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Question about macbook superdrive noise...

P

PDE

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Nov 16, 2005
2,484
18
As I was setting up the macbook I got for my sister, I noticed that the superdrive on this thing makes an incredible thumping/knocking noise as it sucks in the DVD. I've had many macbooks and macbook pros(as everybody might know by now....), but this one seems much louder and has two horrible thumps before the disk is in, followed by some weird sounds as it spins up too.

I noticed that it's a different drive - HL-DT-ST DVDRW GWA4080MA compared to the other drive which were all Matsushita drives. I think I had one macbook pro with this drive, but it was definitely not this noisy, or it just sounds different because of the metal case. The only good thing about this is that it's more quiet when I usleep or start the computer.

Is this a defect? does anybody else have this particular drive? What does yours sound like?

Other than that, there are only a few other smaller issues - one side of the trackpad is mush with no click (found the famous paper fix and it works fine) , the trackpad is flush with the palmrests in the front, but recessed in the back, and the palmrests were losening a little from the lower base (fixed by untightening some screws, pushing it down and putting in the screws again). Oh, and the LCD 'frame' is a little lose too, but at least not about to fall off! I'm accustomed now to most defects so these ar minor. The DVD drive is what concerns me most...

Apple quality control continues...

Thanks....
 
There's been alot of chat about this noise and at the end of the day I really
do think it's normal for these machines. Mine makes it and all the ones I've
tested in various shops make it.
 
DSD said:
There's been alot of chat about this noise and at the end of the day I really
do think it's normal for these machines. Mine makes it and all the ones I've
tested in various shops make it.
Click to expand...

I guess it's just different. I put a disk in my black macbook Matsushita drive and it was not quite as loud, but it sounded pretty bad too. The new drive makes a much louder thumping sound before it starts spinning up. Sounds awful really and I would never put a disk in if were sitting/working in quiet place. Oh well, then maybe it is what it is.

So the matsushita drives are, in general, a little more quiet than the others?
 
PDE said:
I noticed that it's a different drive - HL-DT-ST DVDRW GWA4080MA compared to the other drive which were all Matsushita drives. I think I had one macbook pro with this drive, but it was definitely not this noisy, or it just sounds different because of the metal case. The only good thing about this is that it's more quiet when I usleep or start the computer.
Click to expand...

A bit off-topic, but now that the drive is not Matsushita anymore, would VideoLAN Client play a DVD from a different region? With the Matsushita drives and OS X > 10.4.7 or so, you couldn't get the raw unencrypted data from the drive, so software CSS decryption cannot be used to bypass the region encoding.
 
hircus said:
A bit off-topic, but now that the drive is not Matsushita anymore, would VideoLAN Client play a DVD from a different region? With the Matsushita drives and OS X > 10.4.7 or so, you couldn't get the raw unencrypted data from the drive, so software CSS decryption cannot be used to bypass the region encoding.
Click to expand...

Sorry...can't answer that. Somebody else?
 
PDE said:
As I was setting up the macbook I got for my sister, I noticed that the superdrive on this thing makes an incredible thumping/knocking noise as it sucks in the DVD. I've had many macbooks and macbook pros(as everybody might know by now....), but this one seems much louder and has two horrible thumps before the disk is in, followed by some weird sounds as it spins up too.

I noticed that it's a different drive - HL-DT-ST DVDRW GWA4080MA compared to the other drive which were all Matsushita drives. I think I had one macbook pro with this drive, but it was definitely not this noisy, or it just sounds different because of the metal case. The only good thing about this is that it's more quiet when I usleep or start the computer.

Is this a defect? does anybody else have this particular drive? What does yours sound like?

Other than that, there are only a few other smaller issues - one side of the trackpad is mush with no click (found the famous paper fix and it works fine) , the trackpad is flush with the palmrests in the front, but recessed in the back, and the palmrests were losening a little from the lower base (fixed by untightening some screws, pushing it down and putting in the screws again). Oh, and the LCD 'frame' is a little lose too, but at least not about to fall off! I'm accustomed now to most defects so these ar minor. The DVD drive is what concerns me most...

Apple quality control continues...

Thanks....
Click to expand...

