homemade rounded cables

[outhouse]

I saw a article at hardocp that said you can cut and stack ide cables so that you have sort of a rounded cable so you can get better cooling with improved airflow, except they said the 80 wire hard drive cable may cause CrossTalk with the wires stacked my question's are will it really cause CrossTalk? and if it did can i maybe put a piece of black tape or other tape in between the stacked wires to fix the crosstalking problem? are there any opinions on this? is there another reason why I should not do this?

 

[Thelemac]

I don't really see how it would lead to cross talk (whatever that is) as all of the wires are now in essentially the same configuration as when you cut between the insulation so that you can stack them...the wires are still insulated, so there isn't going to be any electrical current going between them or anything like that.

 

[outhouse]

Thats what i thought, so i did it and i do not notice any difference except now when i play games i get some pauses sometimes but i had my card out at the same time so who knows. I did reboot and the problem went away go figure, but its still not 100% about 98% but it may be a card problem and has nothing to do with crosstalking, about crosstalking it was in the article and he was not recomending doing the 80wire said he chickened out so I thought I would run it buy everyone here and read the pro's and con's thanks all

 

[Slake]

I rounded my cables a week ago. As yet I haven't noticed any crosstalk. I read in a thread that someone did have success with putting tape between the layers of the 80 conductor cable. I split the 40 conuctor cables on every third wire and just folded the 80 pin cable. I used the spiral wire wrap on mine. I used Twist ties to keep the cables together as I worked., then removed the twists as I put on the cable wrap. They look great and really help airflow.

 

[Thelemac]

If you're getting pauses, you might check to make sure you didn't nick the actual wire by accident. If you did, it can be easily fixed by wrapping some electrical tape around it (I have at least three spots on my self rounded cables that I did that to)

 

[outhouse]

good point because i did take off the second connector that would go to the second hard drive and when you pull off the connector there are holes left in the wire and pieces of copper trying to poke there way through the insulation i did try and push them back in the best i could.
I wanted to do this because i do not plan on using a second hard drive maybe i went to far this time but in windows no problem sisandra no problem seti no problem games slight problem i'm sure i did not nick a wire but your point hit home

 

[Hoot]

FWIW

When you have current flowing through a wire (data), the wire produces an electromagnetic field around it. When that wire has a conductor paired up with it, that carries the return current, in the opposite direction, it also emits the same field, but in reverse. As long as they are paired together for their entire length, the two fields tend to cancel each other out. Break the physical relationship of those parallel conductors and the cancellation is lost or at least diminished.

If you have a conductor with an electromagnetic field close to another conductor (not its pair) some of that field is picked up by the other conductor and turned back into current (data) on it. That is a simplification of the term "Crosstalk". You don't want the data (current) flowing in one conductor to show up on another conductor.

That's as simple as i can make it and still have it have meaning. I've never messed with my HDD ribbon cables, so I can not honestly say whether splitting the pairs and packing them tightly in a bundle has a noticeable impact of bit error rates from "Cross talk" though. I assume they are configured like they are for a good reason though.

Hoot

 

[outhouse]

Thanks for the advise but now i'm stuck with a cut up and stacked cable, if i did put some black tape in between layers does anyone think that would help to keep the electromagnetic fields in check? should I ditch the modded cable and find a new one?

 

[UFF-DA]

I was going to go that route for my system also. The i read that the newer ata cables can be hard to cut. So i just went to a site and ordered some, 14 bucks each and they are blue, which is a big bonus.

 

[William]

I read a very thorough article somewhere, in which the guy tested heavily a set of rounded cables for crosstalk. He had no problems with any of his tests. It is not an ideal setup, but you evidently don't need ideal. I wouldn't round a server's SCSI cables or something where you have to have ultimate stability, but for your home computer, you are fine. Just be careful not too cut any wires if you round it.

 

[Ridenow]

I am getting to like Hoot more every day, I could not have said it better myself.
Electrical tape, an insulator, will not do a thing for the magnetic fields created by current. A conductor, like foil, will shield some what. If you have ever cut a sheilded cable, like a good monitor cable or some network cables, you will find a layer of foil wrapped around the wires. I honestly think it would be more trouble than it is worth.

