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Anyone have experience with rounded IDE/floppy cables?

G

Ganryu

Member
I am thinking of getting some to reduce congestion in my Antec SX1030 case, since i have three different ide cables and the floppy cable. I have heard that some people have problems with data integrity and performance with these cables. Also, where is the best place to get them (I don't want something fancy, just simple and reliable)

 
I just ordered some. I feel the data integrity stuff is mostly FUD. Stick with the shortest cables you can find and you should be fine. 2cooltek.com and crazypc.com have them.
 
I bought some rounded IDE and floppy cables from PCs For Everyone here in Boston when I got the parts for my new system.

Didn't have much luck with the floppy cable - my A7V266-E with the latest BIOS wouldn't boot from the floppy drive with the rounded cable, but worked fine with the included ribbon cable. :frown: Perhaps it was just the particular cable they had, and another manufacturer's cable would work, but I didn't feel like dealing with it. Anybody else had this problem? Know of a cable that works?

The IDEs are great - don't know the manufacturer, but they're rated for ATA100. The system install was a breeze compared to the usual pretzel-tying contest I have to go through. I got the 36" IDE cables because the inside of my Lian-Li PC60 is large for a midtower, and the extra length in between master and slave allows me to put the hard drives at the bottom of the case, the CDs at the top, and have cable enough to go between them. 😀 You might prefer the 24", though. Depends on your mobo and case.
 
I had the same problem with my QVS rounded floppy cable. Other than the ide cable comming unplugged very easily, it works well.
 
I rounded my own by slicing a small slit between every 4th or 5th wire on the cable, pulling apart the subribbons starting at that slit, then squeezing the ribbons together with some spiral wrap-around plastic tubing...but I made a few inaccurate cuts and revealed a wire here and there and got kind of scared. Everything seems to work fine, but I noticed absolutely no temperature benefit in my Athlon 1.4 in a FK 320b midtower.

I think just taping the smooth cables onto the walls of the inside of your computer is a better organizational method.
 
I have never bought rounded cables but have cut an rounded my own. I can't give you first-hand experience on performance benches, but have since decided to just route my (normaly flat) cables very carefully and with a little planning and effort, rounded cables may not be necessary. Save some dough and don't worry about data loss is my call.
 

great post !!!! just got my scsi cables from 2cooltek. looks great in my clear case, but smells like s**t. i figure it will take a few days to get rid of that. as for temps...no difference. nice to look at tho...$ well spent.
 
i just put in my rounded cabels that i got from newegg. there longer the the standard IDE ones so the case is a lot less congested. didnt do anything for temps maby case temp like a degree but thats brobilly because i moved my second HD out from in front of my intake fan
 
I've used rounded cables in lots of systems, including my own. I've never had a problem with data loss when I used store-bought rounded cables. As far as the ones I rounded myself, they either worked or they didn't. If they didn't, it's because I screwed up when separating the wires. (You learn rather quickly how to avoid that.)
 

Here's what I am using:

SVC 18" Rounded Cable ATA100 Single Device


10" Floppy Rounded Single Device Cable

Comments:

Ordered from SVC because they have single device cables. Who is running 2 floppies these days????

Picture for the the ATA100 cable lies. There is no pull tab on the ATA100 cable but there is one on the floppy cable. Pull tabs are important because these things can be hard to pull off. Number one complaint of rounded cables is they are easy to break when removing.

If I had to do it again, I would have purchased the longer floppy cable. The 10" cable just barely fits, as for some reason ECS decided to put my floppy connector on the bottom of the board (who has floppy drives on the bottom of their case?).

Data corruption? Been running this thing every night for 8 to 10 hours for a month or two and have not had any problems.

Personally I think they are worth the cost just for the looks.

Almost got the metal braided cables because they look even cooler, but I figured NOT conducting would be a good thing.





 
I have 2 rounded ATA100 cables, 1 for hard drive, 1 for cd-burner (even though I spilled water and it ended up dripping inside it and frying it). And one for my floppy. Works just fine for me, i've heard of people having problems myself.. but i've yet to experience any problems.
 
I folded my cables underneath the motherboard as much as I could. By making 45 degree folds, you can lay most of the secondary IDE cable out of the way.

For the primary, I bought some plastic split loom at Active Surplus in Toronto for 15 cents, and wrapped them up like so. I used some Glad twisties to clean up the fan wires and power wires. Looks a bit neater, but I too had no temperature difference (if it was, it must be 1 degree at most)
 
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