[superstar]

I just bought a new mother board to upgrade my old computer. It supports hard drive speeds of up to ATA-100. The PATA hard drives I'm using right now also run at a max of ATA-100 speed as per the manufacturer's specifications. But as I can see in my Everest software, the hard drive's are currently running at ATA-66 speed. Which leads me to believe that I'm either:

a) using the wrong IDE ribbon cables [eg. slower speed version]

b) have the right IDE ribbon cables and my current motherboard limited to the maximum ability of ATA-66 speeds which is why I see those results in Everest

I'd like to know if there's a way for me to identify the ribbon cables I'm using right now in my current machine, as being ATA-100 speed versions or not! That way I'll know if I need to buy new ribbon cables when I attach these hard drives to my new motherboard, or keep the one's I currently use.




Thanks

Edited by superstar, 12 May 2009 - 12:38 AM.

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The old and new cables use the same connectors, but the old has 40 wires and the new has 80 in the same space, so they are much smaller. If in doubt, just go buy a new cable - it will be ATA100/ATA133. I recommend getting a round cable, and only as long as you need to minimize impacting desired front to back air flow.

[Digerati]

The old and new cables use the same connectors, but the old has 40 wires and the new has 80 in the same space, so they are much smaller. If in doubt, just go buy a new cable - it will be ATA100/ATA133. I recommend getting a round cable, and only as long as you need to minimize impacting desired front to back air flow.

[Neil Jones]

I'd like to know if there's a way for me to identify the ribbon cables I'm using right now in my current machine, as being ATA-100 speed versions or not! That way I'll know if I need to buy new ribbon cables when I attach these hard drives to my new motherboard, or keep the one's I currently use.

What motherboard have you bought and what hard drives are you using, the model numbers?
80 way cables need to be used for ATA 100 speeds, though the 100 figure is theoretical anyway.

Here's a picture you can look at that shows you the difference between a 40-way and an 80-way IDE cable:
http://www.pcguide.c...24wires4080.jpg = 40-way cable on the bottom, 80-way on top.

[superstar]

What motherboard have you bought and what hard drives are you using, the model numbers?

The Names and model numbers are as follows:

ASUS TUV4X [Motherboard]
WESTERN DIGITAL CAVIAR WD800JB [Primary Hard Drive]
WESTERN DIGITAL CAVIAR WD1600JB [Secondary Hard Drive]



Thanks for your constant help!

Edited by superstar, 12 May 2009 - 11:49 PM.

[Neil Jones]

According to Asus this board only runs hard drives at ATA 100 if you connect it to the blue IDE controller on the board.
That being said, I must question this, why are you spending money on such an old system? That motherboard was brand new in 2001.
Even if you do get the hard drives running at ATA 100 you won't notice a world of difference as the entire system is slower than the drives anyway.

[superstar]

According to Asus this board only runs hard drives at ATA 100 if you connect it to the blue IDE controller on the board.
That being said, I must question this, why are you spending money on such an old system? That motherboard was brand new in 2001.
Even if you do get the hard drives running at ATA 100 you won't notice a world of difference as the entire system is slower than the drives anyway.

Well the motherboard was cheap as heck. I don't like to throw out old pcs because I rather recycle/reuse parts someone else would have just thrown out. My current setup is a mobo that runs the hdd's at ATA-66 speed, 512mb of ram, and a 1.4GHZ processor. My new mobo will have hdd's at ATA-100 speed, 1.5GB of ram, and a 2.0GHz processor. That should be a noticeable difference.

Edited by superstar, 13 May 2009 - 07:08 PM.

[Neil Jones]

According to Asus this board only runs hard drives at ATA 100 if you connect it to the blue IDE controller on the board.
That being said, I must question this, why are you spending money on such an old system? That motherboard was brand new in 2001.
Even if you do get the hard drives running at ATA 100 you won't notice a world of difference as the entire system is slower than the drives anyway.

Well the motherboard was cheap as heck. I don't like to throw out old pcs because I rather recycle/reuse parts someone else would have just thrown out. My current setup is a mobo that runs the hdd's at ATA-66 speed, 512mb of ram, and a 1.4GHZ processor. My new mobo will have hdd's at ATA-100 speed, 1.5GB of ram, and a 2.0GHz processor. That should be a noticeable difference.

Not necessarily. There's no real difference between ATA-66 and ATA-100, the more RAM you add the less effect you notice on system responsiveness, and the actual clock speed of the processors these days mean absolutely nothing. A processot at 3Ghz can and does perform slower than one at 2.2Ghz.