My DVD drive is too NOISY!!!

I mean, it's worse than the Xbox 360's DVD drive. THAT's how bad it is!

I'm considering doing an upgrade. Is it possible to switch it out of my laptop? And what make and model should I upgrade too?

My specs are in my sig btw.

EDIT: It isn't too bad all the time. Like, for (most) DVD's it's fine. It mainly seems to be data disks and games that cause spin so often and so violently

 

You can use a tool like Nero Drive Speed to set the read speed to a lower value; that will bring down the noise considerably. I have mine set at 6x instead of 8x, the noise level is almost inaudible with almost no performance loss.

 

For real? Nice. I bet theres a loss in how fast you can write to a DVD, tho.

 

Read and write speeds are controlled separately. Lower the read speed using Drive speed to minimize noise when reading; you can control writing speed from the burner software.

 

I use dvd images and drive emulation software to eliminate the noise problem

 

thanks for the info Phoenixfx. I have a question under nero drive spped, there is a button "slient" when i select this option it brings down the speed to 11x. Should i bring it down further? I use shrink sometimes will lowering the speed slow down the performance loss?

 

Aye, good shout PheonixFX. What's the lowest speed you'd recommend that will see the drive play disks as silently as possible....but without any undue performance loss?

 

Lowering read speed will have a negative effect on file copying times ( DVD shrink included). You can always set it back to maximum when running DVD shrink.

I haven’t played around with it much. Just use it to lower the speed of my drive to make it quiet and hopefully extend the life time. Try copying a large file under different speed settings; then you can settle for a speed that you think is a good compromise between performance and noise. For movies I think even 2x is enough.

 

So this is a software problem and not hardware?

 

It's not a problem. The faster your optical drive spins, the faster you can read/write to a DVD - and the more noise it makes. It's a compromise.

What PhoenixFx was getting at was lowering the read speed - thus eliminating noise - still allows you to watch DVDs normally.

And yes, the speed of your optical drive is controlled via software.

 

No it's not a problem, it's just something I do when I need to use a particular cd/dvd on a regular basis. You can save an image of your cd/dvd on your hard drive, then "load" the image to access the contents with drive emulation software, without inserting the actual cd/dvd.