change Xbox IDE cable and improve load times?

[rchadd]

http://www.stegen.com/product_info.php/products_id/833?osCsid=40490df7015b684f104d36995f4fe5bd

is the IDE cable used in xbox really ATA33?

is it true that simply changing the ide cable to ATA166 will improve the game load times?

i cant believe it is that simple.

why not ATA166 cable in XBOX as standard???

[HaRuMaN]

Looked at the webpage, if their data is true, it looks like it does indeed work.

[shmokes]

Please let me know if you try it.  I would have gone ahead and ordered one if I'd seen it before I ordered my modchip.  But now that I have my modchip I don't want to place an order just for that unless I know that it works (Halo 2 takes an age to load).  You have to buy them all special-like, cos the master and slave connectors on the cable have to be spaced much further apart for an xbox than the ones on a standard IDE cable.

[Dave_K.]

I accidentally broke my original xbox ide cable when doing some hotswapping, and replaced it with a generic IDE ribbon cable from Fry's...I just plugged it in in-reverse master slave order (since it was connector spacing worked that way), and it works fine.  Its shouldn't make a difference which end connector is master, just that the middle one and other one left is slave.

[shmokes]

So, did you replace it with an 80 wire cable....and if so, did you notice an improvement in load times?

[Paul Olson]

I also used a generic ribbon cable, it works fine.  I don't know if it is faster than with the stock cable.  I broke the cheap stock one when I was swapping drives. 

[Dave_K.]

LOL same as me...I ripped the pin header right out of the ribbon cable.  Was a pain to get it out of the drive afterwards.

I thought it was 40 wire not 80...whatever standard IDE cable is.  Make sure you get one with the guide (don't want to plug one end in upside down).  Anyway, it was cheap, so I don't know if it was any better than original...I didn't notice any difference in loading times (but never really looked out for it either).

[shmokes]

Well..there are kind of two standards.  If you look inside your computer you'll most likely see that the IDE cable running from your optical drives to the motherboard has much thicker wires (40 of them, to be exact) while the IDE cable running from the Hard Drives to the motherbaord has 80 thinner wires.

[Sephroth57]

you would think a company like microsoft would know that a 1$ cable might make a difference in speed. now granted they are pretty dumb sometimes, i think if a speed increase was possibly it would already be 80wire cable or it just doesnt matter

[SirPeale]

The hardware has to be set up to actually take advantage of the 80 wire cable.  If it's not, then it won't make a lick of difference either way.

[kujina]

The 80 wire cable's forty extra wires dont really do anything apart from reducing cross talk, and so they work on any ide device. But on newer hard drives the 80 wire cables are required for them to work optimally.

[Vicious]

I received mine today (order here if you live in the US/Canada) and haven't really bothered to time it in Halo 2 or Links 2004 but the gain claimed by most is usually only 2 or 3 seconds.  So if you're getting it to cut down on time significantly, I wouldn't recommend buying it then.

[SOAPboy]

I received mine today (order here if you live in the US/Canada) and haven't really bothered to time it in Halo 2 or Links 2004 but the gain claimed by most is usually only 2 or 3 seconds.

[SkateDetroit]

you would think a company like microsoft would know that a 1$ cable might make a difference in speed. now granted they are pretty dumb sometimes, i think if a speed increase was possibly it would already be 80wire cable or it just doesnt matter

I'm sure Bill didn't intend for games to be loaded off of the hard drive. Game saves are so small you'd NEVER be able to notice the difference in a virgin xbox.

As far as load times go with a new cable, negligible. You may notice some difference while FTP'ing to your box, but don't worry you're not missing out on much.

[SOAPboy]

you would think a company like microsoft would know that a 1$ cable might make a difference in speed. now granted they are pretty dumb sometimes, i think if a speed increase was possibly it would already be 80wire cable or it just doesnt matter

I'm sure Bill didn't intend for games to be loaded off of the hard drive. Game saves are so small you'd NEVER be able to notice the difference in a virgin xbox.

As far as load times go with a new cable, negligible. You may notice some difference while FTP'ing to your box, but don't worry you're not missing out on much.

not missing out on anything for ftp..

stock cable, i max out my xboxs connection..