Just goofing off I decided to fray my IDE ribbons.....

[Shadow ÒÓ]

Picture this....I've cut my grill out of the internal side of my power supply.....then removed the outside one by the fan. After careful inspection I realized my IDE ribbons were covering almost 1/3 of the internal side of the PS and moving it in a better location just wasn't possible. So....I frayed the ribbon. Literally took an exacto knife and stranded the sucker. Then.....since I have an intake and exhause fan as well I frayed the lower part of that as well as my IDE ribbon for my hard drives. Now lemme tell ya.....doing a DMA 66 ribbon isn't easy....but it can be done.

Well now my case looks like it's full of some strange grey worms or a type of exotic packing material, however my case temps actually dropped 4 degrees f and my CPU is down 2 f.

If you're grasping at every degree of coolness....you may give this a shot.

I did however expose a wire or 2 not being careful and grabbed another ribbon so I'd get it right.....just take your time.

 

[Allan Nielsen]

Yeah, rounding your IDE cables is a good idea, if air flow is important to you! To avoid exposing some of the wires, just use the razor blade or knive so much, so you can do the rest of the splitting with your fingers... You can also buy rounded cables, they are probably better, but also more expensive! 8)

 

[dgk]

Is there some reason that I can't just use some small ties to round the cables without cutting them? Hmm, I guess they won't bend very well that way. But that still might help somewhat. Or, maybe slit every 5th one or so. That could be an ok compromise.

 

[Jon]

You can fold them in a W shape then zip-tie them. Can't remember who hit me with the idea, but it came from this forum. Regards to him.

Works just as well that way as I chose to take his advice.

 

[ReNeG@dE]

yeah there are people that fold the cables into W's and tape or tie wrap them, or you can cut every 5 or so and then stack them and tape them, or some people twist them after stacking them.

 

[markedmundb]

I folder my IDEs and floppy cable in thirds, then folded them in half again. A bit of duct tape, et voila, folded cables.

I could only get my SCSI in three, but i put the soundcard lead in the middle before duct taping it up.

All work a treat still!

 

[Mr B]

I folded all the cables in my box a while ago. If memory serves, the idea came from a post by surlyjoe.

I folded them into a "W" and then held the folds in place with electrical tape, with the tape wraps spaced about an inch and a half or so apart.

I'v e got four of these cables in my rig, (2 ide, 1 floppy, and a 50 pin SCSI) and while I didn't have any way of measuring case temps when I did this, it HAS to be a LOT cooler with the greatly improved airflow.

I took and extra step while they were out (as I was very green when I did this) and dummy-proofed the connections. I took a red sharpie (magic marker) and marked which end of each ide socket got the red wire. Sometimes its hard to see the "1" printed on the mb, and the red mark is easier to see assembled.

Hey, I'm prone to blond moments on occaison........=)

I do have provision for case temp monitoring now, and the temp doesn't go very far above ambiant room temp. This is one of those "free" tricks that REALLY works!

Mr B