Cool Wires

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OceanSpray

n00b
Joined
Nov 24, 2003
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Hey i was wondering where you get all these nice lookin wires in all these computers on hard forum. i am using the once that came with the hard drive, cd rom.. can someone link me to some websites where i can purcahse those cool round wires for a decent price.

I apologize if i posted this in the wrong forum
 
Originally posted by OceanSpray
Hey i was wondering where you get all these nice lookin wires in all these computers on hard forum. i am using the once that came with the hard drive, cd rom.. can someone link me to some websites where i can purcahse those cool round wires for a decent price.

I apologize if i posted this in the wrong forum
Click to expand...

This dude is pretty cool .... good prices
http://stores.ebay.com/id=20049106
 
Originally posted by OceanSpray
damn i dont have a ebay account :( .. any other links?
Click to expand...

this guy has a store on yahoo... lemme find it ...
he is a good guy to get stuff from ... speedy and lets you combine shipping too therefore should be good from his site too
 
svc is prolly the cheapest ones, i have their's and they work just fine
 
gg . SVC ownz me.. wow
.. ok now i have One Floppy Drive, i have 2 Hard Drives, and One CD Rom , but iam plannin to get another DVD RW drive.. so many wires do i need?
 
short answer

http://www.ioss.com.tw/web/English/RD3XPGladiator.html very resonably priced (compared to round SCSI cables :p )
http://www.pcabusers.com/reviews/gladiator/p2.html

long answer

i don't want to go off on a rant....but

there is definately a reason why SATA is being adopted, ATA\IDE\EIDE\ATAPI is an unterminated standard and as speeds increase that causes more and more problems, especially if cheap cables are employed, complex device configurations, and poor cable routing

a few :)p) links and excerpts:
Standard (40-Conductor) IDE/ATA Cables

In many ways, the cable is the weak link in the IDE/ATA interface. It was originally designed for very slow hard disks that transferred less than 5 MB/s, not the high-speed devices of today. Flat ribbon cables have no insulation or protection from electromagnetic interference. Of course, these are reasons why the 80-conductor cable was developed for Ultra DMA. However, even with slower transfer modes there are limitations on how the cable can be used.

The main issue is the length of the cable. The longer the cable, the more the chance of data corruption due to interference on the cable and uneven signal propagation, and therefore, it is often recommended that the cable be kept as short as possible. According to the ATA standards, the official maximum length is 18 inches, but if you suspect problems with your hard disk you may find that a shorter cable will eliminate them. Sometimes moving where the disks are physically installed in the system case will let you use a shorter cable

Warning: There are companies that sell 24" and even 36" IDE cables. They are not recommended because they can lead to data corruption and other problems. Many people use these with success, but many people do a lot of things they shouldn't and get away with it. :^)

Ultra DMA (80-Conductor) IDE/ATA Cables

There are a lot of issues and problems associated with the original 40-conductor IDE cable, due to its very old and not very robust design. Unterminated flat ribbon cables have never been all that great in terms of signal quality and dealing with reflections from the end of the cable. The warts of the old design were tolerable while signaling speeds on the IDE/ATA interface were relatively low, but as the speed of the interface continued to increase, the limitations of the cable were finally too great to be ignored.

that "upgrade happened at 66MB/s burst, we are now at the same speed as the PCI bus for burst rates 133MB/s

Fancy IDE leads - The Terrible Truth

The spec mandates such short cables for two reasons.

Reason one - practically all IDE cables are unshielded. There's nothing around the conductors but insulation. Electromagnetic radiation goes straight through insulation. So external interference from the rest of your computer's giblets can influence the signal on your IDE leads.

Unshielded cables act like antennas. Generally speaking, the longer you make 'em, the more energy they can pick up from their environment.

Reason two - IDE cables are unterminated. "Termination", in the electrical sense, is essential to provide "impedance matching", which in English is what you have to do to stop the signal from reflecting off the end of the cable like a wave that hits the end of a bathtub.

Electric current does not move instantaneously down a wire. It travels at nearly the speed of light, but when you've got thirty-three and a third million clock pulses per second - which is the speed of the IDE bus - even light in a vacuum only moves a hair under nine metres per clock pulse.

