a noob question: Bought a BenQ DW1655 today and found it's very noisy when the drive spins (DVD reading acceptable, much worse reading CDs). Then I use CD-DVD speed to control the max speed but still it's much noisier than the 48x LG CD burner (without CD-DVD Speed) I am using. is this normal? Would LG's 4167B be quieter than this drive? any help would be appreciated

Hi
Welcome to the forum CdnBadAss.
My BenQ 1655 is fairly quiet.(On a par with my other drives Nec,Pioneer, Plextor). Suggest you reseat drive (loosen screws, slide drive to & fro, retighten screwa)to see if that makes a difference.

Thanks zebadee

I find the drive a littler noisy when burning discs. At the begining of writes, it sounds like it's charging up or something (you know, like vroom ... vrrooom-vrrooom ... vrroom, vrrrrooooooooom :-)

My 1650 is pretty noisy when spinning at high speeds too (DVD reading @ 10x and above), but it is just a spinning noise. The "vroom-vroom".

But mine is in an enclosure so I notice the noise more, but it doesn't vibrate which is great!

True, when writing at high speeds the drive starts very noisy, but as it the process advances the noise is decreasing.

That's because it spins the disc faster when it starts writing in order to keep the writing speed up. As it moves towards the edge of the disc the relative rotational speed is faster the further out from the centre, so the disc doesn't need to be spun so quickly in order to continue to write at a given speed (and so is quieter). That's how the drive gets up to it's maximum write speed so early on in the writing process ie spins faster at the beginning.