[Gllug] IDE cables

jane taylor jane at moonrose.demnospamon.co.uk
Fri Sep 14 11:19:00 UTC 2001


On Fri, 14 Sep 2001 11:23:13 +0100, you wrote:

~> where can you get good IDE cables?
~> 
~> I have a cable with my machine, the wires are really thin and normally I
~> use it for my two HD's. I put a DVD on the esecond ide interface and I
~> kept getting DriveReady SeekComplete error stuff in my log and the thing
~> reset DMA off after errors. Then its really slow. If I put it on the slave
~> drive on the first IDE interface its fine and runs at UDMA2-4 on the
~> thiner cable.
~> 
~> I tried a couple of cables (all with thicker wires) for it and I get the
~> smae problem - therefore I think its just I have bad cables... hence:
~> 
~> where can I get some good ones?
~
~also one thing to note;
~
~ IDE cables *should*NOT*be*longer*than*40cm!
~
~despite that ppl still try, and wonder why they don't work ...

Forgive me if anyone's already mentioned this - I've only got half the
posts here at work ie the ones that come through during the day and
get left on the ISPs server for pickup with linux later...

 UDMA cables are well known to be length-limited. And sensitive to
which way round they are plugged into the motherboard and which drive
is plugged in where.

You have to have (checks pc on desk)
Blue plug in motherboard,  black which has to have the master device
and grey which has the slave. And grey is the one in the middle...
making it easy to get it wrong.

If you plug in wrong, it'll give errors or refuse to work. It will
also sulk if you have only one device on the secondary channel but
plug it into the slave position. 
 
Not sure that's the prob here, though, due to your trying several
cables. A UDMA66/100  drive should work fine on standard IDE cables
but just won't run faster than 33.  I agree with Alex - your interface
sounds dodgy. I take it you've looked at how it's detected by the
BIOS?


-- 
jane

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone,
you may still exist but you have ceased to live.
Mark Twain

Please remove nospam from replies, thanks!

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