etc.).

Thanks!

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 15.3

Posted on Mar 4, 2025 12:31 AM

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Posted on Mar 6, 2025 4:10 AM

Thanks Grant. I identified an AI note taker process as the root cause. The moment I shut it down via activity monitor, the issue disappears. So a third party app indeed, but none of the suspects you mentioned above (which I do not use). Thanks again.

4 replies

Mar 4, 2025 6:36 AM in response to marcusbe

By far the easiest way to cause poor performance, instability, overheating and crashing is to install ANY third-party speeder-uppers, Cleaners, Optimizers, or Virus scanners, Bit Torrent, or a VPN that you installed yourself. They are relentless in scanning your files, non-stop, looking for virus-like patterns in Everything, or looking for files that have changed. When completed, they do it all again.


are you running anything like that?

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MacBook Pro 14-inch 2021 - Microphone cuts out every ~2 seconds

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