80 pin ide cable looks the same as 40pin ide cable?!

[Googer]

Originally posted by: JEDI
do new mobos come w/the 40 or 80 pin variety?

specifically, fry's combo specials. i got a k7vta3 from them. should it be a 80 pin cable?
(the mobo said it doesnt see 80 pin)

*MOST* new motherboards in the last 2.5 years have come with 80 wire cables. The extra wires provde a dedcated ground for each signal line is what i was told long ago.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: JEDI

Originally posted by: Viper96720
http://home.hawaii.rr.com/veri993/cable.jpg

See thinner wires on the grey one. That's an ata-100 compatible. Black one is only good for older drives or optical drives.

well, all my cables look like the gray one w/red strip on the side

The red strip on one of the wires is there on ALL cables to mark it as PIN #1. Wire 1 lines up with pin1 on your
DRIVE.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: skreet

Originally posted by: Viper96720
http://home.hawaii.rr.com/veri993/cable.jpg

See thinner wires on the grey one. That's an ata-100 compatible. Black one is only good for older drives or optical drives.

>> It's actually ATA/66 and above require the 80 conductor cables

Originally posted by: syd968
Will a 40 pin ide cable be fast enough for a Combo Drive w/52x Burner? My DVD burner says to use an 80 pin cable to get maximum performance, but my combo drive doesn't specify.

Thanks!

>> 40 cable is fine for CD burning and DVD reading up to a certain speed (1X is all you need for playback) 52x CD is something like 7,200 KB/sec. DVD Burning at 8X is somewhere around 22,000 KB/sec if I remember correctly (could be that 16X is 22,000 KB/sec) -- which is much faster than ATA/33 can support.

My plextor premeium cd rw supports udma via 80 wire. 52-32-52

 

[Googer]

Here is a PHOTOGRAPH of 40 vs 80 Wire. Both Versions have 40 Pins.
The 40 wire version usualy has one of the pin connector holes/slot blocked off so it may have 39. 80 wire cables have all 40 holes exposed. If you are not sure you can always count the wires. You can stop counting when you get to 50, then you know it's an 80 wire cable. Oh, and DO NOT BUY ANY CABLES CALLED SCSI THEY LOOK THE SIMILAR BUT DO NOT WORK FOR IDE.

Shown here is a diagram of a 40 wire connetion. Notice that it has a pin blocked off, that is a common trait of MOST 40 wire cables. I repeat most, since i have 1 or 2 that do not have that pin blocked but they still have 40 wires.

Shown here is a diagram of a 40 wire connetion. Notice that it has a pin blocked off, that is a common trait of MOST 40 wire cables. I repeat most, since i have 1 or 2 that do not have that pin blocked but they still have 40 wires.

 

[Jeff7]

To me, the 40 wire cables look like they have normal thin wires. The 80 wire ones look ridiculously thin. That's how I tell the difference.

Most motherboards will ship with 80 wire cables. A few might have a 40 wire cable for the optical drive, as they come nowhere close to being able to sustain 33MB/sec, much less exceed it.

Usually, if you hook up a 40 wire cable to an ATA/66+ device, the motherboard will tell you during the POST that you've got a 40 conductor cable hooked up, and that you should have 80 - or some error along those lines.