Silence noisy CD and DVD drives

Drivespeed is an accessory created by the software company Nero, but now released as free software. To get hold of a copy, start Internet Explorer or your favourite web browser and click in the address bar at the top. Start typing www.snipurl.com/8sr8t and this will replace whatever’s there at the moment. Press the Enter key when you’ve finished and the web page shown here will be displayed.

Several programs are available on the same page so you’ll need to scroll down to find the the one you need, which is Nero Drivespeed. One way of scrolling is to click the down arrow of the scroll bar on the right of the screen, or you can save time by simply pressing the Page Down key. When you’ve found Drivespeed, click on the link that says NeroDriveSpeed_300.zip, and when a File Download dialogue box appears, click on the Save button.

When asked where to save the file, select Desktop and then click the Save button. The program is very small and should not take long to download. When the download is complete, click the Close button to remove the dialogue box from the screen and then close your web browser by clicking the X in its top right-hand corner. You should now be looking at the Windows Desktop and you’ll see a new zipped folder icon with part of the name NeroDriveSpeed_300.zip displayed beneath.

Double-click this new icon and a folder window will be displayed. In the folder is an executable file called DriveSpeed.exe. Unlike many Windows programs, Drivespeed does not need to be installed. All you need do is hold down the left mouse button on the DriveSpeed.exe name and drag it onto the Desktop. When you release the mouse button an icon labelled DriveSpeed.exe will appear, though you may first be asked to click Yes to confirm the move. You can now close the folder window by clicking the X in its top right-hand corner.

If you want to delete the zipped folder icon, which is no longer required, right-click on it and select Delete. In future all you need do to use Drivespeed is double-click its icon on the Desktop. The best time to start Drivespeed is before you insert the CD or DVD you want to play because normally when you place a disc in the drive it automatically starts whatever program is designed to play it. If the drive is too noisy when playing a disc, select the already-running Drivespeed by clicking its entry on the Taskbar at the bottom of the screen.

The current version of Drivespeed displays Silent and Fast buttons, in which case clicking the Silent button will quieten the drive after a few seconds. If you have an older version of Drivespeed on your PC, perhaps because it came pre-installed with Nero, then you won’t see Silent and Fast buttons. Instead, you have to adjust things manually by clicking in the Read Speed panel and selecting a slower speed than the one currently in use. Usually 2x is adequate, but if playback is then unsatisfactory you may need to select 4x. Having made your selection, click the Close button.