SPCR

I was thinking of getting a NEC ND-3550a. I'm not sure how quiet these drives are... Any help would be appreciated.

unless there's something special about the drive, most really sound the same(loud)if they're rated for the same speed. The only way is to use Nero's drivespeed to slow it down, my NEC ND-3540A becomes acceptably quiet when I do that, so will the 3550A, and the newer 4550A, or any other drive you would choose to purchase, unless there are compatibility problems. I can confirm that the newer NEC drives will work however.

I don't have nero but the BENQ 1640 drive does come with nero and is about the same price as the 3550. Generally all the drives, as you say, are pretty loud. Correct? Unless it is one of those plextors that have a silent operation thingy, they're all generally loud.

Solved. I'll go for the BenQ which performed quite well according to both anandtech and cdrinfo. Thanks for the help!

If you can find them, Pioneer A10XL. even the A09XL too.

They are all loud, none is quiet and none will ever be silent.

I've tried:

Nec ND-4551A
Benq DW1640
Pioneer DVR-A09XL
Samsung TS-H552
Plextor PX-712A
LiteOn SOHW-1693S
LG GSA-4167B

Of those, Pioneer and Plextor are the most handy as they have built-in selectable (and user settable) speed options that work well. No external software or programs that start with windows are needed.

If you throttle them down to the lowest speed, they are ok, but not quiet.

If you put them inside a padded and vibration damped 5.25" slot and use a padded front door on your case, this will have the biggest noise cut down effect that I've experienced.

If features also matter, BenQ is very good for dvd burn quality, Plextor a very good all arounder and Pioneer ok as a burner, but not great.

don't think of modding and soft-mounting, because case manufacturers have purposely removed soft-rubber grommets from 5.25" bays. The reason is that the lasers on the drives have become unstable from the vibration dampening and was malfunctioning, so all have went back to direct screw mounting and/or drive rails. Plextor and Pioneer are good, it's just that they are unnecessarily expensive for the same/worse performance of NEC, LG, Samsung, and as you are purchasing, BenQ drives. In my opinion, the drive's performances are all the same since I really don't care if I burn a DVD 10 seconds faster, in which I wouldn't have realized unless if I had 2 setups to compare them two,(in the case I really didn't have that much of a life), or if I had read a review. As the person above recommeneded, damping works well, but that increases temps, but I don't think optical drives make much heat anyways.

I have a ASUS DRW-0804P ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive, and it is definitely not quiet. Even worse, though, is that I cannot seem to use Nero's diskspeed to slow it down at all.

The Plextor 712A is the quietest burner I've experienced, significantly quieter than the LG GSA 4167B, and spinning time is much less with the Plextor when reading a game CD I have. However, the 712A is discontinued and replaced by the 716A, which I don't think is as quiet as the 712A.

I have hard mounted all my drives and as noted, would not recommend soft mounting.

However, padding (putting extra noise absorbtion material around the 5,25" bays) helps a lot. A door helps even more (once you pad it).

The difference is remarkable. You don't need a noise meter to measure it, it's really big.

This is the reason I will never buy a case (and haven't for my past three cases) that doesn't have a door covering the 5,25" bays (and enough padding space on the door itself).

tjpark1111 wrote: In my opinion, the drive's performances are all the same since I really don't care if I burn a DVD 10 seconds faster, in which I wouldn't have realized unless if I had 2 setups to compare them two,(in the case I really didn't have that much of a life), or if I had read a review.

This is a simplistic view about drive performance.

I agree that while speed doesn't matter, burn compatibility and quality matter a lot.

For instance, LG is not particularly good with many media, sometimes failing utterly even on grade A (certified non-fake) Taiyo Yudens or Maxells (MXL/Made in Japan).

BenQ is superior with it's WOPC technique and Plextor is not far behind with it's latest incarnation of adaptive burn control on the PX-755.

If you want to burn something with that burner, I think it's worthwhile to consider if the stuff on the disc actually is readable.

I won't bore you with the details, as this is non-silence related, but if you want more information, read my and others' posts in CDR-Info, CDFreaks or CDRLabs forums about media quality measurements.

If you just buy any dvd drive and expect to burn usable or even archivable copies of your data on any dvd discs, you are in for a rude awakening, I'm afraid :(

regards,
halcyon

I'm just about to try a Benq 1650 in an external enclosure. I have been using NEC drives in plastic enclosures and after a recent bit of scanning/checking been mildly disappointed with some of the burn qualities.

With the new drive I'm also getting a aluminium enclosure with a Prolific PL3507 chipset as this seems to be the best of optical drives (oddly the reverse for HDDs). I will either take out the stock fan or mod/swap it for a better/quieter 40mm one.

One thing I am interested in is the Benq cooling system which on the basis of the info I've read sounds like a fan but rather advanced. What sort of experiences have people had with them and is there any noticeable noise from the system?

IdontexistM8 wrote: One thing I am interested in is the Benq cooling system which on the basis of the info I've read sounds like a fan but rather advanced. What sort of experiences have people had with them and is there any noticeable noise from the system?

I've been using the Plex 740 (it's a BenQ) on right out on top of my workbench for a few months now and can hear absolutely no noise being produced by the "cooling system". If there actually is any noise, it's covered up by the normal disk rotation sounds emanating from the drive.

Well I got it today, and it's certainly not overly noisy, I'd put it on a par with a Plextor.

However the PL3507 enclosure was a duff move as Nero can't verify disks for some reason. Tried flashing the chipset firmware but it won't work.

I can get the Benq to run fine in another enclosure with GL711 & 811 chipsets but the casing is tight and plastic and I'm not overly keen on keeping it in that.

So the next plan is an enclosure with Genesis chipset but aluminium body. I've found one on ebay and from what I can tell, I can either change or remove the fan if it's noisy (the PL3507 based one really wasn't too bad)

Here's the link to the manufacturer's product page.

Link

From the some of the test burns and quality checks I've done so far the Benq looks very good, a better writer and reader than NEC.

I'm not deep into burning techniques, so I simply bought the BenQ 1640 on recommendation on this forum.

I definately havent regretted;

Not a single problem with burning, nor reading. Even not on El Cheapo media.

For sure, it's not silent. But in a P180 with the door closed, I find it very acceptable, and absolutely not annoying.

Besides, I dont use it all the time