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Thoughts on Rounding Cables

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Colin

Arctic Silver Senior
Joined
Dec 19, 2000
A few weeks ago I rounded my IDE and floppy cables using a stockman knife and zip ties. The results were good but I was hesitant to try this with my Ultra 66 cables. Recently I read about rounding an Ultra 66 cable by folding it in a W to avoid cutting the cable. I tried this yesterday, again using zip ties. The results in my case were well worth the effort.

My case is set up as follows, one 120 mm fan in front and one 120 mm fan in a blow hole over the card slots and processor, both blowing in. One 92 mm fan under the PSU, one 92 mm fan over the PSU and of course the dual PSU fans, all blowing out. The 120 mm fans and 92 mm fans are individually controlled with a switch and a 25 ohm rheostat. During normal use only the two 120 mm fans and lower 92 mm fan are necessary with the rheostats set on the lowest setting. With the top 92 mm fan off, only a little airflow exited it’s opening. After rounding the Ultra 66 cables, the air flow through the to 92 mm fan (still off) was increased dramatically. Note that my system has two IDE cables, one floppy and two Ultra 66 cables in a generic 25” full tower. The improvement in airflow was from my recent rounding of only the Ultra 66 cables.

Bottom line, buy some zip ties and round your cables. It’s well worth thirty minutes of your time.

Colin
 
I've found just twisting your cables seems to work fine too. Since they are connected at both ends, they can't unwind. It does cut down on their size a lot.
 
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