Getting rid of CD-Rom Noise

[mithrill]

Is there any way to reduce the noise from the CD-Rom drive when running Knoppix from CD?
I've been running it off my 52x CD-Rom and the noise is almost unbearable.
However when i boot it from an old P133 with a 8x CD-Rom, you can hardly hear any noise at all from the CD, it runs very quiet (although pretty slow).
Is it possible to decrease the speed at wich Knoppix accesses the CD? Like downclock the CD-Rom from 52x to 8x?
I really wouldnt mind the speedloss as long as I can get rid of the noise.

[Loper]

Is there any way to reduce the noise from the CD-Rom drive when running Knoppix from CD?

As far as I know, there is not throttling software available under Linux. Under MS-DOS, there's SlowCD: http://www.ibsensoftware.com/files/SlowCD104.zip, which does come with asm-source.

Your other two options are to try burning a couple more discs (maybe other brands) that might be better-balanced, or find a Samsung CD-ROM drive; as far as I know, that's the only brand that has dynamic balancing. It's easy to tell which Samsung drives have this feature. They use steel shot for this, so the drives rattle when tilted or shaken (gently).

[Henk Poley]

hdparm -E1 /dev/hdX

"hdparm -E" sets the the CD-ROM drive speed (DVD works also), I haven't found out if numbers correspond with speed (24x, 32x) numbers. -E3 is inaudible fast enough for DivX playback on my machine (48x12x48x CD-ReWriter).

[mithrill]

I tried "hdparm -E2 /dev/hdc" but i get an error, it says:
"/dev/hdc:
setting cdrom speed to 2
CDROM_SELECT_SPEED failed: Input / output error."
Is this maybe a feature only supported on some CD-Roms?

I also tried setting it to other speeds than 2 but still same error.

[Henk Poley]

I tried "hdparm -E2 /dev/hdc" but i get an error, it says:
"/dev/hdc:
setting cdrom speed to 2
CDROM_SELECT_SPEED failed: Input / output error."
Is this maybe a feature only supported on some CD-Roms?

I also tried setting it to other speeds than 2 but still same error.

Yes, could well be.

btw, did you have a CD in the drive? I have only tested with a CD inserted.

[mithrill]

yeah, i had a CD in the drive, it's the drive that i'm booting/running Knoppix on.

Well, guess i'll be taking a look at thouse samsung cd-roms with noise reduction.