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brwooll

Has anybody else experienced a noisy DVD Rom drive on any of the RA Series desktops. All the RA's have pretty much the same components, just little tweeks with graphics cards, and hard drives to differentiate between models.

The DVD drive, classed as a HL-DT-ST GDR 8163B, I believe it to be a LG model, sometimes is very quite, others very vocal, depending on which type of disc / media is loaded. It can be very noisy with DVD films at the start or whilst going through menu's, as if it has difficulties reading, but is not limited to any particular disc or film.

You would believe the disc is about to launched with great force out of the casing. I have yet to check speed ratings of the drive, as it should be x16 max for DVD, and x52 max for CD. The other DVD RW drive, a Sony, is whisper quite at all times.

Is this possibly just a characteristic of the drive, giving the speed rating of the drive, or early signs of destruction, giving that the pc is only 4 weeks old and has had the noise from first boot, and was a replacement for a RZ 424 with a faulty DVD Rom drive, but that was a Pioneer drive.
Even after the RZ had a new drive fitted by Sony, it still refused to read any / many discs including the recovery disc, unless you recovered the pc first, but this would only last for days or weeks at best, but that's another story!

kee-lo_

It can be noisy, but I find most of the time it's quiet

brwooll

The concerning noise, is soon after loading media, when the drive chugs, buzzes, go quite for a few seconds, then repeats the cycle several times over, until it settles on a constant whirr.

Depending on the type of media loaded, the high speed whirring is very loud, other times you would be hard pushed to tell if the drive is actually operating, other than a flashing LED advising the drive is reading.

kee-lo_

The concerning noise, is soon after loading media, when the drive chugs, buzzes, go quite for a few seconds, then repeats the cycle several times over, until it settles on a constant whirr.

Does that in iTunes too

It's annoying

ralfpeter

Yes, have a two day old RA304 and the same noisy problem with some of the DVD/CD (even with the original SONY setup cd for the media client).

brwooll

The fact that the Sony Centre that supplied my RA 304, had a RA 204 instore, with same noise, which I did notice before taking delivery of my own pc.

The manager from the shop, replied that with regards to the noise from the DVD drive, some noise is to be expected from the spindle motor and the laser sled & focus.
This is normally minimal with most discs with contiguous data eg DVD Video. Any discs which require non contiguous access ( most data / program discs & DVD RW ) will increase the focus, tracking and disc rotation activity and therefore noise of the drive.

So basically, no probs it would seem.

kee-lo_

Yeah I thought it wasn't a problem myself

jammold

My drive is a HL-DT-ST-DVDRAM-GSA-4163B which is as you correctly stated an LG drive, and in my ATX server machine, the same symptoms are apparent when loading the media, it can be noisy, but It is something I put up with.

The drives are by no means cheap at £60.00

kee-lo_

Yeah I noticed it was LG too

jammold

Its a very good drive, and the fact that it copes with any DVD media, including the more rare DVD-RAM media is excellent.

Pity about the noise at times. LG however are good, my last LG GoldStar CD-ROM drive lasted 7 years and it was used daily (battered to death!).