Using an old IDE cable?

VGplay

Gawd
Joined
Jun 12, 2006
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I was just building my new computer and ran into a problem with the IDE cable that was included with the motherboard, it was too short to reach my optical drives. I'm using a Gigabyte 3D Aurora 570 so its a bigger case. Anyways, I grabbed a longer IDE cable out of an old computer we have (P233, 1997) and it does reach. Are there any reasons I shouldn't use it? The wires are a heavier gauge compared to the included cable, if that helps.
 
Your old cable is a 40pin cable, these are for the older slower IDE systems.
You can use the cable but on boot up your PC will probably tell you that you dont have an 80 conductor cable.
It will also run slower as the maximum speed the cable can use is UDMA33, 33MBytes/sec.

So it will work but will run slower.
 
Your old cable is a 40pin cable, these are for the older slower IDE systems.
You can use the cable but on boot up your PC will probably tell you that you dont have an 80 conductor cable.
It will also run slower as the maximum speed the cable can use is UDMA33, 33MBytes/sec.

So it will work but will run slower.

Well, IDE is all 40 pin, I think you mean 40 wire. 80 wire is better because it has better noise canceling (something like that) then its predecessor.
 
The 40 wire cable will get you ata33, an 80 wire cable will get you ata66/100/133. Both have 40 pins.
If this is for an optical drive it will be fine. You will likely not notice much of a performance difference.
If it is for an ata 66/100/133 hard drive, you will be severely limiting your performance with the 40 wire cable. It would max out, due to the cable, at less than half the speed that a modern pata hard drive is capable of.
 
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