Full Version: What Is An Ata Cable
What is a rounded ATA cable? I see all over the web on wiring tutorials that you should buy rounded ATA cables. What are they and what do they do?
They are still a "normal" hard drive or optical drive cable, just made round to provide less air restriction and to increase the airflow inside you case. Most I've seen are all ATA-133, which means ATA="Advanced Technology Attachment" and the 133 is the speed at which it can support up to.
They are cables that connect your hard-drives and cd/dvd drives to your motherboard (or adapter).
"Standard" ones are flat-ribboned, rounded ones take the 40 cables and sheath them in some sleeving so that the cable is now round rather than flat.
Round cables reduce the airflow restriction in your case which is good for many reasons...
(haha beaten by Mangar by a minute!)
Cool, ok, may as well post something extra:
so you've got 40 pins on the connector, but you can also get 80-conductor ATA cables that are supposed to be better for high-speed ATA hard-drives...
haven't actually tested the difference but I've got 2 Akasa rounded ATA cables that are 80-conductor... and they also light up!
You can also do a home-made version with your existing flat-ribbon ATA cables (I had to do this for the SoundBlaster LiveDrive cable that connects my soundcard to the front-panel-drive-bay-audio thing)
Take the cable and hold it in both hands, index fingers and thumbs about 4 or 5 wires along, and kind of pull them apart like you're tearing strips of paper or something. Do this every 4 or 5 along (or every 1 or 2 if you can be bothered!) and then you can either get a bunch of elastic bands and space them out along the cable (you know, pull them tight twist and pull over again etc around the wires) or use electric tape...
+ Free
- Takes a bit of time
"Standard" ones are flat-ribboned, rounded ones take the 40 cables and sheath them in some sleeving so that the cable is now round rather than flat.
Round cables reduce the airflow restriction in your case which is good for many reasons...
(haha beaten by Mangar by a minute!)
Cool, ok, may as well post something extra:
so you've got 40 pins on the connector, but you can also get 80-conductor ATA cables that are supposed to be better for high-speed ATA hard-drives...
haven't actually tested the difference but I've got 2 Akasa rounded ATA cables that are 80-conductor... and they also light up!
You can also do a home-made version with your existing flat-ribbon ATA cables (I had to do this for the SoundBlaster LiveDrive cable that connects my soundcard to the front-panel-drive-bay-audio thing)
Take the cable and hold it in both hands, index fingers and thumbs about 4 or 5 wires along, and kind of pull them apart like you're tearing strips of paper or something. Do this every 4 or 5 along (or every 1 or 2 if you can be bothered!) and then you can either get a bunch of elastic bands and space them out along the cable (you know, pull them tight twist and pull over again etc around the wires) or use electric tape...
+ Free - Takes a bit of time
I have one in there, it's the silver one. Connecting the CD-ROM to my Motherboard
QUOTE (IUMaestro @ May 18 2004, 01:01 PM)
I have one in there, it's the silver one. Connecting the CD-ROM to my Motherboard
I'm more impressed with you VGA-siliencer
those are great. And that "Swiftey" too.
so is it the same thing as IDE?
QUOTE (rhoffer21 @ May 18 2004, 11:37 AM)
so is it the same thing as IDE?
Yes they are used for IDE drives.
QUOTE (rhoffer21 @ May 18 2004, 06:37 PM)
so is it the same thing as IDE?
IDE stands for Integrated Drive Electronics. ATA is Advanced Technology Attachment. The ATA 133 means that it has a maximum of 133Mega-bits-per/sec
40 pin ATA or IDE cables (same thing) have a maximum of 66Mbits/sec
80 pin have a max of 133
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