My MB CD 2.0 Superdrive is loud as well. In the past, I've had so many PB superdrive failures I don't even use my MB internal drive, opting instead to use my external FW attached DVD +-RW drive for all CD ripping, DVD creation, etc...

Extreme, I know but works well, is much quieter and less likely to fail and if it does I will just buy another one.

Cheers,
 
mantic said:
Sound anything like this? My new MBP

Click to expand...

Aaaah! Yes! that's it exactly. Thanks. But how can that possibly be considered normal???? I've never heard any drive sound like that.
 
PDE said:
Aaaah! Yes! that's it exactly. Thanks. But how can that possibly be considered normal???? I've never heard any drive sound like that.
Click to expand...

It's my opinion that it's not. I haven't said anything to apple about it. But maybe i should just to get their take on it.

Is there an email i can use to send something like this to them?
 
When I first heard this a few days ago, I thought it sounded horrible and totally not normal. Now I'm not so sure.

I had just gotten a new MBP around the time of this post and didn't seem to recall my Superdrive's "thump" sound quite that loud. After paying more attention to it over the last few days, the "thump" is definitely louder than a previous MBP I had, but seemingly not quite as loud as mantic's.

My MBP does have the newer drive in use, the HL-DT-ST DVDRW GWA4080MA. I'm kinda bummed out that this new drive is a bit louder, but I don't think it's that big of a deal. I'm not ready to return an otherwise perfectly good MBP just for a bit of thumping.

I'm curious though, is this new drive showing up in all MBPs, or is a luck of the draw thing, similar to hard drives?
 
Noisy superdrive load

Figured I'd post response to an old thread anyway. I came looking for information on this issue, too. I've found many complain of the noise, and many say it's "normal." At least I haven't found complaints of failure due to the noise, or whatever is causing it. I get a similar noise, and was disturbed by it at first. My only consolation is that it's not just mine. It does prompt others nearby to ask "what the heck was that noise?" If it's going to fail, just hope it does it while I'm still on warranty. FWIW, here's info on the drive, found in disc utility:
Disk Description: HL-DT-ST DVDRW GSA-S10N
Connection Bus: ATA
Media Type: CD-ROM
Connection Type:Internal
MacBook 2.2GHz Intel, 250Gb hdd, OS X Leopard
 
My new BlackBook sounds exactly like that video...


however the 15" C2D SR MBP 2.4ghz i had back in June of 07 when they first came out was much more quiet...

... this drive is much louder, sounds like something is almost breaking, but u know what... this thing has never made a coaster, where the MBP made about 20% coasters... so i can live with the noise
 
So......

So, Whats the solution for this? Did Apple think customers are just gonna say "whatever"?
I personally get SHY when I'm in a public place, and I gotta use my DVD drive!
That's not a feeling I should be getting when using my Expensive computer!
Another issue, is the fan on the MB Pro. When used during day hours, somehow merges with the streets and the birds, but when everyone is asleep at night, my Computer serously sounds like a Jet Fighter. I have even had instances of people coming downstairs to tell me to turn off my computer :(
Is this what I payed for? Staying on topic, I have found a spot on the edge of my trackpad mouse button that doesn't make a click (yes it's weird, this paranoia is just upsessive, but would not have been triggered in the first place), at least that keeps me going in times of silence, but everything else is not making me happy.

I think I have a theory that not only were the first ever computers slow to make way for a blossoming business full of upgrades, but also people were given high speeds with time, so they wouldn't bother about the noise (getting used to computers in general). Well hell, I'm not satisfied, and computer developers should have taken 20 years improving these things, instead of feeding us crap cause we didn't know real food could have existed.

PS. mantic, what kind of amp is that in the background? it looks massive.
 
it is normal if your drive has no problem reading/burning/ejecting/accepting discs.

Slot loading drives are loud by nature, especially because these are super thin. Dell XPS laptops with the same slot loading drives sound exactly the same.
 
The sound on my MacBook 2.0 bugs me too. There are some apple firmware updates that disable this sound on some machines. Here is the link:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1237
Unfortunately, the needed upgrades are not for my macbook model :cool:
Hopefully it works for you...

p.s. if someone finds the right firmware update for the White MacBook 2.0 late 2006, that disables this sounds please let me know
 
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