What is the Best IDE/ Floppy Round Cable to buy?

[oscar3d]

Hi guys:


This might interest many in terms of cooling inside their cases.
I currently have round cables for my IDE drives and my floppy. These are the typical UV reflective stuff...

But now time has passed and I'm looking for the best round cables I can get.

Meaning:

a) They have to be the thinner than the usual round IDE cable.
b) They have to be the most flexible (the less stiff the better).
c) Of course reliable.

I don't care about the cosmetics, I'm looking for the most efficient one, again the thinner and most flexible IDE/Floopy cable.

I've been searching online, but I havent found anyhting yet, or at least the pics don't really speak for themselves.

Sinc eyou guys are the experts on cooling and silencing, which is the best IDE cable with the characteristics I'm looking for?

Thanks a bunch in advance!!

[jackylman]

Flat, 80-pin cables that are less than 18" in length are the best option. Why? Because they're the only ones that adhere to the IEEE spec. The flat cable puts a ground wire between each signal wire to shield it from noise/interference from adjacent signal wires. If you tear the flat cable apart and make a rounded cable, you no longer have this protection.

I actually had a problem with round cabling causing errors. I had an ATA-100 drive that Windows kept downgrading to ATA-66 speed because of too many I/O error. After swapping out the rounded cable for a flat one, I put an end to that. So, as you can see, the IEEE spec is there for a reason

Edit: You might want to check to see if the rounded cables are giving you similar errors. Look in the properties of your IDE PATA controller in Device Manager (under the Primary/Secondary channel tab).

[Mr Evil]

First of all, do you really need a floppy drive at all? I haven't had cause to use one since some time in the last millennium. CD-RWs (now mostly DVD-RWs), USB flash drives and the internet do everything that floppies used to be useful for.

For IDE cables, taking a normal flat cable, splitting it into several strips and stacking those works quite well. But SATA is the better solution; you don't have to buy new drives for that either, since SATA-to-IDE adapters are not very expensive.

[kittle]

floppy drives are only useless until you need to do something drastic like update your bios or use a low level diagnostic tool.

but mainly for bios updates.. over time i find the hassle of keeping a floppy around is worth it.


I do wonder if the same shielding issues would happen with scsi cables...

[jackylman]

but mainly for bios updates.. over time i find the hassle of keeping a floppy around is worth it.

I do too, but I don't keep it connected to the mobo. I take that end of the floppy cable and rest it on top of the drive to get it out of the path of airflow and cut down on general clutter. I also disable the floppy controller and boot check for floppies in the BIOS.

[oscar3d]

Thanks for the advice guys.

Too bad there are no options for better IDE cables out there.

Personally I've never had any problems with rounded ones. I've checked on the Control Panel, and everything looks fine.
I wouldn't go with sata adapters, since my vid card covers two of them, leaving me only two for the 1st and 2nd hard drives.

Even though, I wouldn't actually put more adapters into my case. What I really want to do is improve the airflow.

I use floppy, because I run stuff like Memtest, sometimes. And when messes occur it's good to have the ability to boot from somewhere easily other than the DVDRom drive.

I have a P150 (Solo equivalent), I just want to find out the best way to route the cables inside. I wonder if there is a good tutorial with pics around.

Thanks a bunch again!

[Mr Evil]

floppy drives are only useless until you need to do something drastic like update your bios or use a low level diagnostic tool...

BIOS updates can be done from CD, and if your BIOS supports it you can also use a USB flash drive, which is more convenient. The same goes for things like Memtest.

[Silent-Tuna]

But SATA is the better solution; you don't have to buy new drives for that either, since SATA-to-IDE adapters are not very expensive.

Omg, y didn't I put that into consideration when rebuilding my com? Thx Lawl!

And regarding floppy drives, I had to use them in my adult education center (it's not like College where everything is top of the line). But yeh, it shows you floppy formats still have a place in this world... even though it's a rather odd place....

[TedMC]

Hi guys:

But now time has passed and I'm looking for the best round cables I can get.

Meaning:

a) They have to be the thinner than the usual round IDE cable.
b) They have to be the most flexible (the less stiff the better).
c) Of course reliable.


Thanks a bunch in advance!!

I like the ones from pactec

http://www.pactech-inc.com/home.htm

I'm using the IDE cables for both my pata IDE hdd and optical...I've had them for quite a while so I forgot the exact model number I have but pretty sure they are these...the ultra dma 133 ones

http://www.pactech-inc.com/allhtmlpage/ ... ATA133.htm

I found them at Fry's one day but I dont think they carry them any more
GL

edit>>> these are way better cables than the typical round ones that glow blue or whatever<<<

[DanW]

Of course if you still need the floppy dive from time to time, you can always use an USB drive like this one here

We use them all the time at work on our Dells and they work a treat most of the time. Older BIOSES from 8-10 years ago sometimes have trouble looking at the usb drive.

This of course then free's up your drive so you can put a fan controller in it's place if needs be.