44 pin 80 wire ATA 66/100 cable?

**FarOutByte** · 05-31-2006, 07:26 PM

Hi,

I want to attach an ATA 66/100 80 wire cable from my Hitachi TravelStar 7K100 2.5" harddisk to my 44-pin motherboard.

The Hitachi has a 44-pin connector and I'm currently using a 44-40 pin adapter at both ends so that I can use my 80 wire, 40 pin cable. This cable works fine, but sticks up a lot from the motherboard.

Does anyone know where I can get an 80 wire cable with integrated 44-pin female connectors at both ends that is able to support 66/100 ATA modes?

I've searched up and down the web, but can only find 44 pin cables that have 40 wires... nothing with 80 wire.

I wonder has anyone seen these or do people use the 44-40 pin adapters with 80 wire cables?

Thanks,
FarOutByte.

**Silentbob343** · 05-31-2006, 07:45 PM

you really don't need to use 80 wire PATA cables, enless you want to use cable select.

**FarOutByte** · 05-31-2006, 10:13 PM

Hi Silentbob,

Thanks for the reply. I want to use the 80 wire cable to give me the best possible connection between the harddisk and the motherboard to avoid errors. This is the recommended cable type for ATA 66/100 speeds...

FarOutByte.

**Jahntassa** · 05-31-2006, 10:33 PM

How many 44pin systems actually run ATA66/100? I was under the impression that since most 2.5" drives run at 4200 rpm (with some at 5400rpm) they don't break the ATA 33 barrior most of the time anyway?

I can very well be wrong, I've done no research on the issue..

**FarOutByte** · 06-01-2006, 07:17 AM

You're probably right. But I want to use the faster cable for 2 reasons:
- my Hitachi is a 7200RPM disk
- to reduce errors. I've occasionally seen errors with the slower (40 wire) cables.

FarOutByte.

**JC-S60** · 06-01-2006, 07:27 AM

Originally Posted by FarOutByte

You're probably right. But I want to use the faster cable for 2 reasons:
- my Hitachi is a 7200RPM disk
- to reduce errors. I've occasionally seen errors with the slower (40 wire) cables.

FarOutByte.

I don't get why 40 pins need 80 wires...??

Isn't it when connecting 2 drives that each drive uses 40 wires?

Didn't do any research at all, so I could be horribly wrong!

**Jahntassa** · 06-01-2006, 11:01 AM

From what I recall, the 80 wire cable reduces interference by having a 'dead' wire between each actual 'conducting' wire. Without these interference reducing wires ATA 66 and up would start developing data errors at higher speeds.

I think.

**DeltaFX** · 06-01-2006, 11:07 AM

Yep, 40 data wires, & 40 ground wires.

**JC-S60** · 06-01-2006, 01:53 PM

Originally Posted by DeltaFX

Yep, 40 data wires, & 40 ground wires.

Ahah, makes sense!

**tom61** · 06-01-2006, 06:01 PM

I've not found any 88-wire 44-pin cables either. I doubt there are any out there. Look at a normal 44-wire cable and a 80-wire ATA66/100/133 cable. You'll notice that the wires in the 44-wire cable are nearly as small as the wires in the 80-wire cable. Which means that the wires would have to be ridiculously small to fit 2 wires in the same space as one on the 44-pin cable.