80wire cable question,PLEASE!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Pegasus \(MVP\)
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Pegasus \(MVP\)

80-core cables have every second wire earthed, which
results in a reduction of cross-talk between the wires.
This in turn allows the transfer speed to be increased
by about 30%. 80-core cables are not so "special"
anymore - they have been around for a few years now.
 
Hello world!

I have a UDMA/33 HD (ATA-4) and I use a regular old data cable...Recently I
read from Maxtor.com web site that it's recommended to use on UDMA/33 drives
that special 80 wire cable for UDMA/66 drives....how come?
And what good can it bring if everything else is not 66MB/sec?

Thanks in advance,
 
As I understand it the only time you need to use a 80 pins cable is UDMA66
and above. There will be no performance increase when used on UDMA33
controllers. The cable is the only thing that is different the connectors
can be plugged into either UDMA33 or 66 to 133.

hope that helps
Neil
 
Your controller will sense if you have an 80-conductor cable,
and if the disk supports the higher speed. The connectors are
the same on both types of cables, and no damage occurs if
you use either cable on any controller.
 
even on the 80 wire cables the pins are still 40 because only 40 of the 80
wires are used for data transfers the others are only there to decrease
interference.
You can use a 80 wire cable just like a 40 wire cable with no worry that
something will be damaged.
In other words a 80 wire cable and 40 wire cable have the same interface on
the ends of the cables.

--
--
Hope this helps. Let us know.
_____________
Kenny S
foksot2004 at hotmail.com
www.computerboom.net
 
Hey!

Thanks for your help!
So I would assume that using that 80 wire cable is not going to damage
anything on older HD?
If I understood you correctly,the benefit of that special cable (I called it
"special" not because it's special,just to type less-sorry) has something to
do with earthing and not with UDMA controller/drive?But I don't have 80 pins
in my HD on it's back,just 40...Every 2nd hole would be empty,no?Also on a
motherboard....Are you saying that even though my UDMA/33 HD won't work as
fast as UDMA/66 would,but it still would have somewhat better performance
comparing to my same drive ,but if I used a 40 wire cable?
 
Alon said:
Hello world!

I have a UDMA/33 HD (ATA-4) and I use a regular old data cable...Recently I
read from Maxtor.com web site that it's recommended to use on UDMA/33 drives
that special 80 wire cable for UDMA/66 drives....how come?
And what good can it bring if everything else is not 66MB/sec?

Thanks in advance,
Click to expand...

The 80-wire cables are needed for U/66 and faster. They are rarely
needed and rarely of any value for U/33 and slower, but there have
been a few reports of U/33 HDs getting fewer transfer errors with
80-wire cables, due to the increased rejection of radiated noise inside
PC cases.

If you want to experiment, just replace your old 40-wire cables with
80-wire cables. Can't hurt (unless you do it with the power on),
but probably won't make any difference.
 
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