Correct way to fit an IDE Cable?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Peter McVries
  • Start date Start date
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Peter McVries

I've recently bought a new machine and is working ok although I expected
better performance from an Asus A7N8X-X and Athlon 3000xp. Having
looked inside the case it appears that the Maxtor hard drive has the
grey connector plugged in to it, the blue connector is to the MOBO and
the black connector is free.

I thought that the black connector should be plugged in to the Hard disk
as that is the master connector and the grey should be used for any
slave devices.

Is this correct? Should I put the black IDE connector to the HDD?

TIA.
 
Peter McVries said:
I've recently bought a new machine and is working ok although I expected
better performance from an Asus A7N8X-X and Athlon 3000xp. Having
looked inside the case it appears that the Maxtor hard drive has the
grey connector plugged in to it, the blue connector is to the MOBO and
the black connector is free.

I thought that the black connector should be plugged in to the Hard disk
as that is the master connector and the grey should be used for any
slave devices.

Is this correct? Should I put the black IDE connector to the HDD?
Click to expand...

Use the two end connectors first, then the middle one.
If you have just one hard drive and use the middle
connector, leaving the end hanging, that can result in
signal reflections off the end that cause data transfers
to be slower and less reliable.

-- Bob Day
 
Bob said:
Use the two end connectors first, then the middle one.
If you have just one hard drive and use the middle
connector, leaving the end hanging, that can result in
signal reflections off the end that cause data transfers
to be slower and less reliable.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the swift reply Bob. I have only one hard drive so my PC has
come configured incorrectly?
I would have thought a professional system builder (local company)
would have known not to make such an obvious mistake? Perhaps not. I
will try it later and see what happens!
 
Peter said:
I've recently bought a new machine and is working ok although I expected
better performance from an Asus A7N8X-X and Athlon 3000xp. Having
looked inside the case it appears that the Maxtor hard drive has the
grey connector plugged in to it, the blue connector is to the MOBO and
the black connector is free.

I thought that the black connector should be plugged in to the Hard disk
as that is the master connector and the grey should be used for any
slave devices.

Is this correct? Should I put the black IDE connector to the HDD?

TIA.
Click to expand...

Like Bob says, this is definitely not correct and you should connect the
end of the cable (gray) to the HDD. There is an outside chance that
bounced signals caused repeated errors which your operating system may
respond to by permanently disabling UDMA. I know this can happen on
optical drives but I'm not sure about HDDs. In any case it's a good idea
to verify that UDMA is still enabled or you will take a large
performance hit.
 
tomcas said:
Like Bob says, this is definitely not correct and you should connect the
end of the cable (gray) to the HDD. There is an outside chance that
bounced signals caused repeated errors which your operating system may
respond to by permanently disabling UDMA. I know this can happen on
optical drives but I'm not sure about HDDs. In any case it's a good idea
to verify that UDMA is still enabled or you will take a large
performance hit.
Click to expand...

Tomcas, I'm a bit confused now. The ends of my IDE cable are blue
(motherboard) and black with the grey in between (and currently in use).
Can you clarify if the grey should remain plugged in or should I
change to have the black connector plugged into the back of the HDD?
TIA.
 
Peter McVries said:
Tomcas, I'm a bit confused now. The ends of my IDE cable are blue
(motherboard) and black with the grey in between (and currently in use).
Can you clarify if the grey should remain plugged in or should I
change to have the black connector plugged into the back of the HDD?
TIA.
Click to expand...

The colors of the connectors are not standard. I think
they are supposed to be, but in practice they are not.
Use the end connectors first, no matter what the colors
are. If one of the ends is blue, connect it to your
mainboard.

-- Bob Day
 
one more indetifying thing if you look closely at the cable one end is definetly further away to the middle connector than the
opposite end. The end that has the connector clostest to the middle connector is for the devices the other is for the MB.

1HD> ||-----||-------------|| >MB end
 
Peter said:
Tomcas, I'm a bit confused now. The ends of my IDE cable are blue
(motherboard) and black with the grey in between (and currently in use).
Can you clarify if the grey should remain plugged in or should I change
to have the black connector plugged into the back of the HDD?
TIA.
Click to expand...

What was I thinking - I should have said black not gray. Black is master
, gray is slave. Easy to remember if you think it is always politically
correct. My apologies. Connect to the end (black) and check for UDMA.
 
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