So if you're fooling around with, say, a double-the-rated-length 900mm IDE lead, there's an end-to-end signal delay in it of about a tenth of a clock pulse. The signals you want your drives and your motherboard to be able to hear will be significantly blurred by delayed reflections from each end of the cable.

Transfer your data at twice or three times the UDMA/33 speed - as UDMA/66 and 100 do - and reflected signals get more and more out of step with the real signal, and do it more and more harm.

Serial ATA and the 7 Deadly Sins of Parallel ATA
Critical Limiting Factors in Parallel Design
There are some fundamental differences between serial and parallel buses, more importantly, there are some critical limiting factors in the design and implementation of any parallel bus.

1. Non-Interlocked (source synchronous) clocking
2. 3.3 V high-low signaling with 5V legacy tolerance
3. Cabling constraints
4. Connector legacy
5. Termination
6. Command queuing
7. PCB Design

3. Cable Design Issues: Cross-Talk and Ground Bouncing vs.Ringing

Each signal propagating through a data line makes the data line act like the inductor of a transformer. That is, each voltage swing generates a dynamic electromagnetic field, that, depending on cable length and proximity will induce another signal in adjacent data lines. This cross-talk adds noise to data lines and can produce errors by generating false positives or negatives simply by induction of voltage swings in data lines.

Another problem with parallel pathways is the phenomenon of simultaneously switching outputs (SSO) noise. As we explained in detail in our reviews of the i845 and the SIS645 chipsets, SSO noise becomes really problematic if the majority of signals switch from high to low since this can induce ground bouncing. On the chipset level, workaround in form of dynamic bus inversion (DBI) is feasible, that is, instead of switching all bits, only the reference bit is switched simultaneously at the sender and receiver end which has the same net effect, namely, that the system does not see the reference switch but thinks that all other lines have switched. DBI, however requires an additional latency cycle and this is where the 40 ns clock cycle time starts to look really ugly.

ATA not so Frequently Asked Questions
Or: Why Ribbon Cables are unsuitable for RF transmission of data

The following article was written by snn47 to address some of the issues associated with standard ribbon cables and the use of e.g. removable drive racks as an attempt to share some insight into factors that can adversely affect the life or reliability of of desktop Hard Disk Drives. Specifically, issues like why some drives are working in some systems and not in others, the impact of cable routing and why is it that the drive manufacturers always recommend using their own cables (if supplied with the drive). (emphasis mine)

Any RF system has a limited tolerance for distortion of signals, which, in the worst case, can destroy some of the semiconductor components. While a certain amount of variation is part of any systems specification, one needs to remember that ATA was never intended to handle today's data rates. ATA or Advanced Technology Attachment started as the usual run of the mill or: "just a system at the lowest possible price point that will work most of the time without the need for huge financial investments". The problems started when the system was forced to handle higher and higher clock and data rates within the original design limitations. Keep in mind that the latest ATA-PI7 specifications allow data rates of 133 MB/sec, which is 44-times faster than the original ATA transfer of 3 MB/sec. This increase in speed makes it necessary to enforce minimum tolerances and detailed specifications to allow for the manufacturing of affordable systems with minimum compatibility problems.


these are just a few excerpts, I would highly advice that everyone give them a good read, there ARE good rounded ATA cables RD3XP Super Shielded
"RD3XP is made from ATA 100/133 High impedance flat cable cut into 8 layers of 10 cable wires, with a ground wire and signal wire alternatively, and folded in zigzag-piled so that each signal wire is surrounded by 4 ground wires."

but like their SCSI counterparts, they aint cheap, there are also high quality flat cables (you buy a $300 RAID card, and they dont ship you crappy PVC cables, they are either Teflon or Thermoplastic Olefin (TPO)

Up until a little while ago I would have said ant investment made in high quality cables was money well spent, however with the introduction of SATA, that doesnt necessarily hold true anymore
unless your dealing with critical data (in which case you should be running ECC RAM) or your actually experiencing problems

a further excerpt from ATA not so FAQs

Preliminary Conclusions and Possible Cure

Reasons for changes in the propagation impedance, cross-coupling between adjacent signal wires and signal-velocity from one setup to another are :

Impedance of the drive and controller in high/low signal level will be different for different models.
Reflection of signals that garble the pulse, due to incorrect termination impedance or impedance-inconsistencies from the controller to the drive meaning the Impedance from the controller and the drive(s) differ.


