Qustion on Antec 3700bqe

[J22]

Anyone know how long of IDE cables i will need to connect one hard drive and optical drive to each ide channel. 18", 24", 36"??

 

[Dman877]

Probably 6 - 8 inches for the hard drives, maybe 8 - 10 inches for the cd. Standard ide cables should be more then adequate.

 

[Zepper]

Did you mean a total of 4 drives? Or just one of each? If you meant one of each on each channel, you may either need longer cables as the distance between the drive connectors on the std 18" cable is only 6" which may be tight since the HD bays are at a right angle to the optical bays on the BQE (but 24" should be fine) or mount your HDs with 3.5 to 5" adapter brackets and mount all the drives in the 5" bays. Then std cables would work. Or if your mobo has SATA connections, you could use those for HDs and std IDE channels for opticals - I actually think that that was the plan in the design of the BQE and all the others made on that same basic design (Enermax, Aspire, etc). Then each drive would have its own channel which is optimum for IDE. The layout of the 3700AMB and others based on the same design (Compucase 6Axx series, etc.) where the drives are all the same direction would be better for normal IDE drive cables.
.bh.

 

[J22]

Unfortunately I don't have SATA drives yet. I have 2 80 GB WD-SE's. I have each hard drive as the masters on each IDE channel and my DVD/CDR combo and DVD burner as the slaves. So each cable will have to go from the MB to the HD and then the optical. With the old flat cables and my old case, this is usually a pain to get them to reach. Since the Antec has the hard drives sideways, I assume it will get a little tougher. I will probably go with 24" round cables unless someone has any other thoughts.

 

[J22]

Unfortunately I don't have SATA drives yet. I have 2 80 GB WD-SE's. I have each hard drive as the masters on each IDE channel and my DVD/CDR combo and DVD burner as the slaves. So each cable will have to go from the MB to the HD and then the optical. With the old flat cables and my old case, this is usually a pain to get them to reach. Since the Antec has the hard drives sideways, I assume it will get a little tougher. I will probably go with 24" round cables unless someone has any other thoughts.

 

[tracerbullet]

Just double check the distances between where the drives connect, as well as the distance from where it plugs intot he board and heads to the first drive.

Which case do you have exactly, that would help others with that case to tell you what they did.

Heh, a RAID board with 4 or more plug-ins, and a single cable coming from each would work (but yeah, expensive too).