A fast-and-quiet CD-ROM? \ VOGONS

A fast-and-quiet CD-ROM?

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First post, by kreats

Posted on 2007-04-15, 14:00

kreats Offline

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Joined: 2006-08-25, 16:29

Choosing a nice CD-ROM drive is pretty much the last thing I have to do in my pimped out 486. I've found that most high speed cdroms are rather loud however. (though I do remember you could get some software to throttle cd speed)

I'd ideally like something that:

* is IDE, at least 24x or above (with cd burning an optional bonus).
* was made "in the day" (mid to late 90s, early 00s) to keep everything similar to other parts I have.
* Has a simple beige front with a volume control and no weird decals/logos.

Anyone got any recommendations (was considering the Yamaha F1 - but not sure about noise)?

Reply 1 of 4, by 5u3

Posted on 2007-04-15, 18:46

5u3 Offline

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Location: Vienna, Austria

I'm afraid you're out of luck - typically 24x and faster drives are very loud. Traditionally CDROM drives always were produced as cheaply as possible, there was no market for "high quality drives" - with one exeption: Kenwood once had a drive that scanned discs with multiple laser beams instead of increasing disc rotation speed, but the thing didn't sell well because of the high price tag, and is quite rare nowadays.

About the software slowdown utilities: There are several for Windows, but I'm still looking for one that works under plain DOS. Any hints?

Reply 2 of 4, by Jiri

Posted on 2007-07-22, 17:35

Jiri Offline

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5u3 wrote:
About the software slowdown utilities: There are several for Windows, but I'm still looking for one that works under plain DOS. Any hints?

You can try CDSPEED.
http://sta.c64.org/dosprg.html

Reply 3 of 4, by dh4rm4

Posted on 2007-07-22, 17:44

dh4rm4 Offline

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Actually there are a lot of CDRW drives that support Silent Mode, just as there are some plain CD drives that do too. Look up Plextor, Pioneer and Samsung. Also try Plextor's older range for '02 ad '03 drives that will be more in line with the age of your parts.

Otherwise try sites like endpcnoise ---

http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/std/sku=px_760a.html

That's just an example.

Reply 4 of 4, by fillosaurus

Posted on 2007-09-03, 22:26

fillosaurus Offline

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Location: Banat

Dude, you'd better try one of this: www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=6&l2=34
I had one and it's really quiet for a 52x; it's even quieter than me 24x SCSI Pioneer I use in my 486/66 rig.

Y2K box: AMD Athlon K75 (second generation slot A)@700, ASUS K7M motherboard, 256 MB SDRAM, ATI Radeon 7500+2xVoodoo2 in SLI, SB Live! 5.1, VIA USB 2.0 PCI card, 40 GB Seagate HDD.
WIP: external midi module based on NEC wavetable (Yamaha clone)

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