rounding ATA-66 & SCSI cables?

[WhiteStuph]

has anyone done this and not found a loss of signal? I'd like to round all of my cables in my system to make it cleaner and whatnot, but I"m not sure that it would be safe to do this with my higher quality cables. Info anyone?

 

[pdo]

I have done plenty on ATA33 cables, But I've nick too many ATA66 cable since the strand a finer. I just give up and leave it the way it is.

 

[jblondi]

Dont just give up! Paldo you pansy! Kidding. Here is a suggestion, and I just did this myself. you can take the cable and fold it the long way twice. It makes the cable about a half inch wide and 4 cables thick essentially. Then just use plastic ties or some tape to keep the flods together. Very close to a rounded cable, I could probably twist it to and make it tighter, but it was really good enough. Hope this helps.

 

[WhiteStuph]

helps a lot! I'm gonna use twist ties, I think, to keep it together. Thanks a lot!

 

[jkersenbr]

I've rounded my ATA-66 cables. Cut and peeled them into 4 wire wide strands. And it only took me ruining one cable to learn how to get the peel started without ripping into the next wire! Bundled them up in split loom from CarQuest and tied it off with zip ties.

I've noticed no signal loss. In fact, the only cables I've heard that this makes signal loss in is Ultra160 SCSI's. Other SCSI cables round fine using the same technique. The more wires there are, the better chance of slicing some though.

The increasaed airflow from rounding my cables lowered my mobo temp by 3 degrees

Good luck,
Jeremy

 

[smoooooooooov]

The reason that scsi and uata66 cables have finer wires is that they are 80 strand instead of 40 strand, every other wire is a ground, the purpose of which is to prevent signal interference between each of the "real" wires in the cable. i would hesitate in rounding a scsi/ata66 cable. the minor gain you see in airflow could cause a major hit in device performance.

just my humble opinion.

 

[major_major]

i just rounded an ATA-66 cable, and ripped or cut into many wires after a loss of my initially intense concentration. as far as i can tell, there has been loss in signal..my HD tach and SiSoft drive numbers are exactly the same as they were before.

 

[fast_eddie]

I have been operating a RAID 0 array with a Fast Track 66 card for 6 weeks; one IDE channel has an ATA66 cable that I 'rounded' and the other channel has a 'stock' ATA66 cable.
According to the Promise 'Fast Check Monitoring Utility' the synchronization of the two Maxtor 20GB drives is correct.
When I 'round' ribbon cables I just push the tip of the blade of an Exacto knife thru the insulation between conductors, I then 'tear' or 'rip' the balance of the insulation to the ribbon connectors. Mostly recently (especially for the ATA66 cables) I have done 3 'push/tears' for 4 groups of 11 conductors (22 conductors for ATA66), the first few cables that I modified were 11 groups of 4 conductors; once the groups are wrapped with electrical tape, the overall diameter of 4/11 and 11/4 are very similar in size. I haven't yet knicked the insulation or conductor of any cable that I have modified; a good bench mounted, illuminated magnifier , a sharp Exacto knife , 2 strong thumbnails , and a steady hand are all you need.

 

[major_major]

so how can you tell if you've damaged your ata-66 from a poor rounding job?...i know i definitely exposed several wires when rounding my cable, but it appears to work fine right now (computer has been up and running all night)..is there any definitive way to tell if it's broken?