Disaster With Rounded IDE Cables

  • Thread starter Thread starter SAMF2000
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SAMF2000

I never thought Replacing my Ribbon cables would cause my entire
system to stop booting. Seemed like an easy task...heck I just replaced
my CPU With no headaches ... Well After Replacing the Ribbon cables
with IDE Rounded cables And getting some "No 80 wire connecter "
error, I Decided to replace the old ribbon cables. Well to my
amazement same error. I then stated to try the jumpers on the MB. Then
I went into the Configuration and set the defaults... still same error.
I had to completely format the drive, reinstall windows and everything
to get my computer back. So my question: How can just replacing a cable
cause this much trouble and what could I have done short of
reinstalling and starting over? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Sam
 
reset CMOS that should set things right- happened to me NUMEROUS times and
thats why I say that, unless you pay for GOOD rounded cables they are not
worth it. (expensive doesn't gaurentee success either, I have gotten serious
speaker noise from many of them)
 
What do you mean by "reset CMOS"?

What makes you conclude that the cylindrical
IDE cables caused noise to be heard in your
PC's audio speakers?

*TimDaniels*
 
Obviously, it wasn't the round cables because the problem
persisted when you reverted to ribbon cables. It may have
been the *process* of diddling in your PC's case. Have you
tried switching to a different power cable? How old is your
PC - your lithium battery might be run down or covered with
an oxide layer

*TimDaniels*
 
Timothy Daniels said:
What do you mean by "reset CMOS"?
Click to expand...

jumper the reset terminals and clear the cmos
What makes you conclude that the cylindrical
IDE cables caused noise to be heard in your
PC's audio speakers?
Click to expand...

because when i removed them, the noise went away, it was bleed through, like
you would hear when tuning an AM radio near the PSU. Also noise from mouse
movement while using them(round cables).
 
SAMF2000 said:
I never thought Replacing my Ribbon cables would cause my entire
system to stop booting. Seemed like an easy task...heck I just replaced
my CPU With no headaches ... Well After Replacing the Ribbon cables
with IDE Rounded cables And getting some "No 80 wire connecter "
error, I Decided to replace the old ribbon cables. Well to my
amazement same error. I then stated to try the jumpers on the MB. Then
I went into the Configuration and set the defaults... still same error.
I had to completely format the drive, reinstall windows and everything
to get my computer back. So my question: How can just replacing a cable
cause this much trouble and what could I have done short of
reinstalling and starting over? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Sam
Click to expand...

The problem with rounded cables is called "crosstalk".

If you look at the cable design, the 80 wire cable looks like
this.

. x . x . x . x .

The X character is a grounded wire, while the "." wires carry a
signal. The ground wire provides a reference for the signal,
and makes the cable look closer to a controlled impedance. It
improves the signal quality. The extra spacing between the
"." wires reduces interference from one "." wire on the other
"." wires on either side.

Now, roll up the cable, so that one layer of wire is
adjacent to the other. A small portion of the cross section
would look like this. Depending on how tightly the cable
is rolled, the displacement between layers, could take
on just about any relationship.

. x . x . x . x .
. x . x . x . x .

Now, some of the "." wires are getting closer to one
another, than they would be if the cable was kept flat.
The close signals interfere with one another, and sometimes
a "1" signal gets switched to a "0" signal. If the disk is
doing write operations, then corrupted data can get written
to the disk. (Note - you can reduce the interference, by
dropping down to ATA-33 or lower. Not that anyone would want
to do that, when perfectly good flat cables are available.)

A round cable must be fabricated, so that the interference
is no worse than it would be in a perfectly flat cable. I've
never heard of a standard for round cables, so there is nothing
to spell out good practice for the companies who make them.
(Although, if they have any engineers working for them,
they should know about this problem.)

You can see a product here, where they chop the cable into
sections, then lay the sections on top of one another. The
X's are offset, so each layer is shifted a precise amount.
The X's form a "box" around the dots. If I had to make a
cable, this is the way I would do it (from a theory
perspective). Simulations and testing should still be
carried out, to verify that the cable works. For example,
the impedance of the signals is changed by this structure,
which may or may not be important, depending on the Southbridge
IDE driver output impedance. At least I can see some "science"
in this product.

http://www.hardwarecooling.com/product_info.php/products_id/289

Not every claim in that advertisement, is for real. But the
cables could be a bit better than a randomly rolled up alternative.

