Greetings and question about drive noise

[e2d2c9d7]

Hi. This is my first post here. I'm the proud owner of a new 5.7 pound T43 2687D4U. I'm really happy with my new baby so far. It's just adorable.

I was a little disturbed that my ThinkPad was delivered with a congenital birth defect, but I wasn't willing to throw it out with the bath water. The 2915abg wireless card had no driver installed, and was about as apparently useful as an appendix on a human. But with the help of several existing recent (and sticky) posts about the problem on this forum, I was able to perform a post-natal install of the 9.0.2.31 driver level. All is now well with wireless operation, and my baby is exchanging packets with my wireless router normally and without any whining or complaining.

Now to my main question and my reason for posting (besides saying hello). I've noticed that the CDRW/DVD ROM drive is VERY LOUD. It makes quite an obnoxious whirring racket when spinning up to speed to access data. I've never heard a drive quite so noisy before. It is far louder than the one on my company-owned Dell laptop. The HDD is also a little bit loud compared to the Dell, but not unbearably so. It makes healthy-seeming staccato tickety-tic sounds, but it doesn't sound moribund. The CDRW/DVD ROM drive is another matter. It sounds like a flying saucer getting ready to take off and fly out of the case.

I don't have very much experience with laptops generally. I've only ever used my company-owned Dell and my new ThinkPad, so I don't really know if this racket is normal behavior. Is it? Are ThinkPads just noisy brats that will embarrass you in the polite company of a Starbucks or a library? Do you think I need to seek professional health care for it?

This forum looks to be a really great resource ThinkPad owners, and hopefully a nice community too. Greetings.

[christopher_wolf]

Welcome to the Thinkpad Forums,

Well, the drive does make noise; but here is the thing, the media inside is the most important. If the media is unbalanced, it is going to cause some vibration. Without hearing your drive, it is hard to say, but I would go so far as to say this sounds normal. Same goes with the hard drive, if you have a Hitachi though, I believe there is a download on their site that lets you control parameters to lessen the clicking noises.

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

You may want to find someone else with the same or a similar Thinkpad and compare drive noise with the same media.

[e2d2c9d7]

Thank you, Christopher.

I tried a few other CDs, and the rotational spin-up noise is indeed less dramatic on some CDs than on others. Perhaps the ink on the label makes a difference on some.

The access arm movement is more noticeable than the rotational noise on the better balanced CDs. The drive appears to work fine, so I suspect it is normal noise after all.

[christopher_wolf]

Glad you are enjoying your new T43 Thinkpad.

[alison]

I know exactly what you mean. I'm just checking out my new laptop, but loading CDs definately seemed TOO loud. And that's comparing it to other laptops I know - inc. 3 other thinkpads. I'm going to try taking out the drive and reinstall and see if that changes it, but you should here whirling - mine sounded like it was carving the disk. If you find anything that works, please post.

[geoffrey]

My CD/DVD rewriter (super multi) sounds fairly normal for a DVD drive. There is a Bios setting which lets you choose between High Performance, Normal or Silent for the drive -- presumably it alters the speed at which the drive spins CDs. Mine is set to Silent. You can also adjust this from the Power Manager, Global Power Settings tab, click the Advanced button.

[e2d2c9d7]

I can't find the global power manager. How do I get to it?

[christopher_wolf]

Click on the Green Battery Icon in the taskbar, that brings up the Power Manager; then click on the "Global Power Settings" Tab, next click "Advanced." You should see "CD-ROM Speed" and a Drop down box. Select the desired speed.