Print

[A8dr1an]

Hi!

My Xbox is currently in a modder's shop getting its "special" treatment done. I've been doing some research within the mod scene lately and found out that an upgraded ATA-133 cable offers faster access rates with the hard drive and is therefore better than the stock ATA-1 cable.
That sounded very reasonable to me, however, when I told this to the people who are modding my xbox, they replied saying that they know of others who did this and got no noticeable improvements and furthermore that the ATA-133 cable causes the hard drive to heat up intensely more than the stock cable.
Is this true?
They told me that I could install one myself if I wanted to but they would not bother with it or recommend it. And, yes, I am getting a new 120 GB HD put in.

Is anyone out there who has done this with good results without frying their box?
Is this worth doing?  

Thanks in advance!
 <

[Pizza Pizz]

yup they are right - waste of time

an easy example is a pc with all the super duper 16x dvd writer, massive memory, ultra quick h/d etc.....

now if you set the ide to udma/dma enabled in device manager it will run at nutter speeds.....

however if you set it to PIO mode - udma disabled then instead of burning a dvd in say 5 mins you will burn a full dvd in just under 1 hour coz it isn't running with "direct memory access" enabled

the xbox can't run with dma enabled so it won't make any real difference with a standard 40 pin ide lead or a super duper udma ide cable

loads of peeps have done tests and any differences were tiny nano-seconds

so yes ya modding peeps are quite correct in what they are saying - if you still don't understand then set ya xp pc to pio mode and see how long a disc takes to burn <

[ferrari_rulz_02]

thats right. the xbox is just a shit-spec pc, so a new cable wont make a shit off difference.

btw, what is the diff between the cables? its all just wire isnt it? <

[Pizza Pizz]

think they have 80 wires in the cable itself and must be fitted correct way around

Blue ide cable end must go into mobo - the old 40 pin cables have black connectors throughout and can go either way round but not the udma ide leads.

Think it's to do with being able to write as well as read at same time through the ide device/cable when fitted and properly enabled on the operating system

that is about my limit on techy ide interface leads - I plug it in, it works that is all I need to know rather than get a detailed breakdown from google n such like

on ya pc all ya need to know is

if it takes you 8 mins or more to burn a cd at max
or
if it takes around 45 minutes upwards to do a full dvd
then ya running in POI mode and not dma fully enabled

the xbox should be able to do it easily but god knows how ya turn the sodding thing on
heck I got dma enabled and running sweet on old pentium 1 / socket 7 pc's - even the really old non-mmx pc's with win98se <

[A8dr1an]

Really???  So ALL of you are saying No!

I would've went with it but further digging brought up this site.  It has some information on the differences between the two cables and also check out the Loading Times section.
Overall not a HUGE increase in performance (as one would expect from a cable only upgrade) but an increase none the less.

I also found a place to order the cable from and all 18 reviews speak of some type of increase.

As for the claimed heating up problems, I couldn't find anything.  Was just hoping on running into someone here that's done this to verify with.  

I'm also getting the lighted fan-upgrade for my box.  Not sure if any better cooling will be achieved from this but I'm doing it anyway to be on the safe side and to add more lights.

I think for the 8 bucks that this cable costs it's worth the try.  We'll see...   <

[bikehorn]

i did it to my Xbox, not a huge percieved difference, but the cable i used sure gets in the way less when i'm reassembling the xbox. it's like...a flat cable that has been wrapped with mesh so that it's round. <

[Pizza Pizz]

Well this simon must either be a real guru or what I think he based his tests on is standard HD & ide cable against larger/faster H/D with the new udma cable

funny when you look at more detail results posted here:

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?sho...88&hl=ide+cable

some of the peeps there know a heck lot more than I ever would know and they say very very little difference in the results

Halo uses a lot of h/d buffering and the WD 8gb shown is probably the worse of all 3 h/d types fitted to the xbox - then the h/d is changed to 7,200rpm drive with much faster access times

the xbox dvd rom is limited to a max speed of about 4x or 5x so it won't reach double figures of 10x no matter what cable you put in there

even the shopp that is doing the upgrade for you is saying it ain't worth it but would of thought they would of said -