None of my computers have rounded cables - for a reason :-)

A better alternative, is to use SATA disks and SATA cables.
A lot less air resistance with SATA cables.

Paul
 
JAD said:
reset CMOS that should set things right- happened to me NUMEROUS times and
thats why I say that, unless you pay for GOOD rounded cables they are not
worth it. (expensive doesn't gaurentee success either, I have gotten serious
speaker noise from many of them)
Click to expand...

Reset CMOS, And every jumper on the MB Too. Still no good. The trouble
started right after I put the Rounded cables in ...Could the IDE
Interface been affected somehow? anyway staying away from them forever.
As For SATA Cables, my System Does not support it. my next one will
though. thanks anyway...gotta sell these crap cables on Ebay I guess.
 
Sheeesh.... "round" cables are NOT rolled up ribbon cables.
In the case of 80-wire round cables, each data wire is
twisted together with a ground wire, putting the data wire
in constant adjacency with its own ground wire.- just like with
spec'd IDE ribbon cables. How well this works is an open
question, but I, for one, have never had a problem with them
in the 3-4 years that I've used them with my (3) ATA/133 HDs.

*TimDaniels*
 
Paul said:
A round cable must be fabricated, so that the interference
is no worse than it would be in a perfectly flat cable. I've
never heard of a standard for round cables, so there is nothing
to spell out good practice for the companies who make them.
(Although, if they have any engineers working for them,
they should know about this problem.)
Click to expand...


Here are some decent "round" cables:
http://svc.com/cables-ata-100-133-round-cables.html

They are not rolled up ribbon cables.

*TimDaniels*
 
I never thought Replacing my Ribbon cables would cause my entire
system to stop booting. Seemed like an easy task...heck I just replaced my
CPU With no headaches ... Well After Replacing the Ribbon cables with IDE
Rounded cables And getting some "No 80 wire connecter "
error, I Decided to replace the old ribbon cables. Well to my
amazement same error. I then stated to try the jumpers on the MB. Then I
went into the Configuration and set the defaults... still same error. I
had to completely format the drive, reinstall windows and everything to
get my computer back. So my question: How can just replacing a cable cause
this much trouble and what could I have done short of reinstalling and
starting over? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Sam
Click to expand...

Really odd! I'd bet you didn't connect the cables correctly but then
reformatting the HD fixed the problem? Doesn't sound like a
IDE cable problem if you could reinstall windows.

So when did you see the "no 80 wire connector" messages? As bios boots
or as windows boots?
 
SAMF2000 said:
I never thought Replacing my Ribbon cables would cause my entire
system to stop booting. Seemed like an easy task...heck I just replaced
my CPU With no headaches ... Well After Replacing the Ribbon cables
with IDE Rounded cables And getting some "No 80 wire connecter "
error, I Decided to replace the old ribbon cables. Well to my
amazement same error. I then stated to try the jumpers on the MB. Then
I went into the Configuration and set the defaults... still same error.
I had to completely format the drive, reinstall windows and everything
to get my computer back. So my question: How can just replacing a cable
cause this much trouble and what could I have done short of
reinstalling and starting over? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Sam
Click to expand...
No way would I have reformatted the drive when the problem was almost
certainly nothing to do with the drive or the cables.
While some rounded cables are a bit dodgy, there are plenty that aren't and
as you had the same problem with ordinary cables as well I would guess you
did something else to the PC in the process of fitting the cables.
Unfortunate, yes, but it sometimes happens.

SteveH
 
You can plug those in backwards sometimes as i did. wouldnt boot then
changed it around booted.
 
