An 80-wire IDE cable is required for 16X DVD writing speed

[mikesbytes]

Hi, Pioneer state that you need an 80 wire IDE cable. How do you know what you have in your PC?

http://www.pioneeraus.com.au/computer/dvdwriters/dvr109/index.html

http://www.pioneeraus.com.au/computer/dvdwriters/dvr-a09xl/index.html

[budz]

open it up and check the ide cables.....

[freestyler]

if your ultra dma settings are higher than 2, you probably have 80

[redwudz]

Visually, the 40 wire looks like the floppy cable, only wider. The 80 conductor will generally have smaller size wires (And 40 more of them.) The plugs are the same for 80 or 40.

[jay zee]

well at least they have warned people, unlike aopen and their duw 1608 burner, which required the same cable and had to be ata 66. The returns on that drive had to have been high.

[tacoman97x]

Stop them sqaure waves.......... _[]_[]_[]_[]_[]_

80 pin to the rescue.....

[mikesbytes]

Visually, the 40 wire looks like the floppy cable, only wider. The 80 conductor will generally have smaller size wires (And 40 more of them.) The plugs are the same for 80 or 40.

In that case I have 80 Wires, as the cable is wider than the floppy drive one. And I guess, that applies to 99% of generic PC's out there.

[mikesbytes]

if your ultra dma settings are higher than 2, you probably have 80

How do you check the ultra dma setting?

[junkmalle]

Visually, the 40 wire looks like the floppy cable, only wider. The 80 conductor will generally have smaller size wires (And 40 more of them.) The plugs are the same for 80 or 40.

In that case I have 80 Wires, as the cable is wider than the floppy drive one. And I guess, that applies to 99% of generic PC's out there.

I think you misunderstood. Both 40 wire and 80 wire cables are same width, and wider than the floppy cable. The difference is that the 80 wire cable has twice as many wires so each wire is half as thick.

[mikesbytes]

I think you misunderstood. Both 40 wire and 80 wire cables are same width, and wider than the floppy cable. The difference is that the 80 wire cable has twice as many wires so each wire is half as thick.

So you can't tell, simply by looking at the width of the cable.

Do the 80 wire cables have two layers * 40 cables or one layer * 80 cables?

Can you simply replace the cable, or do you also need another IDE controller

[CBC]

I think you misunderstood. Both 40 wire and 80 wire cables are same width, and wider than the floppy cable. The difference is that the 80 wire cable has twice as many wires so each wire is half as thick.

So you can't tell, simply by looking at the width of the cable.

Do the 80 wire cables have two layers * 40 cables or one layer * 80 cables?

Can you simply replace the cable, or do you also need another IDE controller

You can tell by looking at the cable. The individual strands of an 80 wire cable will look finer. They both have one layer-just the 80 wire uses smaller gauge for each one than the 40 wire does.
No, you do not need another IDE controller, as long as your mobo has ultra DMA ability - which it should if you got it in the last year or so.

[chas0039]

Also, many times, the 80 pin cable will have a blue connector that plugs into the motherboard and many BIOS screens will report the cable connections.

[lenti_75]

if your ultra dma settings are higher than 2, you probably have 80

How do you check the ultra dma setting?

contro panel > system> and select the channel

[Skith]

pics:

[wulf109]

On 40 pin cables all three connectors are black. On 80 pin cables they are grey,blue,and black. Sometimes red will be used,but never all black.

[gmatov]

If you scrape your thumbnail across your floppy cable, then your ATA cable, and it feels the same, ie, fat wires, and fat insulation, ATA 33.

No, an 80 wire cable has a ground wire for each data wire, unlike the Mac SCSI that tied a single ground wire to reduce the pin count of the 68 pi SCSI, thereby making a 2 cent cheaper connector. Or most of the other connectors, such as your monitor cable.

I don't know of any HDD that does not come with an ATA 166 cable in the retail box. If you buy an OEM, in a little plastic bag, you will not get a cable.

Nor will you buy a computer with a drive of 20 gig or higher that has a cable incapable of ATA 133 data transfer. If you bought a Dell or Compaq or the like, quite possible you have a machine with just 1 connector on the cable. Again, the 2 cent deal.

heers,

George

[mikesbytes]

I have a generic computer, so those bodgy cost cutting things that seem common on some brand computers doesn't apply.

Looks like I have ultra DMA 5

[Richard_G]

That's only the primary channel though. Most standard build computers put hard drives on the primary channel and use an 80 way cable and optical drives on the secondary channel and use a 40 way. Using a 40 way cable will usually show up because the transfer mode will be Ultra DMA Mode 2.

[mikesbytes]

Secondary Channel



I was also trying to tell where my CD Burner was pluged in, the driver says Location 0 (0)

[Skith]

If your writers are on the secondary IDE channel, having them in PIO and Multi-Word DMA is not a good thing. You want (your DVD Writers especially) in at least Ultra DMA Mode 2. Some writers show up with higher UDMA modes, but the 33MB/sec transfer of UDMA 2 is more than sufficient, even for 16x burns (~22MB/sec).

I believe Multi-Word DMA 2 is ~16.6MB/sec. That is only fast enough for 8x DVD recording.

PIO is plain bad... slow and hogs resources. Try switching (forcing) the devices into UDMA 2. Also try removing the old CD-Writer and have the Pioneer drive installed as Master (you may have to change the jumper).

[mikesbytes]

The PIO is probably the old cdrom drive that doesn't work. The DVD burner will be replacing it anyway.

Looking at Skith's pictures, I probably have a 40 wire lead. Can I simply plug an 80 wire lead in, or do I need to get a new controller card? I have DMA100 on the motherboard.

[gmatov]

Change to an 80 wire for the HDDs.

40 wire is adequate for the Opticals, as they will not overload it.

UDMA 2 is normal for an optical drive, I don't care what speed it is, as of now. 16X is the fastest, as of now, and 16 X 1.35 MB is less than the 33 MB that your board will handle.

Cheers,

George

[fmctm1sw]

One of my computers tells me every time it boots up that I don't have a 80 pin cable via an error message.

[johns0]

One of my computers tells me every time it boots up that I don't have a 80 pin cable via an error message.

You have to replace the 40pin cable for a 80 pin cable then,most likely on the primary ide.

[lordsmurf]

Change to an 80 wire for the HDDs.

40 wire is adequate for the Opticals, as they will not overload it.

UDMA 2 is normal for an optical drive, I don't care what speed it is, as of now. 16X is the fastest, as of now, and 16 X 1.35 MB is less than the 33 MB that your board will handle.

Cheers,

George

Only my CD burner from 2001 shows as UDMA (MW) 2.
The DVD burners have always been UDMA 4

[johns0]

The DVD burners have always been UDMA 4

Not all dvd burners are udma4,most are udma2.

[fmctm1sw]

One of my computers tells me every time it boots up that I don't have a 80 pin cable via an error message.

You have to replace the 40pin cable for a 80 pin cable then,most likely on the primary ide.

I know, I've been ignoring it...

[Bodyslide]

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/confCable80-c.html

[gmatov]

I only have up to 8X, LiteOn and NEC, and they come up as UDMA 2.

And, they are on 80 wires.

And, on Promise cards, as I have 6 drives, hard and optical on the machine in front of me, with the side off, so I DO see what I have, not I think I have.

And I am up to date software wise, BIOS wise, driver wise.

Cheers,

George

[lordsmurf]

The DVD burners have always been UDMA 4

Not all dvd burners are udma4,most are udma2.

105 amd 109 are UDMA 4 ....
I'll go doublecheck the 103 when I find time.