Engadget reports by way of Xbox-Scene that new Xbox 360s manufactured from November 2006 and on have started shipping with a new, quieter DVD drive:

Microsoft has started building its 360s with a new DVD drive manufactured by BenQ-LiteOn-Philips, the BenQ VAD6038, which purportedly runs "super-quiet" in comparison to the previous two drives used by MS, and even speeds up and smooths out load times.

Good news for new 360 owners -- the DVD drive in older models is the number one source of noise. Bad news for, well, the rest of us -- you and I are still stuck with the old, noisy drive. And while it's just a matter of time before some clever hacker figures out a way to buy one of these off-the-shelf and install the hardware and firmware by hand, such operations are not for the faint-of-heart, or the those-within-warranty.