 Number 267 - August 2005 |
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| Cables: The Missing Part of Upgrades | |
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by Timothy Everingham, TUGNET, Granada Hills CA, | |
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When you are in the process of building a new computer or upgrading one; you may just think you have to only buy the component parts such as CPU, motherboard, case, power supply, RAM, video card, hard drives, and CD/DVD player or writer. However, what a lot of people don't think about are the cables to connect all of these together. Many people have gone to the computer store or swap meet and when they get to install a part they realize they don't have the cable or adapter needed and have to take the time to go out again to buy it. Thinking through your computer purchase cabling needs before you leave home, or at least before you leave the computer store, can save you the hassle and time of making that additional trip. If you have to order from a catalog and have it shipped to you days may be before you can complete your installation.
These days motherboards do come with a lot of cables, but are they the right ones for your application and are there enough of them? We are in a transition from the EIDE interface for hard drives and CD/DVD players and writers to the SATA interface. With EIDE cables you have up to two drives on a parallel cable that are flat ribbons or twisted into a round cable; but SATA drives are connected via thin serial cables that have one for each drive connecting directly to the drive controller, usually on the motherboard. If you have a floppy drive you will need a cable for that too. So far I have only been talking about data cables, not power cables. SATA drives also have different power cables than EIDE drives. Also CD/DVD players and writers some times have different power connectors than EIDE hard drives, sometimes using a floppy drive type power connector. Also, if you have a mid to high level 3D video card you may have to plug in one or two power connectors because they need more power than what they can get from the motherboard, and the power connectors for PCI Express video cards are different than those for AGP video cards (There are two different type of connectors for AGP cards too). Then there are the different connectors for case fans. Also a lot of newer motherboards are connected to the power supply via a 24 pin connector instead of the more traditional 20 pin. Some 24 pin motherboards can have you just plug in a 20 pin plug, but others do not recommend that. Then of course we get into the audio cables for your CD/DVD player/writer to plug into the sound card or sound circuit on the motherboard. You also may need USB or Firewire (IEEE 1394) cables for within the case to get them from the motherboard to the sockets or external ones to get them out to your devices. So how do you find out what cables you need? If possible you can look at the parts themselves or the box they come in. There is the visual of the connectors and information on the part or box about what the part needs. Be wary however on just taking it from the visuals. Some cables that have the same type of connectors at their ends are rated differently on speed or other factors. An example of this is EIDE data cables. Typical rating for these cables is 33, 66, 100, or 133 MHz. In with EIDE components hooked together it is the slowest component that sets the data the data speed on the EIDE bus. If the EIDE drive controller cannot communicate with the drives at one speed because the cable is not capable of handling data transmission at that speed without errors, the controller will drop the speed of the entire EIDE data bus. As such having EIDE components rated at 133 MHz and connecting them together with a cable only rated at 66 MHz greatly increases the risk of the drives data transfer operating below |
133 MHz. You also get into issues of it may be the right type of cable; but has the wrong connectors at the ends, which you can run into with Firewire (IEEE 1394), USB, and other cables. Other sources for this information are the manufacturer's website or those of online retailers that sell the part. You may have to look at the parts manual to find information about its power connectors. However, how do you get to see the manual before buying the part? Many manufacturers have the manual to their parts on their website in PDF format so you can just download the manual. This is sometimes the only way you can easily find out whether a motherboard needs a 20 or 24 pin power connector or it can take either. From these same sources you can also find out what cables come with a part.
You should look at the power supply you are going to use or if you can't examine it, probably because you have not bought it yet, find out the specifications. There are different ATX standards for power supplies, with ATX 12V 2.01 being the latest (For additional information read More Performance: The New Power Supply Standard, ATX12V 2.0 at Tom's Hardware Guide One thing you also should consider is how your cables will affect airflow in your computer. May people use round EIDE cables rather than flat because of this issue. The good use of cable ties can help with this problem. Especially if you live far away from a computer store, are using online retailers, or going to a computer swap meet that you would have to pay again to reenter it is especially important to be sure you have all the cables you need for your computer upgrade or building project. Researching what you need ahead of time can prevent wasting time and money and increasing your frustration. May you have the cables you need, and not buy cables you can't use. Timothy Everingham is CEO of Timothy Everingham Consulting in Azusa, California. He is also Chair of the Los Angeles Chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH. Timothy is also part-time press in the areas of high technology, computers, video, audio, and entertainment/ media and has had articles published throughout the United States and Canada plus Australia, England, & Japan. Further information can be found at There is no restriction against any non-profit group using this article as long as it is kept in context with proper credit given the author. The Editorial Committee of the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG), an international organization of which this group is a member, brings this article to you. |
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Number 267 - August 2005
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