Silent DVD drive

Greg F. · Post by **Greg F.** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 7:34 pm

http://www.cdfreaks.com/reviews/Asus-DR ... ner-Review

Its main attribute is that it is relatively quiet. Might want to check it out.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 9:10 pm

thank you. hm.

cheap too!

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 2:39 am

I just installed a Benq 1670 drive, since Benq was recommended in this thread. At full speed it's awful, a loud growl that first scared me.
It is however almost acceptable when running at 4x-8x, but I can't recommend it, I was expecting something better.
I'm keeping it, since my old Asus 1604P doesn't work with DriveSpeed.

jhhoffma · Post by **jhhoffma** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 5:20 am

v3n wrote:
Mike_P wrote:My Nec 3520a is loud when burning @ 8x or full speed reading.

If it's being used for DVD playback try Nero DriveSpeed.

I can use it to adjust maximum allowed speed and spin down times.

set it to like 2x or 4x for DVD and you'll be good.
I have the same drive and it makes a noticeble annoying rattle/hum when a disk is inside and the drive is idle which in a silentish pc is the loudest noise

Im after a quiet DVD-Rom drive for my HTPC which doesnt have this drawback

Mine is easily the quietest of the three optical drives I have. I also have a 48x LiteOn CD-RW, and a LiteOn DVD (read-only) in my HTPC. I am ripping all my CDs right now, and I can say without a doubt, the NEC is BY FAR the quietest of the three.

kamina · Post by **kamina** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 10:53 am

The only really silent dvd drive I owned was made by Plextor. The reason it was so silent is that they offer an application that allows you to change a huge amount of parameters like the speed of the tray, how quickly it spins up, maximum speed for reading, writing ect.

Loved it

I think they only offered this with their premium drives, and they are stopping manufacturing them now?

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 12:49 pm

hello Finnish brutha !

nici and now you

Plextor has the 760a and 760sa. SA is serial ata but like is a bad idea as most boards dont run it properly if you are using raid. or they are using a fancy chipset instead of cheapo jmicron southbridge it wont work well either.

just some random tips.

760a comes with PlexTools. they sell it separately. the 755 comes with it, the 716 slot load doesnt but it works with it. I am in the middle of looking for such things so like I read a load about them.

Liteon drives SUCK REALLY BAD. they are lawnmowers. same with Samsung only that samsung gets louder and louder and then dies. lite ons just die. Asus is supposed to be quiet but I doubt it on some of the models. Benq is a afficiando's drive but not an spcr afficiando's drive. cheap though and hard to find.

basically only plextors can run silents or my old rubber encased internal 109a Pioneer. just that its crapping out on cds for some unexplainable reason. sux.

jhhoffma · Post by **jhhoffma** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 5:50 am

Doesn't matter, Lite-On isn't making any more optical drives, so what's left in the channel will be all we get. It was time anyway...they used to be good, but lost their way somehow.

lm · Post by lm » Mon Feb 19, 2007 8:56 am

Exel wrote: It's not idle, Windows just tends to spin the damn drives up for no good reason from time to time and keep it spinning even considerable lenghts of time. I don't think it is the drive's fault.

Perhaps it is running indexing services on them? You can get a nice utility from here: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysint ... ities.mspx that let's you see which program is accessing your dvd drive when it occasionally spins up for no apparent reason. Then just disable that service or configure it not to bother with the dvd drive.

halcyon · Post by **halcyon** » Sat Apr 07, 2007 12:21 am

jhhoffma wrote:Doesn't matter, Lite-On isn't making any more optical drives, so what's left in the channel will be all we get. It was time anyway...they used to be good, but lost their way
somehow.

I think it is almost completely the opposite.

Lite-On is making _most_ of the optical drives (cdrw, dvdrw) these days, incl. most of what are sold under: Sony, BenQ, Lite-On, Philips and other brands.

The actual manufacturers making still dvd drives are:

- LiteOn IT
- LG (sold under their own brand)
- Samsung (sold under their own brand)
- Optiarc (NEC + Sony joint venture, sold under Nec/Optiarc)
- Panasonic (part of Matsushita), sold under Panasonic)
- Pioneer (sold under Pioneer and also Asus)

Plextor seems to be in transition, but has pre-announced PX-800. It will most likely be based on Optiarc innards.

Whether that drive will work with Plextools Pro and whether it can be throttled down in speed, remains to be seen.

