Optical Drive Cooling?

sarbz · Post by **sarbz** » Fri Apr 15, 2005 11:08 am

I have a question about airflow around optical drives....how important is it? I'm insulating my case to make it quieter, and I'm planning on filling in the empty spaces (unused drive bays) with foam (but not where it will block airflow). I would like to use foam below my optical drive to fill the rest of the bays. Should the foam go all the way up to my optical drive, or should I leave some space for it to breathe?

wsc · Post by **wsc** » Fri Apr 15, 2005 2:29 pm

I think its pretty much a non-issue. You should be able to pack as much insulation around the drive as you want. I've never heard of an optical drive failing due to heat, but please someone step in and correct me if you have any info.

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Fri Apr 15, 2005 5:20 pm

wsc wrote:You should be able to pack as much insulation around the drive as you want. I've never heard of an optical drive failing due to heat

I have, remember multi-beam drives? Those had a design flaw that made them overheat, there was a thread about it here(on the off topic board IIRC). But from what I hear, the bigger worry seems to be dust getting into drives, so being surrounded by foam might actually be good for the drive.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Fri Apr 15, 2005 5:46 pm

my optical samsung combo dvd-r drive gets quite warm after watching movies and burning disks, like it slowly adds to a mass that cannot well dissipate it. I think though that it wouldnt matter. Plus, they are dirt cheap.

the multi-beam ones that did like 70x actually were really quiet types, they spined at like 20-30x yet read fast cuz of the beams. also stupidly priced and hard to find.

my friend to me proved that all one needs is an accurate 4x optical....