Just a few questions about Asus 50x CD-ROM and a power supply

[Shooters]

I was going to get a the Kenwood 72x CD-ROM, but it seems a lot of people have had big problems with it, so I've decided to get the Asus 50x.

1. How loud is the Asus? Some people on here complain that it's pretty loud. I don't really care if it is dead silent, but I just don't want it to sound like a 747 taking off like some of the other optical drives I've had in the past.

2. Does it read CD-R's?

Also, pretty soon I'm going to have 3 optical drives, 1 hard drive, and the Creative Labs Live Drive all being run by a PIII 700@933. Is my 250 watt power supply going to be beefy enough for this or should I go for a 300 watt?

Thanks,
Shooters

 

[Noriaki]

The Asus 50x isn't silent, but it's a whole lot quieter than my Pioneer 10x DVD Rom or my old Creative 52x CDROM. It's not obtrusively loud in my view.

It reads CDRs and CDRWs just fine.

It also has good DAE speed if you care.


Can't comment on your power supply concern though, I've got a little more juice than 250watt...

 

[Shooters]

In you opinion is it a better buy compared to the Kenwood 72x?

 

[Noriaki]

Never used the Kenwood so I can't really comment on that drive's specific quality.

But I just bought the Asus 50x 2 weeks ago myself, I chose it over the Kenwood, I don't like their track record much.

 

[Shooters]

Yeah, I'm a little worried about their reliability as well. It seems the people in these forums either love the Kenwood or hate it. Plus the Asus is about half the price.

 

[Seeko]

The Asus is pretty loud at 50x. The good thing is you can select what speed you want it to run at. When installing stuff I leave it at 50x, but when I play games that need a cd, I lower it to 24x.

 

[HeinekinMan]

Hey Shooters,

I just helped a co-worker configure his Asus 50x drive; it seems ok, has no problem reading CD-R's and CD-RW's. But...the damn thing is LOUD, seems to spin up/down way too often for me, and I could not get anything decent regarding DAE, 6x is all it's capable of (in his system). It's suppose to be 2 or 3 times that. I tried practically every combo imaginable and DMA mode is enabled. But burning on-the-fly is not a priority of his system so this CDROM is sufficient aside from the poor DAE rate.

I, on the other hand, have two Kenwood 72x readers in two different systems. You really can't compare the two. The Kenwood, like you indicated, costs more (double depending on where you buy it) but outperforms the Asus in every way. Faster, extremely quiet, no premature spining up/down, reads burned CD-R's, CD-RW's, AND provides me with accurate DAE rates of 46x. I haven't had any problems with either of them, one is over a year old.

 

[Shooters]

Thanks for the info. Could something else be affecting the DAE rate of the Asus? Maybe processor speed or not enough RAM?

 

[Viperoni]

I've never really tried DAE on mine, but when installing off a high quality cdr/"real" cd, it spins almost all the way up to it's 10,400 RPM limit....and it's LOUD!
Not annoying, because it does spin down, but damm those Q3/Hl installs FLY by!

BTW: I've had mine for over a year, absolutely nothing wrong with it, reads EVERYTHING my plex40x scsi does.

 

[HeinekinMan]

yeah I was somewhat surprised at the low DAE rate. I really, really tried every combo but to no avail. He's using an Asus P3B-F mobo which is Intel 440BX-based with an Intel P3-500 CPU. 128 MB of RAM. I tried multiple configuration combo's with no better results.

There is a speed adjustment utility that Asus offers that allows you to set the speed. Might be willing to give that a try if only I could access an available FTP site from Asus's site (I can't get to any of them for some reason...)

 

[Shooters]

Hmmm.....that's weird that your DAE was so low. It seemed to score very well on the CD Speed web page. Someone on the web page commented that the Asus drive comes from the factory with a 6x-12x default DAE rate, but you can adjust it with a utility. Maybe that was the cause of your problems. I would hate for the drive's DAE to suck because I just got a new 12x10x32 CDRW, and I'm ready for some on the fly copying. I think I'll give it a shot, and if it's slow or sounds like a jet engine then I'll take it back.

Thanks for your input,
Shooters

 

[xrdirthead19]

I have two of these on order...I hope I'm not going to need earplugs!!!!

 

[Shooters]

Yeah, I know. I had a drive once that was so loud and so unbalanced that I could actually feel my desk shake when it spun up. It literally felt like I was on the runway about to take off.