My current favorites at the time of writing this are:

- Plextor PX-760 (still some units on the market, can be throttled down with Plextools Pro, decent burner)

- Pioneer DVR-a09/109 (getting hard to find, not the best burner, but can be throttled down with QuietDrive utility)

jhhoffma · Post by **jhhoffma** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 6:33 pm

I guess you're right, I KNOW I saw some article saying that Lite-On was ceasing production on optical drives, but maybe that was because they are using fabs of other acquired companies or maybe they got the better end when they merged with Phillips.

mcoleg · Post by **mcoleg** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 6:54 pm

lite-on is still in business; they gabbled benq (phillips) and now all benq drives are made by lite-on, which is a pity. that will explain the poor quality of 1670 model mentioned earlier.

old benq (1620, 1640, 1650/55) are almost impossible to find. 1640 are the quietest drives i've tested. 1650 are not too bad either.

halcyon · Post by **halcyon** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 3:31 am

DW 1640 can still be had (in the US), although like you said - availability is very limited.

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=214482

Sometimes DW1650/1655 (often sold under LiteOn brand these days like DVD8801).

DW1640 is a decent drive (I have one), but not quite as quiet as A09/109 or Plextor (when those are quieted down with sw utilities mentioned above).

GamingGod · Post by **GamingGod** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 2:49 pm

Is there a reason that no case manufacturers are using anything like rubber drive rails or something to help isolate the drives from the case?

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Thu Apr 19, 2007 3:07 am

Yes, it's called laziness (or maybe just plain stupidity).
Seriously, if the drive wouldn't be held firm enough, it may malfunction, so I've heard.
IMHO a balance should be found between dampening vibrations and firmly holding the drive.

s_xero · Post by **s_xero** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 2:16 pm

LOL slow burning or idle of my Sony 720A writer is pretty acceptable.

For the rest...FUCK CD's and DVD's that's rude, indeed it is. I can't live with games whining (both in figure and literally) for those stupid earbleeding CD's or DVD's.

For the good of the world, some acne-glass-heads with a back as rounded as a can of coke have thought of something as mounting

if there is a very good thing about nerds; their kind

have invented what has given me silence through gaming. Accept for the insanity that comes when the Germans are coming

BTW I'm a flying Dutchman

Ryan Norton · Post by **Ryan Norton** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 6:54 am

Having silenced the rest of my PC the optical drive in my P180B is now seriously pissing me off. I can't hear the system but as soon as that sucker spins up you hear a massive whooshing whine sound.

One of the above posters suggested chopping some of the Antec rubber grommets, which I'm going to try.

Many others have suggested using Alcohol, etc. to create drive images for mounting games. This solution actually works perfectly -- when it works. Thanks to Starforce and SecuROM and all that other crap, I have just encountered certain game CD/DVDs that no image making program can slip past the "copy protection" and allow the game to start up without prompting for the CD to be inserted. It's very frustrating, but probably the best we've got for now!

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 11:07 am

the panasonic slot loading slim optical drives are the quietest optical drives ive ever heard.

i believe its the same notebook drive used on apple notebooks.

eh · Post by eh » Mon Jan 14, 2008 5:36 am

Aris wrote:the panasonic slot loading slim optical drives are the quietest optical drives ive ever heard.

i believe its the same notebook drive used on apple notebooks.

Sorry for digging up an ancient thread, but wouldn't it be a good idea to use a slim optical drive (such as the one mentioned in the quoted message) in a standard 5,25" bay with some sort on enclosure? But are there any on the market? It would seem strange that there are all sorts of (internal) enclosures for HDD's, but none for optical drives.

The reason why I'm interested is because I'm building a HTPC inside Silverstone LC04 which has a 5.25" bay. I'm just reluctant to putting a standard optical drive in it, unless I can come up with a way of making it quiet.

The other alternative would be to use an external enclosure for the optical drive and using the 5.25" bay for something less obvious, but I'm not sure that's a good idea either. I don't know how much exactly I'll be using the optical drive anyway - I've already ripped all the CD's to a HDD and when I get a NAS I'll rip all DVD's as well - but when it has to be used (with a rented DVD, for example), it shouldn't interfere with the listening experience.

edit: What I'd like to have is pretty close to this Plextor product, but instead of having slots for two slim drives, it would make one really quiet.

Silent DVD drive

New "quiet" Asus drive reviewed