Do old IDE Cables effect Speed

[Bradleylicious]

I have some old IDE cables that I pulled from a machine about 5 years old. If i use one of them for my hard drive (ATA100), will the cables really effect my speeds...Just currious

 

[buleyb]

if its not an 80cond/40pin cable, it won't do ata100. It'll hold you to ATA33 at best if I remember correctly, and attempt to override is asking for problems

 

[n0cmonkey]

Besides the fact that it might be an older type of cable, I'd be worried about the cables actually being good.

 

[RaNDoMMAI]

new cables only cost 2 bucks?

~RaNDoM

 

[Zugzwang152]

66 to 100 you probably won't notice a big difference, unless you're a gamer. boot time will be slower, and shutdown will be a little slower.

if it's 33 or less, time to drop the 3 bucks for a new cable if you want to keep performance 🙂

 

[Budman]

Older cables will drop you down to ATA33,you NEED the newer cables to go from ATA33 to ATA66-133

 

[Bradleylicious]

alright...thanks all, I have some new ones laying around...but i guess i will just throw these old ones back in a box...

 

[Brian48]

As long as the plastic hasn't dry-rotted, the older ATA33 cables should still be fine for your CDROM or burner. Very few optical drives go beyond ATA66 (Pioneer DVDROMs comes to mind). So long as you don't Master/Slave an ATA66/100/133 HDD on the same IDE channel, these old cables can still be of use. I wouldn't chuck them away.

The only problem I see with standard ATA100/133 ribbon cables is that they're only cheap if you buy them online and in bulk. Factor in the shipping, you wind up paying $8-10 (or more) for a single cable. Prices are also a rip-off at all the retail places such as Staples, CompUSA, Circuit City, etc.. That's why I always horde all the spare cables that come with the motherboards I get.

 

[Zepper]

compgeeks.com has a kit with an 80-wire IDE, floppy and CD audio cables along with a baggie of case hardware (screws, standoffs, etc.) for $2.50. But as you say, it's not economic to buy that by itself with shipping at $7. minimum. Buy when you need something else. SVCompucycle.com can do cheap First Class mail on small orders if you are willing to assume all shipping risks. But I think they carry only round IDE cables.
.bh.