Easy question: Are ATA33, ATA66, ATA100, and ATA133 IDE cables all the same?

[Ryan]

I need to get some ATA cables for a computer I'm building, so I picked up two from radio shack. There are no specs on the cables, they just say IDE Cable on the front of the box. When I got home, I noticed that they were different from the cables that were in my newer system. The cables I picked up at Radio Shack are made up of many Larger wires that the ones on my newer system. My question is, is there any difference?

 

[AndyHui]

ATA33 cables are 40 pin, 40 conductor cables.

ATA66/100/133 are 40 pin, 80 conductor cables.

 

[wetcat007]

They are not all the same, some are older ones that only support ATA33 and lower, you can generally tell by looking at the way the cable looks, it should be less fine of ribbion, and will not have a blue connector that goes into your mobo. The high speed ATA ones have ablue end and a finer wrie in them. There isnt any big brands of these cables or anything and besides the 2 types, plus serial ATA, all brands should be the same, I'd recomend buying some nonribbon type IDE cable that they make only it's circular wire instead of ribbon, less air flow blocking, and easier to work with.

-Mark

 

[Ryan]

Originally posted by: AndyHui
ATA33 cables are 40 pin, 40 conductor cables. ATA66/100/133 are 40 pin, 80 conductor cables.

Hmm, I;'m guessing that the cables that I just bought are ATA33 then (I just looks at my old p2 system, and they look exactly the same). Hmm, How much of a preformance difference do you think I'll notice since all of the other components on my computer are ATA100? And lastly, will my computer be fine if I go ahead a set everything up with the ATA33 cables and just swap them out with ATA66/100/133 cables at a later date?

Thanks Andy

 

[ChampionAtTufshop]

Originally posted by: rbloedow

Originally posted by: AndyHui
ATA33 cables are 40 pin, 40 conductor cables. ATA66/100/133 are 40 pin, 80 conductor cables.

Hmm, I;'m guessing that the cables that I just bought are ATA33 then (I just looks at my old p2 system, and they look exactly the same). Hmm, How much of a preformance difference do you think I'll notice since all of the other components on my computer are ATA100? And lastly, will my computer be fine if I go ahead a set everything up with the ATA33 cables and just swap them out with ATA66/100/133 cables at a later date?

Thanks Andy

ata 33 cables on ata 100 device will drastically slow down
it will be at a max of i think 33.3mb/s, whereas ata 100 as a max of 100mb/s

switching out at a later time is no problem

 

[ChefJoe]

Also, there's a pin blanked out in the connector for IDE 66 and above. I've had issues with rounded cables that won't connect to my 440BX IDE 33 connectors because of this.

 

[Ryan]

ARG - Damn Radio Shack! :|

Thanks for all of you help, guys!

 

[GR8Madmax]

I was helping out a friend couple of days ago and we put a new 40gig Maxtor 7200 in his PC. We kept the old
ATA33 cable in there instead of using the new ATA100/133 that came with the HD. Well, let me just say that
his PC was seriously messed up for a few days and his registry got corrupted. The computer was giving a
IDE error during bootup (something about 80 conductor) and we just ignored it since the PC booted up fine.
Well, after 3 windows 2000 installations and 2 registry corruptions later we figured out that we should have
replaced the damn cable.

So make sure you use the right IDE cable..

 

[Kingofcomputer]

today's motherboard bios has the option to set what kind of cable you're using.

 

[Ryan]

Hmm, where can you buy newer cables at? I live in Panama City, FL so I don't have a best buy, I've just got Staples, Office Depot, Circuit City, and Radio Shack for computer hardware

 

[Kingofcomputer]

today's motherboards all come with at least 1 ata66 cable.
today's retail ata66 or above hard disk all come with at least 1 ata66 cable.

if you really need to buy 1, and don't want to pay rip-off price at local chain stores like staples, buy it online.

 

[Ryan]

Originally posted by: Kingofcomputer
today's motherboards all come with at least 1 ata66 cable. today's retail ata66 or above hard disk all come with at least 1 ata66 cable. if you really need to buy 1, and don't want to pay rip-off price at local chain stores like staples, buy it online.

Well I know that, but considering I bought all of my parts as OEM parts - I got no cables along with them

I'm gonna check out CC manana

 

[numark]

Originally posted by: ChampionAtTufshop
ata 33 cables on ata 100 device will drastically slow down
it will be at a max of i think 33.3mb/s, whereas ata 100 as a max of 100mb/s

switching out at a later time is no problem

If you're running just CD-ROM drives off of an ATA/33 cable, there's no problem there, since no CD drives come even close to 33Mb/sec. Even hard drives could conceivably run that slow without too much slowdown, especially if the drive is 5400RPM. Unless you're doing things that require lots of hard drive reading, the ATA/33 cables may work for you, and there's definitely no problem using them for CD and other optical/removable drives.