 

[William]

Ridenow (May 09, 2001 10:27 a.m.):
I am getting to like Hoot more every day, I could not have said it better myself.
Electrical tape, an insulator, will not do a thing for the magnetic fields created by current. A conductor, like foil, will shield some what. If you have ever cut a sheilded cable, like a good monitor cable or some network cables, you will find a layer of foil wrapped around the wires. I honestly think it would be more trouble than it is worth.

you have to have an enclosed conductive surface to shield something from electrical and magnetic interference, it is called a faraday cage. The law is that in a closed, conductive container, the electrical and magnetic field anywhere in the container is 0 because he electrical and magnetic field lines cancel each other out. That is why you want to be in your car during a lightning storn, not because of the rubber on your tires even though a car is not a perfect farraday cage. Another example of a Farraday cage is the NSA headquarters at Ft. Mead, which is surounded by a copper mesh to prevent interference from the outside.

 

[AMDGuy]

I rounded my IDE 40 Pin, 80 Pin, and SCSI calbes about a month ago. Cut them about every 3rd or 4th wire and wrapped them together in some of that black wire wrap. Never have had any problems. It makes the case much cleaner in side as well as helps air flow. I dropped 1-2 oC after doing this.

 

[BboySkid]

hey just thought id give my two cents

i rounded both 2 40-pin cables and 2 80-pin cables yesterday, using a miniature flathead screwdriver to create the incisions every 5-6 wires ont he 40s and every 8 on the 80's

i hacked them up pretty good, bare wires about twice on each cable, just wrapped them in electrical tape and they actually work alright

 

[*spazzed*]

Putting it into other terms: if it makes it easier...
it;s like runnin your power line in your car, too close to the RCA's(when wiring an amp), you'll get that annoying electrical noise 100% of the time

 

[William]

i swear that you will be fine with rounded cables. I have seen several articles that ran extremely thorough tests on the drives, and found no difference. You are not running a lot of current through the cables, so the field is not that great.

 

[Sketch]

dunno260 (May 09, 2001 09:42 p.m.):
i swear that you will be fine with rounded cables. I have seen several articles that ran extremely thorough tests on the drives, and found no difference. You are not running a lot of current through the cables, so the field is not that great.

I agree 100%!!! You will not have a problem unless you cut a wire and tape it back together- or cut two wires and touch them together( which you would have to due on purpose) Otherwise you will be fine. Except you could end up like me and increase your case temp by 3C!!! I wonder why that happened????? Oh-well it looks better But case temp now is 30C!!!! WTF!!!
To look at the bright side now, my idle temps are the same, Average is +4C than case temp and load is only 11C above case temp! HEHE!!!

 

[outhouse]

just to let everyone know earlier I said when gaming I had a slight problem well I,m pretty sure it had something to do with removing my video card and reinstalling it as now my system is 100% stable and back to normal except the inside of my case looks allot better with my homemade cables and i'm sure ive gained some cooler temps in the procces so far I have not heard one person say that they have had any kind of a bad effect or loss of performance from rounding a 80 wire cable so as far as i'm concerned i'm happy that ive done it. As for how i did mine, my 40 i cut every 5 wires using a new rasor blade by only making the smallest incision and then pulling the wires apart this way you take less of a chance cutting wires I did the same for my floppy cable except I did trim it down in size and took the second connector off as explained in the hardocp article for my 80 I cut every 10 and took off the second connector as well.

 

[William]

sketch, could this have anything to do with the fact that summer has arrived?

 

[AcidBath]

Heres some more stuff on cross talk i don't know if some one answered this already im in a rush for time right now.

When you get cross talk as someone pointed out earlyier it picks up the electormagentic field and could cause it. I noticed this the other day when i was messing w/my satilite modem and got shocked to hell froma 110 volt field froma power cable running parrelle with the house(no time to spell right) the only type of tape you could get would be one that could stop electromagnetic fields, i never heard as such before but if u find some send me a post i need it for a new review im doing