DVD writer that you can turn on and off ?

jackal2513 · Post by **jackal2513** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 3:32 am

what do people do about dvd writers

mine soon spins down after boot up but its rapidly becoming the loudest thing in my rig just with its soft constant whine. Its not a particularly noisy model, far from it.. its just that as a develop my rig and silence the usual culprits, components like the mosfets and this dvd writer are now becoming real noisy in relative comparison.

i used to have it in a separate USB enclosure and just power it on when needed (i maybe burn a dvd once every month or something). I am reluctant to remove it from the case again though as thats cheating and also creates more desk clutter....

has anyone connected it up to usb whilst inside the case and feed it switchable power from a mains AC adaptor (i.e. hack apart a dedictade 5.25 usb enclosure case). I was thinking of giving that a go and then pulling apart the switch from some third party usb enclosure and re housing that on the P180 somehow. That way it would basically be turned off until i flicked the switch every once in a while.

quietfreek · Post by **quietfreek** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 6:17 am

for about Â£20 you could get a samsung SATA dvd burner. if you have a modern north bridge (NF4 / ICH7) then it will support hot swap, a simple mod to install a switch in the power cable and you should be good to go.

i must stess i havent tried this myself with an ODD but i do hook up my external backup HDD via sata and that is quite happy once its been turned on, it does cause the system to pause for a couple of seconds. while it recognises whats just bene connected tho.

AZBrandon · Post by **AZBrandon** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 8:09 am

I'm confused. You say you only use it once a month or so. Do you leave media in the drive all the time, even though you never use it? Why not just take the media out of the drive in the first place and only put it in the drive when you're using it?

kike_1974 · Post by **kike_1974** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 8:41 am

There is some software that allows you to manually or automatically switch off the drive after a time.

I recently have found this tool, CD Bremse (it is a German program but I found an English version). With this tool you can program a time to reduce spin speed when idle, and a time to switch the drive off. I use it also for reducind dvd read speed when watching movies. You should give it a try.

I suppose there are more software programs to do similar things. I tried Nero drive speed before, but it didn't work well for me. I suppose that if you google a bit you will find some more.

jackal2513 · Post by **jackal2513** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 8:55 am

AZBrandon wrote:I'm confused. You say you only use it once a month or so. Do you leave media in the drive all the time, even though you never use it? Why not just take the media out of the drive in the first place and only put it in the drive when you're using it?

theres no media in there
but it still makes noise
a noise which along with the my moboard VFM coils, is fast becoming the dominant nasty !

jackal2513 · Post by **jackal2513** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 8:56 am

"I recently have found this tool, CD Bremse "

excellent call

i will try that tonight

thanks

Vicotnik · Post by **Vicotnik** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 9:12 am

CD Bremse is used to reduce rotating speed on drives that support it, and change spin down time. I don't think it will help you with the "idle noise".

Have you tried a different burner? My NEC 3500 is silent when it's not spinning a disc, like most burners i think.

klankymen · Post by **klankymen** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 11:02 am

yeah, same here, there are no moving parts in my dvd-burner when I remove the disk.... do you have any idea what could be creating the noise?

jfweaver · Post by **jfweaver** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 9:11 pm

Why not just move it to an external case and turn it off when not in use?