MS ships 360 with Quieter DVD Drive

[bingo83]

Anyone who has a 360 knows the amount of noise the existing DVD drive can churn out. Looks like MS is building 360's with a new Super Quiet drive made by BenQ.

http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/2007/02/xbox-360-new-drive.jpg

Source (http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/06/xbox-360-finally-quiets-down-with-brand-new-internal-dvd-drive/)

[Truplaya83]

annoying for us that already have a noisy xbox.

[JGClifton]

Hmm, the drive doesn't seem to be the noisy part of my 360... its the damn fans.

[Raisedbyflames]

if the disk aint sitting right it can sound like a chainsaw

[HotFish]

I said mine was quieter than my old one..and it had that green sticker on the drive instead of a clear one...the last one i bought was Sept..when did they start or when are they starting....its wisper's compared to the 05 model, so a newer version must be quite....i also want to know for when this accidently falls over

[Raisedbyflames]

ill buy a new one and ill arhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaa my old one

http://beej.us/pirates/jollyleft.png

[phatmuther]

Hmm, the drive doesn't seem to be the noisy part of my 360... its the damn fans.

That noise isnt the fans, its the DVD drive.

[HotFish]

ill buy a new one and ill arhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaa my old one

http://beej.us/pirates/jollyleft.png

I thought i'd seen that hand somewhere before! lol...im getting dressed up as a pirate next week...i'll post pics when im all dressed up.

Believe me for having 4 faliures and having to buy a spare backup 360 M$ will send me a new one this year...even if i have to break the one im on!:zip:

[WACCOE]

I can hear mine when i'm on the floor below it in my house.
That, is shocking.

[tom91]

well hopefully it will stop scratching discs, like my first 360 did a week after i bought it.

[Adam]

Sounds good! And yea, its not the fans, its the DVD Drive for sure. The fans do speed up when you start a game but the DVD sounds like it will take off! lol

[damien©]

I can hear mine when i'm on the floor below it in my house.
That, is shocking.

Yea, what have you got on the Floor just a sheet of Vinyl?

Anyways it is loud and this is going to be handy for some but not a reason to "upgrade"

[derekm91]

good find.

[JGClifton]

That noise isnt the fans, its the DVD drive.

But when my drive is doing nothing at all it's just as loud.

[Blaze Lord]

How about with no disc in the drive?

[phatmuther]

But when my drive is doing nothing at all it's just as loud.

Then that sounds like a faulty xbox, no way your fans should be as loud as the DVD drive. I think you are just confused.

[JGClifton]

I don't think so. I can tell the different between drive noise and fan noise. My xbox is pretty quiet anyways, about 2 months old this one. OF course it doesnt have a BenQ drive in but it is much quieter than my first.

[Blaze Lord]

So.. no answer on disc in the drive or not?

[JGClifton]

No disc in drive. I have the same level of noise in game and just in dash. It's quieter than my laptop.

[Blaze Lord]

Well.. If the 360's fans are quieter than your laptop.. What's the problem?

[JGClifton]

I wasn't saying there is a problem, I was just saying the DVD drive doesn't seem to be the source of my 360's noise.
Cheers,
Joe.

[RiLu@]

I think it's good that MS keeps upgrading the 360 but doesnt change the price.

[Ryan]

Soooooooooo nooooooooooooisy, does anyone elses randomly go quiet when playing a game? only for like 20seconds... mind :(

[Blaze Lord]

I wasn't saying there is a problem, I was just saying the DVD drive doesn't seem to be the source of my 360's noise.
Cheers,
Joe.
Oh, okay. Your original thing was "it's the damn fans," so I thought you were complaining. But we agree that quieter than a laptop isn't anything to complain about, yeah?

[phatmuther]

Soooooooooo nooooooooooooisy, does anyone elses randomly go quiet when playing a game? only for like 20seconds... mind :(

Thats when the disc stops spining, then it starts up again.

[Blaze Lord]

Streaming music off your computer, instead of listening to the game's soundtrack, often means the disc drive gets read a lot less.

[exocet ape]

It would be good if they made them available to existing owners so that we could get rid of the temperamental piece of gash that is in the present version.

[Blaze Lord]

Welllllll.. There's nothing stopping you from buying another 360. :).

But how exactly would you expect some sort of DVD drive replacement to work?

[JGClifton]

Send existing 360 off with a few quid to cover drive costs and they fit for free? That would be nice.

[exocet ape]

open case -> remove present drive -> put in replacement drive -> close up case

Columbo solves another problem.

And...... why should i have to pay for another xbox??

and i agree with you JGC although we shouldn't have to pay full cost on the drive as the original is pretty crud.

[fincheyboy]

since i have had my replacement 360 ( a crappy refurb) my room sounds like a warzone (and im not talki ng about from the games) The unit is like 4 times as lud. anyway just nice to have a rant sometimes.

[Blaze Lord]

open case -> remove present drive -> put in replacement drive -> close up case

Columbo solves another problem.

And...... why should i have to pay for another xbox??

and i agree with you JGC although we shouldn't have to pay full cost on the drive as the original is pretty crud.

Wait.. You think this is something you'd be able to do? At home? And MS would just completely honor its warranty nonetheless?

[JGClifton]

I don't think he's implying that blaze. MS must buy these drive at a few quid each. So maybe charging just £30 for the new drive including fitting and postage would be nice to the existing 360 owners.

[Blaze Lord]

Well, the drives certainly cost MS more than just a few quid each. But I could see this happening at, I dunno.. 70-80 pounds.

Unfortunately, the biggest reason this won't happen is that the vast majority of 360 owners don't care.

[exocet ape]

70-80 quid for the DVD drive? MS will be paying tops £10-£15 a drive.
infact i think the drive would be at most £25 retail.

the drive industry has gone way cheap - it's max £50 for a top spec dvd DL unit at the moment.

'Unfortunately, the biggest reason this won't happen is that the vast majority of 360 owners don't care.'

You trying to say that owners wouldn't rather have a drive in their 360 that doesn't take fits and scratch their disks for no apparent reason, freezes or 'unable to read disk' in the middle of a game etc.... Of course they would

[Blaze Lord]

Well, no.. I'm trying to say that my drive certainly doesn't scratch anything for no reason, it doesn't freeze, and I've never gotten an 'unable to read disk'. Ever. In the middle of a game or first booting up, and I have a launch console. For the vast, vast majority of 360 owners, the only improvement would be sound levels. The vast majority of those users won't even know that the 360 is on its third.. fourth? model of DVD drive, and the people who do know, there's no way all of them would be willing to pay anything for the privilege of parting with their consoles for a few weeks in order to have a quieter machine.

Check the prices of this BenQ model. It's more expensive than you think, even at wholesale prices. And you wouldn't just be paying for the drive, you'd be paying for the shipping, installation, and testing- the last two involving paying for some worker's time, and labor these days is more often expensive than the goods.