Blu-Ray Drive making Strange Noises

I just got my R4 today and its fantastic except for one little that irks me every once in a while. The Blu-ray drive makes a sound like its trying to eject a disk, even if there is no disk inside or the computer is trying to access a disk. Any idea if this is normal, or how to fix it?

 

you are not the only one. so i guess that makes it normal.

 

Mine only makes the eject sound when my system boots up. Wish there was a way to make it not make the sound as it gets annoying, but oh well.

 

Curious to see what others say

 

I wouldn't say that's normal, at least not for the R3.

The R4 isn't really a major upgrade to the R3 (besides MB and GPUs), so I would think that there might be an issue with the drives. I'd give Dell a call and see what they say.

 

Meh they already replaced my once because it had a different issue. It reads and writes fine and I don't feel like watching the tear my system apart again.

Sent from my Galaxy S2 using Tapatalk 2

 

Does that on bootup. It's normal.

 

I'm having another problem now. I installed my SSD, cloned it, wiped the old drive with gparted and tried to boot. Got stuck right after bios on a black screen with a blinking underscore. Tried everything, reinstalling os, restoring from alien respawn disks. Nothing is working. Could a faulty BDD cause this?

 

did you set bios in ahci mode and try to do a clean install , with only ssd ?

 

Not really. The R3 only does it while booting up or ejecting/inserting a disk. The R4 does it randomly, without a disk, and sometimes in random instances. It is kinda annoying.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

Mine only does it on boot up for like 1 seconds. Seems fine to me.

 

I have the exact this same problem you are encountering. It is more noticeable when I open certain programs, such as STEAM, BF3...etc.
I also randomly hear this when I am looking at my desk top.
Could this be something attributed from AlienAutospy that is creating this random annoying ejecting sound.

BTW, this is my 3rd AW laptop, and I have never had this issue, besides hearing the drive at normal start-up.

M18xR2

Intel Core i7-3820QM
Dual 2GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675M - SLI
16GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz
SAMSUNG SSD PM830 mSATA 64GB

 

Has anyone found a solution to the random noises? My blu-ray makes a noise every time I open iTunes even when there's no disk in it.

 

Mine does it on boot up and very rarely at random times.

 

It's either something with the programs you stated, like they're looking for a disc in the drive when launched (unlikely), or its a problem with the drive (most probable). I went thru two drives already. The first one that came installed didn't work from the getgo, and the second one worked for about six months before it started making funny noises. It only made the weird sounds when a disc was in the drive, but not being used, and at the same time it something in the mechanical parts of the drive went bad because it couldn't eject the discs properly anymore...they'd come out crooked and hang up on the chassis.

 

Mine too!
But i think i know why, i changed IDE for AHCI mode and made a clean install, since this, i got this noise...
I think i'll go back to ide mode

 

This is a weird issue isn't it!! - FWIW, my 18x only does it when booting, never heard a random noise from it wether there is a disk in or not.....my initial thought would be that it isnt right for it to be doing it by itself without due cause....

 

Got some news, i just formatted my alienware with IDE mode instead of AHCI, no more noise...

 

Try to change the boot order in BIOS, if that wont help then its some kind of drive initialization and you cant do anything with it ;-)

 

Hello SentReglay,

I just recently recieived my R4 as well, and noticed how loud the Blu-Ray drive is myself. The Blu-Ray drive on my M15x is much quiter. The noise that I hear (and I assume it is the same as yours) is a "seek" sound. The drive is checkign to see if there is a disc in it. Something is causing the drive to be polled. Sometimes Windows itself will poll the drive, and othertimes certain programs (like iTunes for example) will poll it. There is no "solution" as it is what is supposed to do. If the drive works (check to see if it reads all the discs it is supposed too, and can burn the appopriate media), and the only problem is the noise, it is "normal" for your drive.

With that said, some drives do automatic seeks due to firmware programming, these drives check themselves for discs periodically irrespective of the software on the system. These drives could be "fixed" with a firmware update that lessens the amount of polling, or disables it all together. This is not really a fix, as the drive is not doing anything wrong, just checking for media.

On my previously mentioned M15x, I had to uninstall Dell DataSafe Local Backup (which was installed instead of Alien Respawn), as it wouild cause the entire system to poll itslef (Blu-ray drive and hard drive at the same time) approx every 90 seconds. This caused Blu-ray movies to pause and skip, and was annoying. Again, there was noting wrong with the drive, it was a software issue. Removing Dell DataSafe solved that problem.

Hope this helps, and good luck!

Rich S.

 

guys, is there a way to stop this incessant polling of the BluRay.... without having to format the entire PC?

i get the polling with Media player/itunes execution, and also for no apparent "process" while in win7x64 pro

 

Anyone? Please

 

Seen it all the time on the R4, and a lot of other people reported it as well.

I have noticed that System Mechanic's background process on mine often triggers it but it seems that any new access to the drive makes it initialise like a disk has just been inserted

 

ok, but its just random polling,
execute media player, open up NAS drives, and also just for no apparent rhyme or reason.

wont it ruin the drive or something?

 

Yup, that's how it goes for me - just happened again. I don't think any problems will arise, it's just annoying and irritating

 

Are you in dual boot and do u notice it in another OS?

 

Afraid not. Now I'm noticing it again, machine just sitting there and the drive initialises 2 to 3 times a day. It's like a cached copy of the drives contents is not being used so the DVD drive is being checked by some background process, or an active one that might request it??

 

have you noticed whether its the HD audio bus under devicemanager\system devices......because i have been scouring my system (OCD and all) to find the source, and the one thing hat keeps causing the optical drive to "poll" is this device which throws up an exclamation mark then refreshes and then nothing.....can you confirm

 

I don't see an HD Audio bus only two HD audio controllers. No change in them yet but I'm leaving it up so I can look the next time it happens.

Could even be the device going into some sort of standby mode? Or just device specific and it would require a firmware update? If you rarely use the DVD drive it might be simpler to just unplug it (put your audio stuff on a USB drive) if it's driving you nuts. Simple and quick to get to...

 

I had noticed it the day i got my R4. I remember asking ppl here and all i got was its normal.

Porras had said it was normal and went onto say "It's just that the laptop turns off the CD drive if nothing is present and turns it on when you use an app that will use it. You will hear this from time to time. No need to be worried about it."

source : http://esports.alienwarearena.com/forums/topic/23854/hardware/m14x-r2-random-eject-sound/

Interestingly i read that people say formatting with IDE makes this go away. I'm skeptical. Its something you have to live with i guess.