If there is a a second drive (connector present/connected) the impedance will fluctuate at this point.

A. Only one HDD per controller channel.

B. Use a cable with only 2 connectors.

-Signal delay will increase with the length of the flat-ribbon-cable propagation of the signals were intended for a max. flat-ribbon-cable length of 18" with ~ 5ns/m would be 2.3ns delay.

C. shorten the cable whenever possible.

D. If the case requires long cables consider mounting just the HDD closer to the connectors of the controller or consider exchanging the usual desktop case, for a 19" case. Mount the HDD just above or below the PCB-controller-connector to allow you to reduce the length of the flat-ribbon-cable to a few cm.

Flat-ribbon-cable with different isolation material (higher/lower eR) and change in the conductor diameter will change the ratio of (2D/d).

Are rounded cable used?
E. Try exchanging the cable against another type/brand of flat-ribbon-cable.

Is the flat-ribbon-cable at some point parallel to a conducting grounded surface?
F. Try a different routing of your flat-ribbon-cable away from a ground-plane,

Was the cable cut apart and/or rolled it to get a rounded cable?
G. Unroll it and try B., if cut apart then start with A.

Is the drive mounted in a removable drive rack?
H. Remove HDD from the drive-bay and start with A.


well so much for not going on a rant
And this isnt just my opinion, and Im not wrong :p


However you should checkout the section in Dansdata's "IDE Fancy Leads, the terrible truth" as to why with all this goin on,
for the most part, it still works anyway :p

Check out what your chipset has to sort out here
http://www.vicstech.com/en/rd3xp/NoiseTest/
click on a picture to see an animated test
(note not all types of cables where employed, for instance there are no high quality TPO or teflon cables in this test)

like the Power Supply, cables are widely underated as a source of problems, and few ever spend any money on them for anything but "looks"
 
ok
i just ordered these items.

1 Blue UV Sensitive Braided Silver 10" Round Floppy Cable 1.99

2 UV Sensitive Braided Silver 18" Dual Device ATA133/100 Round Cable - Green 7.98

1 Sunbeam Two 12" CCFL Kit w/Dual Inverter - UV 6.49

Subtotal: 16.46
Shipping: 7.64
Tax: 0.00

Total: 24.10


I think thats a great price considering that Comp usa has 12 inch UV Light for $30 lol.. :)
 
Originally posted by eL c0L0mb1aNo
Whoa there....i'm not reading that. :D
Click to expand...


LOL but you should
I did provide a "short" answer :p
SATA is a blessing
Im busy all day long in data storage with drives not working in DMA, crappy performance ect

and Id say crap cables is the primary "undiagnosed" cause of alot of this grief

lets just try this one
http://www.pcabusers.com/reviews/gladiator/p2.html

"As you can see I did achieve better performance using the Gladiator cables. I ran those tests many times with each cable and those were very close to the averages"

and he was using 28" cables 10" longer than the spec,
with alot of latency
 
Thats some damn good info Ice Czar. That post ought to find it's way into a Sticky. Thanks for the info.
I had been running 24" cables on 2 physical HDDs running in UATA133 RAID 0+0 and recently, they started giving me all kinds of problems (by recently, I mean after upgrading to a Barton 2500+ and running the highest FSB I have ever ran with these drives) I started getting the dreaded clicks of death and tons of data corruption. I thought at least one of the drives was bad but when I tested them individually on a normal IDE channel with a 18" cable they worked fine. I never made the connection to the difference in cable length between the RAID channels and the regular IDE channels. This really gave me some brain candy to digest. Thanks again.

