Are the new Airs 100% silent even when you hold them close to your ear?

I did the same thing as you, and the Apple store replaced the fan. The noise was still there.

Then I asked for an exchange and I got a new MBA 13", but the noise was still there.

There is no solution for this problem. As said above, it surely comes from the design of the case. The only solution for me is to sell my MBA and to buy a MBP which is completely silent, because I NEED silence when I am working.

"The internal fan runs at 2000 RPM and you really can't hear it in normal use."

That's true only if you don't work in a completely silent room. In you work in a silent room, you will hear a kind of whirring noise, that is very annoying.

In a completely silent room, I compared a MBP 13" and a MBA 13". Putting my hear on the keyboard, I didn't heard any noise coming from the MBP (with SSD) whereas the MBA made the whirring noise.

It is a fact, the new MBA are not completely silent. People should know that before buying it... or Apple should say it... but they won't, because it is not an advantage.

I only speak about the MBP 13", which I compared to the MBA.

It is more silent because (hypotheses) of:

- the design of the case, which seems to amplify the noise in the MBA
- the size of the fan, which I think is smaller in the MBA

All of my posts are empirical. Indeed, as I said above, I used both the MBA 13" 2010 and the MBP 13" 2010 at the same time. And the whirring noise only came from the MBA (in fact, 2 MBA because of the exchange), the MBP (even with a hard disc) was more silent and did not have the whirring noise.

The MBP 13" has only one fan. Did you speak about another model ? In that case, it is normal that your MBP are louder than the MBA.

Again, as I said above, after a first MBA exchange which didn't solve the problem, I asked for a fan replacement... and the noise was still here. Therefore, I conclude that this noise is present on every MBA 2010 but it is not heard by everybody perhaps because of its hight frequency or the room in which it is running.

Yes, the Apple SAV is really great. But it cannot resolve anything when the problem is not considered as a problem, that is to say when they don't see any problem whereas there is one.

Can you answer to the precedent question : with which MBP did you compare the MBA ?

Ok, I didn't get that you compared them with a 11" MBA. Indeed, most people complain about the noise on a 13" MBA. To me, it should be explained saying that the 11" MBA's case is smaller than the 13" and, therefore, the noise is less amplified. It is an hypothesis.

Unfortunately, it is too late for me to return the MBA, so I am selling it. I just bought a MBP 13" where I will put a SSD to meet the MBA's performances.

I always think that the MBA is the best MacBook, but unfortunately I need complet silence when I work. If the next MBA is completely silent, I buy it.

Tanks for your help.

Take the 100% silent with a pinch of salt. In a quiet room with you ear to the Mac you can hear the fan.

But it’s so quiet that you would not notice it in everyday use, you may notice it if the fan was working over time if the CPU was hot.

You do not the fan replaced.

Silent means you can hear the fan if you really try by holding up to ear. Remember that the fan always runs when computer is on--- it sort of idles at 2000. Under stress, it can maintain over 6000 and still be normal.

As another poster noted, the new MBA fan runs at about 2000 rpm all of the time. In a normal residential room environment, you won't hear anything "at idle".

But, if you start CPU-intensive tasks, the fan will accelerate into the 6000 rpm range. At that speed you can definitely hear it.

I had a late-2008 MBA before this new one; the new one is a lot louder, at full song, than the previous model.

But I say again: most of the time you won't hear anything...

darthjones wrote:
I just picked up an 11 inch Macbook Air (1.6GHz/4GB memory/128GB storage) and I find it to be completely silent unless I hold the system up to my ear. When I do that, I can hear the fan going even on idle.

My question is - when people say that it's completely silent, do they mean that it's completely 100% silent even when they hold the system up to their ears? Or do they just mean under regular use (i.e. with the system on their laps or on the tables in front of them). Don't get me wrong - it's awesome as it is right now. I just want to know if I have a defective unit while I can still return/replace it.

This is normal. If it's on your lap or desktop then it's effectively silent. If you hold it to your ear in a quiet place then you can hear the fan. Nothing to worry about.

"This is normal", should become the new catchphrase for Apples consumer complaints management -

Me and others have a massive problem with a highpitched humming noise coming from the fan, which gets amplified by the Macbook case itself, which is constantly noticeable, even distracting, when working in calm surroundings.

Not only is it noticeable in a normal working environment, at normal working distance, regardless of the workload, and constantly, it is out and out unnerving and the result of some questionable design decisions. To take a look at the complaints, please visit the following thread here in the forums:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2631985&tstart=0&start=30

Thank you for acknowledging the problem.

No noise from mine - if I press my ear to the machine I struggle to hear a faint hum...

<can't believe I even replied to this one>

harlekinrains wrote:
"This is normal", should become the new catchphrase for Apples consumer complaints management -

Me and others have a massive problem with a highpitched humming noise coming from the fan, which gets amplified by the Macbook case itself, which is constantly noticeable, even distracting, when working in calm surroundings.

Not only is it noticeable in a normal working environment, at normal working distance, regardless of the workload, and constantly, it is out and out unnerving and the result of some questionable design decisions. To take a look at the complaints, please visit the following thread here in the forums:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2631985&tstart=0&start=30

Thank you for acknowledging the problem.

The thread you are referring to has nothing to do with the MacBook Air. Do you have one? I have no such noise that you are talking about even in a dead calm room at night let alone in a working environment. I have no idea what you mean by acknowledging the problem. I don't work for Apple.