i heard that all the 360's made from now on will be shipped with quieter and faster disc drives, they haven't made a big deal out of it because there's no official way of doing it to an existing console.

Its not really that noisy IMO. I don't notice when playing. If you are noticing that the game your playing is probably crap and its a safety mechanism. If you notice the fan noise, stop playing.

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mine usually only gets noticeably loud just before i get a disc read error but it also happens on the badly made games it must know when its playing a bad game

I turn my Xbox 360 on it's side and it's not half as noisey.

yeah i think people take the noise issue way over the top,i cant notice it really that much when im playin either

they are quite noisey though if ur watchin a dvd on one, but if i had 1 i think i'd sumhow put up wit that!

from http://www.oxm.co.uk/articles/news/h...box_360_drives

New 'super-quiet' Xbox 360 drives roll out
07 Feb 2007 7:05am
New hardware inside
The Xbox 360 is great. Hey, you wouldn't be reading this if you didn't agree.
That doesn't mean it is faultless however, and one minor gripe we share with a number of fellow 360 owners relates to the noise levels of its disc drive.

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The vast majority of the time, while either playing games or watching DVD's, the disc drive din goes unnoticed. But every so often it still takes us by surprise. That could be a thing of the past for new owners however, with reports coming in that the latest production run of vanilla next-gen machines is using a much quieter BenQ DVD-ROM Drive. Forums users at Xbox-scene.com have even forgone their warranties to show off their brand new 360's innards, proudly displaying this peice of kit within.
Up until now, Xbox 360 DVD-ROM Drives came in two flavours; Toshiba-Samsung or Hitachi-LG. But both were the wrong side of loud when compared to this latest upgrade, certainly if Xbox-scene'sters are to be believed. One even described the BenQ unit as "super-quiet."
It is unclear if these drives are being rolled out worldwide as of yet and we may not see these machines everywhere until later in the year (as older stock sells out), but nonetheless this is intriguing news.
Have you recently purchased an Xbox 360 and been pleasantly surprised by reduced noise levels? Or are you an early adopter who thinks that hardware upgrades a year into a new consoles life-cycle shows a lack of respect to brand devotees? Tell us your thoughts in the comments box below.

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There are two rules in life:
Rule #1: There are no rules
Rule #2: Always obey rule number 1.

I notice when the game is starting up but forget about it soon after. I have a DVD player for films so I've never watched a film on the XBox.

I do think though that it is a poor show to change it so soon after launch. Surely they should have gotten it right in the first place.

The 360 sounds like a washing machine.

Does it clean your games for you?