How Do I Know If The IDE Ribbons I'm Using Are Transferring ATA-100 Speed?

I just bought a new mother board to upgrade my old computer. It supports hard drive speeds of up to ATA-100. The PATA hard drives I'm using right now also run at a max of ATA-100 speed as per the manufacturer's specifications. But as I can see in my Everest software, the hard drive's are currently running at ATA-66 speed. Which leads me to believe that I'm either:

a) using the wrong IDE ribbon cables [eg. slower speed version]

b) have the right IDE ribbon cables and my current motherboard limited to the maximum ability of ATA-66 speeds which is why I see those results in Everest

I'd like to know if there's a way for me to identify the ribbon cables I'm using right now in my current machine, as being ATA-100 speed versions or not! That way I'll know if I need to buy new ribbon cables when I attach these hard drives to my new motherboard, or keep the one's I currently use.




Thanks :major

 

I believe (someone else can correct me if i'm wrong) that the ultra dma cables have 80 smaller wires, rather than 40. also make sure the settings are correct in the bios. did the new motherboard come with ide cables?

 

Yes, the Ultra cable does have 80 wires but one can't see the physical difference, at least I couldn't. I remember using Nero Speed Drive(now called DiskSpeed) to see the performance difference between the two. Everest has always been accurate for me but it never hurts to double check. Anyways, these cables are some $3 each so it's not a big deal.

 

No, the new motherboard did not come with any new cables. It was used, and purchased off ebay.

How do you use Nero Speed Drive software to tell? I have it already, so can you please guide me with that?

Thanks

 

Chances are, the cables are the old 40pin variety. Many of your local independent PC shops will be nice and give you a free 80pin cable. If you need two, they might charge you $3-$5. If the hard drive is a 7200rpm and less than 5 years old, it is probably ATA133 (at least ATA100). If you compare a 40pin cable to an 80pin cable, you'll be able to tell the difference side-by-side. If you post the make/model of your new motherboard, we can probably advise if the motherboard may be causing the issue.

The online manual for Nero Drive Speed can be found at this direct link. It's in Adobe PDF format and can be saved to your hard drive for easy viewing w/o having to be online....
:-D

 

The motherboard I currently use is a "HP VECTRA VL400" model. The motherboard I will be using with all of my current pc components switched over to it will be an "ASUS TUV4X" motherboard.

Thanks for your constant help!

 

Hmm, I thought 80-pin cables were for ATA 33 and higher Wikipedia

I think XP's Device Manager gives Ultra DMA 4 for 66, 5 for 100 and Ultra DMA 6 for 133.

XP (perhaps also Vista and later?) will reduce transfer speeds if it detects a certain number of errors from a disk (or a CD/DVD rom). Once it has reduced the transfer rate, it's not easy to make XP reset it to max speeds again. Are there any disk errors reported in the system logs in Management?

 

As far as I know no... I mean I have scanned all of my hard drives with XP's Check Disk tool and found a couple of small errors that were automatically corrected. Nothing drastic though, small stuff like fixing indexes to keep file sizes up to date and stuff. My SMART status scans using Western Digital Diagnostic Tools has always been fine for all of them. & yes your correct they are actively working in ULTRA DMA 4 mode (ATA-66)