"yeah deffo worth it but it will cost ya another 20 notes"

so they can make more money fitting more stuff etc.....

it sure seems to me that simon's tests were done on the stock standard h/d and cable and then with new cable & faster h/d - but that don't mean the cable improved the times

but then my m8 upgraded his 1.6 ltr engine to a 4.0 ltr V8 engine and swears it was the new spark plugs that made the real difference <

[Pizza Pizz]

cheap ide cable

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/in...duct_uid=102606 <

[twistedsymphony]

I've done the upgrade several times, when tested I've found that when loading games from the HDD I can get up to a 30% decrease in loading times, with most games loading about 20%-25% faster. Really this is only a few seconds faster but well worth the few bucks for the upgrade IMO.

Like other said it shouldn't increase loading times from the DVD at all (unless you're using a modded non-Xbox drive) and you'd need an ATA100 HDD to get the full benefit of the faster cable. Also I've NEVER heard of any heat problems with this mod.

The best breakdown of what this mod works and what you can expect for improvements can be found here: http://www.xboxrepairguide.com/newsdesk_in.../newsdesk_id/28

I've also wrote a folding guide here:
http://www.hardmods.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=83

 

I have yet to see an in-depth article proving that there is no performance gain, if anyone knows of one I'd love to read it. Unless I see actual test results or a good scientific breakdown otherwise I'd brush off the forum nay-sayers as spouting off hear-say. <

[646]

I'm wondering how many ppl saying the an ATA 100/133 cable makes no difference have done the mod.

With my out of case mod I had to go with a longer ATA 133 cable, and it made a very noticeable difference when using Avalaunch and loading from the HD. <

[Tobb555]

i saw a performance difference when i ripped games and in loading times. granted it wasnt alot but a peformance difference none the less. <

[A8dr1an]

Already ordered my new ATA166 cable.

twistedsymphony,
hope this was a good choise?

bikehorn,
you didn't notice any heat problems with the new cable either?

Hmhh... those mad modders must've been on something good or too lazy then.  I offered to pay them.  No biggie, I'll just do it myself then!  B)

And, yes, I knew that there wouldn't be an inprovement using the stock DVD-Rom but I'll be using the 120 HD to load the games mostly anyway.

Thank you all for the feedback!!!   <

[TeeTylerToe]

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?sho...88&hl=ide+cable
that comparison is with a 120GB 7,200 drive with 2MB cache, I don't know how the results are different with the 8GB, and 10 GB, but all I can say, is everywhere I've looked, they are.

also, high-end SCSI cables come with teflon, and I've heard that that's a good thing for cables to have... interesting to see what you get with 40 conduction twisted pair, 80 conductor, 80 conductor twisted pair, 80 conductor teflon, 80 conductor teflon twisted pair.  I've got an abundance of 40 conductor legit xbox wires, if I ever get my thomson back from the dead, I'll try twisting the 40 pin, see if that matters if I have the patience. <

[Pizza Pizz]

QUOTE(A8dr1an @ Feb 4 2005, 11:40 PM)

Hmhh... those mad modders must've been on something good or too lazy then.  I offered to pay them.  No biggie, I'll just do it myself then!  B)

Are you gonna be ok fitting a ide cable then ?

You asked a question I replied with my OWN findings and also some previous tests done before on here

I will try the setup yet again as a good sugestion or hint was the bit about avalaunch transfering - this shows an average transfer rate as it copies stuff and so that should show a difference on dvd 2 h/d or even xbox2xbox on 2 xbox's with udma leads in but that could also be down to the nic limit

but no matter what this is one of them debates that will always have a difference of opinion from various peeps - but I will have another go n see through avalaunch any differences <

[A8dr1an]

Pizza Pizz,

Yea, I'll be ok.  I'll see if I can follow twistedsymphony's folding tutorial or, like someone else mentioned, just fold it the same way I find the original to be folded.

Thanks for your feedback!

 
Cheers! <