Silent BluRay drive for HTPC: found it!!

[Chefkoch81]

Hi!

I am so happy to have found a silent BluRay drive for my dead silent HTPC so I just regged to share this information (have not found it here previously).

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I recently built my HTPC. Its completely silent, even at midnight, when theres no other noise around.

The only noise came from my BluRay drive, the LG GGW-H20L (which should have been silent, according some threads here, deaf maybe?)

I moved the LG GGW-H20L in my work PC, because it was too loud for the HTPC anyway and decided to simply buy and test some drives.

Next after the LG burner was the LiteOn DH-4O1S. At first I was disappointed, as it was a bit louder than the LG. I remebered that I read somewhere here, that at least the Pioneer drive is not supported from the AnyDVD Speedmanagement. I thought I give it a try on the LiteOn and IT WORKS!!

The LiteOn drive with setting "Slow and Quiet" (dont know the correct terms, german version) operates BluRay 1x and DVD 2x (CD not tested). With BluRay its not hearable in 3 meters distance in a dead silent room. And with DVD almost not.

CD-Bremse is also working allthough I didn´t test with this very much.

I gave then the LG GGC-H20L a try, but it was as loud as the GGW and tried with it the speedmanagement, but its not supported.

The Pioneer BDC-202 I left unopened because I am happy with the LiteOn and it can´t be less audible than non-audible and its not spported from speedmanagement or CD-Bremse.

So the LiteOn DH-4O1S is the ultimate HTPC BluRay drive (in combination with AnyDVD or CD-Bremse.

Regards

 

[andy o]

There might be something wrong with your LG drives, though very improbable since you tested both. I personally can't hear anything with mine (whichever's not the burner) when playing movies, AnyDVD or not. It seems when playing DVDs it had a bug, but I haven't tested this thoroughly. Have you updated to the latest firmware?

In any case, my HTPC is optimized for quiet (Antec NSK1380), so I only have running a Nexus fan that only goes up to 1100 RPM, but is usually running at 700-800, and a Zalman CNPS8000, that I have tamed down to about 1150RPM with 2 resistors. I also got w 5400RPM laptop drives, and still the LG drive doesn't make much more noise than that when playing movies. It's pretty inaudible.

 

[hlkc]

Chefkoch81,

I am also VERY sensitive and concern any noise with my AV equipments in my theater room therefore when I design my theater room few years ago, at that time there were not so many heatsink GC, fanless PS... therefore I end up building a AV cabin away from my theater room and have all my noisy gears such as my HTPC store there. My main HTPC has been modify/upgrade many times and one of the requirements remains is as not noisy as possible. Make a long story short, I did from CPU fan to PS, from HDD to fans, after I changed/upgraded all those components at the end of the day, HDD is the one making the biggest noise actually by far compare to anything in my HTPC today. But my LG BD drive definitely not in the list in fact it is not create any noise that I notice.

I am in the beginning stage of planning my next G45 chipset HTPC. But this one, it will be as silent as possible since I am thinking to put in my theater room, not in my AV cabin. I am looking for fanless PS, heatsink HTPC case and HDD silencer to kill all HDD noise. I wonder can you share your list of the components and if it's one of the above component, can you share your comments about this component?

Also, since you have another BD drive in your other system, why don't you use that as a factory to produce the BD ISO and have your silent HTPC to play the ISO from other locations? I am planning to do the same thing - I will use my current HTPC as a factory and produce the ISO then use my next silent HTPC to play the BD.

 

[Chefkoch81]

Hi!

I dont know, but both my LG drives were loud, at least for my ear. Background noise is important, I have non. At least, when both my children are asleep at night. At this time, I need to watch movies really silent to not wake them up. Thats why a absolute quiet BluRay drive is necessary.

My first order was:
CPU Cooler Scythe Shuriken SCSK-1000 478/775/754/939/940/AM2
AMD Athlon64 4450e boxed AM2 2x 2.30GHz
Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H 780G Sockel AM2+
4096MB DDR2RAM OCZ Titanium PC800 CL4 Kit
HTPC Case Intertech Arris-A1B black
160GB Samsung Notebook drive
LG GGW-H20L BluRay drive

The Case will be switched to a GMC AVC-S1, since my other case is too deep.

I thought I switch the Harddisk later to a SSD, since they are too expensive now. But the HD is not hearable.

As written above, the LG BD Drive is already switched to the LiteOn.

I undervolted the CPU with RMClock. Idle now 37W, BluRay playing 50W, Prime Full Load both cores 65W (complete System). Much less than a PS3. Without RMClock, the Powerconsumption is on BluRay Playing or Prime 20W higher.

The CPU Cooler is great, it holds at 800rpm with prime at 45 degrees C. Its controlled by Speedfan between 600rpm idle and 800rpm on load.

The fan from the PSU of my current case does not spin. Either its defective or its controlled. Since theres not much Power needed its maybe really controlled somehow. It only does get warm. But maybe I switch it to a PicoPSU.

BluRay playing with 1GHz is possible with around 60% CPU usage (PowerDVD8). Of course if needed more, RMClock automatically increases the clockrate. That comes because the onboard graphics has VC1 and h264 acceleration.

As for ISOs and Harddisk loudness:
A small and silent Harddisk is OK for me. I have a 2TB Gigabit Ethernet Storage (Linux Server w. Raid5 and 3x1TB HDs) in my cellar. Throughput on reading is 60MBytes/s. I put there my ISOs. But only from BluRays I don´t own. From my own BluRays, I dont keep ISOs. I wanna watch them directly from the drive.
Also all my other media files, I keep there. 3,5" HDs are in my oppinion too loud for a HTPC.

I am very happy now with my setup. Its in dead silent not hearable from 2-3 meters away. And I am very sensitive to this.

Hope I could have helped you with this.

Regards