Reduce the noise of your DVD drive by slowing it down with Rimhill

Martin Brinkmann
May 17, 2014
Updated • Feb 22, 2016
Software, Windows software
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9

RimhillEx is a free Windows program that you can make use of to reduce the noise optical drives connected to the PC make when they read or write data.

I have to admit that I'm rarely making use of the DVD drive of my desktop PC. It is mostly used for burning data backups, or media files that I burn for my parents.

I do load data from DVDs sometimes though, for instance from data backups when I need to access files again, or on the rare occasion when I'm watching a movie on the computer.

Whenever I perform those operations, I'm irritated by the noise that the drive makes when it is reading optical discs. As you may know, I'm noise sensitive and select the hardware of all my computer systems based on noise level more than anything else.

Side note: Check out the following guides if you want to find out more about my quest to reduce the noise generation of my Windows PCs: the most annoying PC noise makers, hard drive noise reduction, and create video card profiles to save power and reduce noise.

One of the options that you have in regards to optical drives is to reduce the drive's spinning speed. Modern drives read discs faster than older ones and to do so, they spin the disc faster. While that is useful if you need to copy data off the disc, it is generating more noise and may not be beneficial at all if you use the disc for other activities such as watching a movie or less of an issue if speed is not that important.

RimhillEx

RimhillEx is a free program for the Windows operating system that provides you with the means to reduce the spinning speed of optical drives.

Once you have installed the software on your PC, you can access its functionality with a click on the program's system tray icon.

change optical drive speed

A speed of 8x is selected by default, but you can change that to improve the drive's performance if you select a higher speed or lower the noise generation even more by selecting a lower speed.

One thing that you can do if you need to copy data off a disc is to increase the speed of the DVD drive temporarily using the software. This speeds up the data transfer and once that is done, you can simply lower the speed of the drive again.

I have not tested the program on a system with multiple optical drives installed. It appears from the menu that its setting will affect all of them as it appears that you cannot specify a drive separately using the application.

Verdict

If your CD or DVD drive is making a lot of noise when it is spinning up, and if that annoys you, you may want to consider installing RimhillExe to do something about it.

The trade-off is a slower data read speed but since you can adjust the read speed manually at any time, should not be much of a problem either.

Summary
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3.5 based on 10 votes
Software Name
RimhillEx
Operating System
Windows
Software Category
Hardware
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Comments

  1. Daniel said on July 7, 2016 at 5:24 am
    Reply

    Trashware. Hanged out my pc. Dont install. Window 7 SP1

  2. VARGHESE GEORGE said on February 22, 2016 at 7:08 am
    Reply

    Nero DriveSpeed 3.0 does not work on Windows 10, says Unable to initialize WNASPI32.DLL

    1. R Par said on February 10, 2020 at 12:35 am
      Reply

      @ VARGHESE GEORGE! I know this is an old post, but here goes anyway. You say it will not work on Windows 10? I have found if one uses the capability mode by right clicking on app that it will work. I am not a big fan of Windows anymore, not since Windows 7, that is. Vista in my books was the best, and securest. Bad thing though, after Windows XP, most applications for drivers was not compatible with newer Windows, which kinda sucked because people spent a lot of money on things like printers and other devices that Windows did not recognize, and as time past by you would think someone would have updated the drivers, and got people outta the driver not recognized hell, but sadly they was to cheap to do so. Just another way to make people buy newer stuff, is the reason I believe it all took place. It is all bout the Benjamin’s you know? I know Compatibility mode works on Windows Vista-Windows 8 not sure of Windows 10, because I no longer use Windows 10! but, hey it might! Just a thought. Regards!

  3. Raj said on June 7, 2014 at 9:09 pm
    Reply

    Really informative. Another one question, My DVD drive not opened some time. Any ways to adjust in computer settings. Thanks

  4. Seban said on May 19, 2014 at 6:04 pm
    Reply

    My ears say ‘Thanks for the tip’.

  5. Rick said on May 19, 2014 at 3:49 am
    Reply

    Or you can just physically remove your cd/dvd drive and replace it with something more useful like an extra SSD drive. If you ever need the drive, buy an external one – they are cheep as dirt!

  6. Roman Mezentsev said on May 18, 2014 at 5:58 am
    Reply

    CDSlow by Vadim Druzhin – http://cdslow.webhost.ru/en/cdslow/index.html

  7. Q said on May 17, 2014 at 8:47 pm
    Reply

    Nero DriveSpeed used to be the often used and recommended software for what is described in this article. I do not know whether it still is.

    The software was available for download at http://www.cdspeed2000.com/ or and included in the Nero Burning ROM Nero 5.5 packages. The software ran without setup installer.

    The software is no longer available on the cdspeed2000.com website, but is available via archive.org (version 3.00):
    https://web.archive.org/web/20070321024628/http://www.cdspeed2000.com/download.html
    https://web.archive.org/web/20070808180331/http://www.cdspeed2000.com/files/NeroDriveSpeed_300.zip

    The latest version (3.06) was distributed via the Nero Burning ROM installation packages.

    Nero DriveSpped 3 series software was from before NT6 series Windows operating systems. I am not sure if is compatible with Windows Vista/7/Server 2008/8, but the software was supposed to have been compatible with Windows Vista (even though the last version was released the year before the Windows Vista release).

    1. Q said on May 17, 2014 at 9:09 pm
      Reply

      “Nero Burning ROM Nero 5.5 packages” should have been “Nero Burning ROM Nero 6.6 packages”.

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