-EDIT- Just out of curiousity, would turning IDE cables into twisted pair (10P) have any kind of benefit? What about going with a 20P configuration with each wire being paired with a drain wire. I doubt I would ever go to the trouble, but I'm just curious. I eat knowledge like fat kids eat candy bars. :)
 
Wow ... I did not know that ... and that would certanly explain why one of my previous hard drives went bonkers ... wow ... I will keep this in mind ... good summary dude .... i wihs SATA was more available nowdays
 
Originally posted by cgrant26


-EDIT- Just out of curiousity, would turning IDE cables into twisted pair (10P) have any kind of benefit? What about going with a 20P configuration with each wire being paired with a drain wire. I doubt I would ever go to the trouble, but I'm just curious. I eat knowledge like fat kids eat candy bars. :)
Click to expand...

probably help, some SCSI external cables are made up from twist pairs if Im not mistaken, would reduce crosstalk, but youd still have a hell of alot of latency at that length

thats why SATA is so great ;)
it aint the "performance increase" :p (there really isnt any currently) its the data integrity (which actually can be a performance factor if data doesnt need to be re-sent)
there is also a slight efficiency increase

if you want brain candy checkoput
As the Disk Spins The next installment will be SATA :D
 
A lot of people get away with things they shouldn't...

Like the six foot Ultra133 cable I have that works as well?
 
i keep it to one cable per drive

try to keep my cable to 2 connector 10 inch

but i only have teh cdrw drive and a sata hard drive, so that was easy :D
 
Originally posted by Alexia
A lot of people get away with things they shouldn't...

Like the six foot Ultra133 cable I have that works as well?
Click to expand...
:eek: :eek: :eek:
must have enough latency to miss a couple of clock cycles
and be back in sync :p
 
So Mr. Ice Czar ,
Is it safe to go along with 18in rounded cables found on different sites such as SVC ?
 
Originally posted by Alexia
A lot of people get away with things they shouldn't...

Like the six foot Ultra133 cable I have that works as well?
Click to expand...

jeezus...

anyway...

i have these 36" twisted pair shielded IDE cables that work great... the shields actually have a ground coming out that i screw to the case to earth them

havent had any problems

plus i have a PCI ide controller which also seems to have cleared up some of my issues

there really is no *danger* in using rounded cables

unrounded cables arnt much better anyway...
 
Originally posted by Hyper_Psycho
So Mr. Ice Czar ,
Is it safe to go along with 18in rounded cables found on different sites such as SVC ?
Click to expand...

well it sort of depends
Im not personally familiar with the SVC's offering so I couldnt say per se

If your dealing with critical data (in which case your also probably running ECC RAM) Id say no. If on the other hand your an enthusiast, a stray pixel would probably not even be noticed in the heat of the game, or a blip in your MP3

From IDE Fancy Leads

How come they work, then?
What may be causing you a certain amount of confusion at this juncture is the fact that there are people all over the world successfully using over-length ATA cables. Including round ones. Some people use cables 750mm or even 900mm in length, without causing any obvious explosions or outbreaks of smallpox. How so, I hear you ask.

Again, two reasons.

Reason one - good enough components at each end of the cable can deal with more signal corruption than the IDE specification demands of them. Modern ATA hardware is pretty darn good at dealing with lousy cables. Older drives typically have lower tolerances, and some older motherboard IDE chipsets did brilliant things like effectively connect the two IDE connectors together as far as length-related problems went, resulting in seven inch real world cable length limits if you attached cables to both connectors. But those days are largely past. Current consumer IDE hardware can shout through the noise quite well.

Reason two - IDE covers up data loss problems. The ATA interface has CRC error checking built in. When data's munged in transit down the cable, the error is detected and the data is resent.
Click to expand...

The other senerio where I would say no is, if your consistently experiencing corruption problems and your RAM, Power and Drives test out OK, or if you cant get your drives to consistently play well together, or if your really concerned about squeezing the last bit of performance out of your rig (less CRC caught errors being resent)

Ive bought a few appliances off ebay that where formerly in server environments, where this is an issue that is taken pretty seriously, and they will often come with the cables shielded by Foil Tape (IE Media shelf w\ SCSI DAT Tape & CDROM, cables having to transit the rackmount case quite a distance parallel to the case itself)

there is nothing inherently wrong with "round" cables
provided they are made properly, in fact they can be overspec and because IDE devices have been forced to shout through all the noise, they work to an acceptable level way past the standard 18" length.

There are great cables, and there are crap, and they all look the same from the outside :p

Its the same story with SCSI external cables ;)
 
OK, here's another question:
For the longest time, I've always heard that HDDs should be at the end of a 1 HDD IDE chain. I usually run then in whatever configuration seems to physically fit best. My question is this: on a standard 18" cable, is it better to have the HDD in the middle position to reduce length or at the end to reduce signal reflection?
 
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