Thinkpads Forum

I recently bought a T-43 & when I went to play a DVD it would play-- but the motor sounded very accelerated, something like driving a car at 30mph while it's still in first gear. I was using the free program VLC media player, then downloaded a trial version of WinDVD. Same problem. I was initially using a DVD-Rom, then switched to a CD-RW/DVD. Same problem. And I've tried different DVDs. Same problem. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks, Michael

That's normal behavior as far as I know. DVDs start reading and writing at the inner diameter, and have to run a higher rpm to read or write at the start. If it is reading files or playing video normally, I wouldn't worry about it.

Thinkvantage power manager has an option to control drive speed, "silent", "fast", or "normal" If you are using battery maximizer, you need to start the bios and choose. I know how annoying it is (installing software in a quiet classroom)

Good luck

While it's playing the DVD normally, the motor is turning MUCH faster than usual. I've watched hundreds of DVDs on my previous T41 &T21 & they were always quite quiet. It might spin around really fast at the very beginning, like it was loading up or something but then it would always "calm down". Right now the way it plays it is VERY noisy.

How would I access the Thinkvantage Power Manager? Though I doubt that it might be set to "fast" because it's just too noisy. No one would want to watch a DVD with all that noise.

I found a Lenovo page about an update of the WinDVD software that supposedly comes pre-installed on various Thinkpads. But it wasn't on the used T43 I just bought. I'm hesitant to un-install the trial version of WinDVD on my machine now & then download the update from Lenovo. I have NO experience with this sort of stuff.

When I bought the computer there was a problem with the wireless connection to the internet. The seller took it back home & updated a driver or something & then it worked fine. Could my problem be related to drivers??

There's a BIOS option to change DVD drive speed as well; the Power Manager does the same thing from within Windows.

If you haven't installed it yet, install Power Manager from Lenovo, and then open it; it should have a big battery icon in the taskbar that you can click and will bring up Power Manager. After switching to Advanced view, click the Global Power Settings tab and scroll to Advanced Options, where it will have CD-ROM speed.

Miguelito wrote:How would I access the Thinkvantage Power Manager?

Download ThinkVantage from the Lenovo website, install it, then go into Start - All Programs - ThinkVantage and look under there, the ThinkVantage Power Management should be under there.

Migeulito, you say it is spinning too fast. But that drive is under computer control, if it was "too" fast it would not be able to read discs at all. When you say "too fast" you seem to mean "too noisy" and those are very different things.

If it is too noisy and you just bought the machine, call for a warranty replacement. If the discs, or the drive, are unbalanced, it will be too noisy. It could also just be that this drive, in this model computer from whoever is the drive vendor this time, is noisier than your other drive(s) have been.

But you've said nothing to show that the drive is "too fast".