dvdrw drivers?

[gorobei]

I have an OEM optiarc dvdrw sata 7170s. When playing dvd movies on powerdvd, the drive spins at the fastest/loudest speed. It's a little annoying. I have an older emprex ide dvdrw, that spins down when playing movies and is almost silent. An older toshiba laptop had some sort of noise reduction app as well.
Are there any software tools to control the speed or is it dependent on the manufacturer? The emprex came with a driver disc with a bunch of stuff that it installed.

I cant seem to find any drivers to download from sony, and looking around there doesn't seem to be any ODD maker who have drivers for download. Just firmware updates for media compatibility.

Is this the trend with ODD now relying on vista, or are the makers just not bothering with custom drivers anymore?

 

[Peter]

The vast majority of drives today have some sort of automatic speed adjustment. The drive monitors how much data per second are being read, and spins down to a speed that just so allows that. If the computer suddenly decides to read at a non-throttled rate, then it'll speed back up.

At least that's the plan. Drives should also have a (generic) command to limit their rotational speed, and there are freeware utilities for this. Try that first.

 

[corkyg]

XP requires no specific drivers for optical drives. They went away with Win98.

Laptop opticals can simply be noisy. They are thin and have little insulation. I have a HP Pavilion dv1000 that is quite noisy. And I have newer Lenovo T60 that is silent. Plus, an external burner is silent as well.

The makers only bother with drivers for Win98 because they are the only ones needed.

The Sony Optiarc is touted for its high speed capability. Want quieter? Get Samsung. 🙂

Optiarc

 

[Peter]

The Samsungs are quiet, yes. On the other hand, they have a tendency to go 'slow' with AV media discs when 'fast' would be more appropriate, which is a bit annoying when you're trying to read video/audio discs into your media center.