I've seen this. What happens is the round
cable puts a lot of stress on the end wires
at the connector, and they pull loose, or
short to each other .. only takes 2 or 3 to
do this. Then, either the drive won't boot,
or if it does, you get a world of "dirty writes"
to the drive, and your system is kaput!
That is why you got the same error when
you restored the flat cables. I use round
cables, but I always make sure I tie-wrap
them so the ends of the cables are not
pulled loose, Generally a U at the end
will be good enough to prevent this stress.
Be sure to check for this before you install
a round cable. Also, I make sure the cable
wrap ends a couple of inches from the
connector. I just take nippers and cut it
back, then check for pulled wires. Also,
note that HP and a few others put a flat
belt on the cable just behind the connector
..... for good reason. Dirty writes are hard
to troubleshoot. I like the round cables
that never were a flat belt .. rather a bunch
of single or paired wires with a few tie-
wraps. You can tell they are not stressed.

johns
 
johns said:
Also, note that HP and a few others put a flat
belt on the cable just behind the connector
.... for good reason.
Click to expand...

All the round cables that I've bought from SVC.com have
had pull tabs on the connectors to keep stress off the wires
(although they're not shown in the photos). When unplugging
the cable, you just pull from side to side on the plastic tabs
tp work the plug out of its socket.

*TimDaniels*
 
jaster said:
Really odd! I'd bet you didn't connect the cables correctly but then
reformatting the HD fixed the problem? Doesn't sound like a
IDE cable problem if you could reinstall windows.

So when did you see the "no 80 wire connector" messages? As bios boots
or as windows boots?
Click to expand...

I Saw that message at bios boot. never got into windows. At the bios
boot the drives showed up on the bios boot screen before the error
message. Luckily I had the Windows 98 boot disk/cd and the Windows XP
Upgrade CD . I thought the most dangerous part to mess with was the CPU
But that was a piece of cake if your just careful of the fan being
connected and heatsink on correctly. Taking this as a learning lesson
now .still reinstalling software.
 
I Saw that message at bios boot. never got into windows. At the bios
boot the drives showed up on the bios boot screen before the error
message. Luckily I had the Windows 98 boot disk/cd and the Windows XP
Upgrade CD . I thought the most dangerous part to mess with was the CPU
But that was a piece of cake if your just careful of the fan being
connected and heatsink on correctly. Taking this as a learning lesson
now .still reinstalling software.
Click to expand...

I think you had a rare boot virus, if you saw the drives on the bios
screen before XP boot. IMO, if the cable was bad or not connected
properly you would have gotten beeps or missing HDs from the bios splash.
 
I think you had a rare boot virus, if you saw the drives on the bios
screen before XP boot. IMO, if the cable was bad or not connected
properly you would have gotten beeps or missing HDs from the bios splash.
Click to expand...

I think its more likely a bad round cable that damaged the data
on the drive. Thats why a reformat and reinstall worked fine
and why it showed up in the bios fine but wouldnt boot.
 
Timothy said:
Sheeesh.... "round" cables are NOT rolled up ribbon cables.
In the case of 80-wire round cables, each data wire is
twisted together with a ground wire, putting the data wire
in constant adjacency with its own ground wire.- just like with
spec'd IDE ribbon cables. How well this works is an open
question, but I, for one, have never had a problem with them
in the 3-4 years that I've used them with my (3) ATA/133 HDs.

*TimDaniels*
Click to expand...

The questions I'd want an answer to, is:

1) Are round cables standardized ? Can I be assured of a
good construction technique, no matter where I buy them ?
Yes, I see adverts for twisted pair cables, I also included
a link to a unique flat cabling technique to reduce cable
bulk.

2) Have round cables, ones with good construction techniques,
been rated for characteristic impedance ? Do they behave
differently than their simple ribbon counterparts, assuming
the crosstalk problem is solved ?

Some amount of work went into getting ribbon cables to work,
and a twisted pair cable is not exactly equal.

(Signal integrity for IDE - early version)
http://www.t13.org/technical/d97128r0.pdf

(Later version, starting at PDF page 189.
Also PDF page 46 has a cabling spec.)
http://www.t13.org/docs2004/d1532v2r4b-ATA-ATAPI-7.pdf

If there are standards, and someone has created a standard
that works well with the series damping to be found on
IDE controllers, I wouldn't have a problem with that. When
round cables were introduced, they were anything but
standardized.

I wouldn't want to recommend a solution, where you have to
buy three or four different products, and play with them to
see which one works.

Paul
 
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