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Anyone with a MBP 2011 DVD noisy drive?

P

Peter Franks

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jun 9, 2011
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I posted this in Mac Basics, but despite 144 odd views, it appears nobody owns a MBP with a DVD drive and ever plays DVDs in them, so if you do own one, can you clear something up for me, because I'm sure it settled down before, but now just runs constantly

Am curious, when you guys put a DVD in to the MBP, say a 1 hour or 2 hour film, how long before it stops spinning and you can watch it without the noise of the drive. Doesn't it settle down at some point, I can't remember, but now when putting in a DVD to watch, the drive is so annoying, I've given up after 10 minutes.
 
The drive will need to spin to read the disc to play the movie, as long as you are watching, the disc will spin. Possibly you have a slightly warped DVD which is causing more noise than usual, or the drive is starting to wear or has a fault.
 
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I thought it read the disc and stopped after a while, and didn't think it spins for the duration of the film
Did I imagine that?
 
I have a 2010 model instead of a 2011 but it is certainly a MacBook Pro with an optical drive. I don't watch content via the drive but I have used it quite extensively to install software, reinstall OS X when I got a new internal SSD (both of these are obviously seldom processes) and more regularly to burn CDs.

They are loud, and they do quiet down and I have noticed that it is louder when it first starts reading the disc, but at all times they are spinning and I still consider it to be loud. I've also used an external SuperDrive before and that was even louder, probably because its in a small enclosure instead of inside the computer. I don't think it is abnormal that your drive is loud.

I hope this helps.
 
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Thanks people. I do remember way back when, that it would read the DVD film but it got quieter once it was up and running. I think that may have been it. But it doesn't get any quieter now. It's noisy throughout. And yes burning is far worse. Much louder but I expect that. It was just watching films and in quiet parts its annoying. The new models don't have these drives anymore do they'?
 
Peter Franks said:
Thanks people. I do remember way back when, that it would read the DVD film but it got quieter once it was up and running. I think that may have been it. But it doesn't get any quieter now. It's noisy throughout. And yes burning is far worse. Much louder but I expect that. It was just watching films and in quiet parts its annoying. The new models don't have these drives anymore do they'?
Click to expand...

You are correct - the newer MacBooks are not sold with optical drives. If the noise is affecting you too much, take it along to the Apple store and see what they think. They will charge you for a replacement of course but at least you will know if it's 'normal'.
 
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You might hear the optical pickup shuffling around (the clicking/sliding sounds) when you first put the disc in, as it moves to read the Table of Contents and load the menus. Once playback starts in a linear fashion, the drive will continue to spin as long as you're playing the movie (the MPEG-2 compression isn't super compressed requires constant reading at the rate a DVD can play).
 
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thank you. I've wondered if there are many out there who miss the drive on the new models. they were there for a reason... and playing DVD with an external can't be that convenient for many I'm sure. People still use DVDs right? Any MB ever played BluRay discs?
 
Peter Franks said:
thank you. I've wondered if there are many out there who miss the drive on the new models. they were there for a reason... and playing DVD with an external can't be that convenient for many I'm sure. People still use DVDs right? Any MB ever played BluRay discs?
Click to expand...

I own a Late 2011 Macbook Pro 13". I burn to discs for uni coursework submissions and I also create CD's for my mothers car (apparently her iPhone is too difficult to use for music..). I have installed a Blu-Ray drive internally in this macbook and so I can burn to Blu-Rays as well as DVD's and CD's. Apple does not natively support the playback of Blu-ray disks and so I have to use third party software to watch movies etc.

If it's worth anything: this drive is actually a bit louder than the standard optical drive Apple uses. When I wake the Macbook it sounds like my Macbook is transforming into Optimus Prime.

I cannot see myself upgrading any time soon to a newer Macbook due to money (student life) and the fact that I am not quite ready to let disks go.
 
Peter Franks said:
thank you. I've wondered if there are many out there who miss the drive on the new models. they were there for a reason... and playing DVD with an external can't be that convenient for many I'm sure. People still use DVDs right? Any MB ever played BluRay discs?
Click to expand...

I had the 2010 model with the drive I rarely used it and have missed it not at all on my 2013 rMBP over the last 18 months. The only time it was an issue was when uni course needed some windows software installed that came on disc but I just used a works machine to copy an iso image from the disc to a usb drive and voila, to be honest windows 8 is more of pain everytime I boot into it than it was to do that.

All of my media is electronic now I use no disks only USB thumb drives and external hard drives. I do own dvds and blurays but that is what my TV and cheap blu ray player is for... but even then I can't even remember the last time i even plugged in the blu ray player!!! Maybe 2 years ago.

No apple computer has ever had a blu ray drive, but they will of course all run an external one with the right software.

Oh yeah and the DVD drive on my old 2010 was ridiculously loud...
 
Peter Franks said:
thank you. I've wondered if there are many out there who miss the drive on the new models. they were there for a reason... and playing DVD with an external can't be that convenient for many I'm sure. People still use DVDs right? Any MB ever played BluRay discs?
Click to expand...
I don't even really watch my DVDs anymore, I'm in the process of ripping them to my MBP and once that's done, they're all going into storage. I'll eventually do the same for my Blu-Ray collection.
 
ApolloBoy said:
I don't even really watch my DVDs anymore, I'm in the process of ripping them to my MBP and once that's done, they're all going into storage. I'll eventually do the same for my Blu-Ray collection.
Click to expand...

too much like hard work that is...

Samuelsan2001 said:
I had the 2010 model with the drive I rarely used it and have missed it not at all on my 2013 rMBP over the last 18 months. The only time it was an issue was when uni course needed some windows software installed that came on disc but I just used a works machine to copy an iso image from the disc to a usb drive and voila, to be honest windows 8 is more of pain everytime I boot into it than it was to do that.

All of my media is electronic now I use no disks only USB thumb drives and external hard drives. I do own dvds and blurays but that is what my TV and cheap blu ray player is for... but even then I can't even remember the last time i even plugged in the blu ray player!!! Maybe 2 years ago.

No apple computer has ever had a blu ray drive, but they will of course all run an external one with the right software.

Oh yeah and the DVD drive on my old 2010 was ridiculously loud...
Click to expand...

I just had this thing in the back of my mind that it read all the info and then stopped and was stored for viewing... Must've dreamt it! I always thought Apple would've gone BluRay but it was a Sony thing wasn't it so that's probably why..

LewisChapman said:
I own a Late 2011 Macbook Pro 13". I burn to discs for uni coursework submissions and I also create CD's for my mothers car (apparently her iPhone is too difficult to use for music..). I have installed a Blu-Ray drive internally in this macbook and so I can burn to Blu-Rays as well as DVD's and CD's. Apple does not natively support the playback of Blu-ray disks and so I have to use third party software to watch movies etc.

If it's worth anything: this drive is actually a bit louder than the standard optical drive Apple uses. When I wake the Macbook it sounds like my Macbook is transforming into Optimus Prime.

I cannot see myself upgrading any time soon to a newer Macbook due to money (student life) and the fact that I am not quite ready to let disks go.
Click to expand...

The other thing is it can deplete a battery in about 30 minutes as well if you're burning... quite easily. And the 2011 MBP battery was a dog anyway
 
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