How Do I Find Out The Highest Speed My IDE Ribbon Cables Can Provide?

I have two ribbon cables in my system... One has something like 80 lines on it which I assume would be called 80 pin ribbon if that's the correct term. That's the one that connects my hard drives to my motherboard. I than have a ribbion with fewer lines on it... Umm around 40 lines I'd say and well that connects my disc drives to my motherboard. My question is how can I find out the highest speed these ribbons are capable of providing for my hardware? Such as ATA 66, 100, etc. Is there a way to tell by looking at them or something?


Thanks

 

more than likely, you should be able to find out by looking at your motherboard specs...

 

Hi Super,

Don't know about speed but that 80 Wire cable still only has 40 pins. The 80 wires allow a ground wire (shield) between each data line to prevent crosstalk and does allow greater speeds. Flat cable was designed with that in mind but, somewhere along the way they added many new signals and ran out of ground leads. Original idea was Odd numbered wires = Shields and Even numbered wires = Signals. Someone here will have a handle on speed. Guys?

Jim