Very very noisy super-drive - is this normal?

Same problem here, in a 2009 Mac mini. Same drive, used it for the first time today to install Snow Leopard. Sounded awful – completely unbalanced – and took forever. Tried it vertically, everything is fine. Guess I'm off to the Apple store.

Odd... mine seems to have "settled" (?!) now, and doesn't vibrate nearly as much, if at all!. Weirddd

There's a SuperDrive firmware update just released for the Early 2009 Minis and some iMacs.
iMac (20-inch, Mid 2009), iMac (24-inch, Early 2009), Mac mini (Early 2009)

http://support.apple.com/downloads/SuperDriveFirmware_Update_30

Same issue here.. I bought my Mac Mini late December 07.. It has the PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-K06 drive installed in it.. From the day I bought it the DVD drive is useless when sitting on my desk. I need to flip it vertically for it to read and write properly. If i don't it sounds like the DVD is going to explode, not to mention all the read/write error I get.

I should have brought it back to the store right away, but never did.. So i'm sitting on a broken Mac Mini from day 1.. And now that Snow Leopard is out I nervous to install it.

Is there anything I can do?

I did all the firmware updates for my machine(it's a month old) and only a week or so AFTER that has my Pioneer DVD drive begun to vibrate and make huge fan noise. I have to turn the volume up on music CD's to counter the noise from the drive. What a piece of crap this is. And no, it doesn't change when I place the box vertically.

Same problem on my new macmini. See the thread I started about it here:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2191763&tstart=15

Anyone else with this issue?

No? Yes?

Fugazer wrote:
Same issue here.. I bought my Mac Mini late December 07.. It has the PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-K06 drive installed in it.. From the day I bought it the DVD drive is useless when sitting on my desk. I need to flip it vertically for it to read and write properly. If i don't it sounds like the DVD is going to explode, not to mention all the read/write error I get.

I should have brought it back to the store right away, but never did.. So i'm sitting on a broken Mac Mini from day 1.. And now that Snow Leopard is out I nervous to install it.

Is there anything I can do?

First off your right, you should have brought it back to the store.

Now that it's to late for that have you:

1. Updated with the latest firmware?

1A. Products Affected
iMac (20-inch, Mid 2009), iMac (24-inch, Early 2009), iMac (20-inch, Early 2009), Mac mini (Early 2009) READ HERE FIRST: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3744
READ HERE SECOND: http://support.apple.com/downloads/SuperDriveFirmware_Update_30



2. Have you reset SMC? http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1543

3. Have you reset PRAM? http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379

If you haven't then give it a try and see what happens (all of them 1,2,3 in order).

If none of those work call AppleCare for support. If theres a known issue Apple will make it right.

+Do NOT apply #1A because your Mac Mini is a December 07 build.+

Good luck!

Anyone have a solution or have the same problem?

On October 20th I bought a previous generation Mac Mini MB463LL/A, it has the Optiarc DVD. I tried installing Snow Leopard that I bought, but there was severe vibration happening. The Snow Leopard DVD booted the machine, but when trying to install, it seemed to be stuck saying "33 minutes" remaining. If it wasn't vibrating so badly, I would have left it grind away, but I didn't want to risk leaving it vibrate to destruction.

I ended up using Disk Utility on another Mac to restore the Snow Leopard DVD to an external USB drive, then I used the external drive to install Snow Leopard.

Anyhow, after the install, when I did all the Apple Software Updates, 2 firmware updates came, one for Bluetooth, and that other I'm not sure if it was for the Mini's firmware or the Optiarc. Whatever it was, it worked, my Mac Mini's Optiarc is no longer trying to destroy itself, the Snow Leopard DVD is vibration free, I'm happily installing Snow Leopard to an external drive from the Optiarc, no vibrations!

So, make sure you have all the latest Apple Software Updates installed.

Now I've purchased an Airport Extreme Base Station MC340AM/A. I wanted to use it's Bonjour "Wake On Demand" feature. I enabled my Mac Mini's "Wake for network access" (Snow Leopard only, under the System Preference: Energy Saver). It works great! Whenever I try to access the Mini while it is sleeping, the AEBS automatically wake's it up. One problem though. Apparently the AEBS periodically wakes up the Mini briefly for some reason, about every couple of hours it seems. This would be ok, but when the Mini wakes from sleep, it causes the optical drive to do a seek, which is quite noisy. I certainly don't want that noise when I'm sleeping!

I installed the SuperDrive Firmware Update 3.0, and now the optical drive seek noise during a wake up doesn't happen anymore! Thank you Apple. Now if Apple would create a SuperDrive Firmware Update for my MacBook's (Mid 2007) optical drive (HL-DT-ST DVDRW GSA-S10N), I'd be even more happy!

I have a LAte 2009 Mac Mini with Pioneer drive at it sounds like a jet is taking off for 20secs when I insert a disc.

The only reason turning the machine on it's side softens the noise is because most of the vibration caused by the drive are absorbed by the desk.

It would be nice if the drive didn't have to go max speed to read the TOC.

Searching around the net, I found another thing to try and it worked for my Mac Mini. Mine ran quiet for a couple of years with the Pioneer K06 drive and then starting rubbing on most disks. I put a 'Dry Process' CD lens cleaning disk in and the problem appears to have been resolved. The info on the site said that if the lens gets dirty, the disk may rub due to a weak laser signal. Something to try because it is cheaper than a new drive.

Message was edited by: Clif123