What does BIOS message 'Secondary IDE Channel no 80 conductor cable installed' mean?
Joe Negron
Plextor PX-850a. It installed easily (same type, therefore same
connectors as the old one) and everything seems to work fine. However,
upon bootup the BIOS now displays the message quoted in the Subject
line. What's the BIOS complaining about?
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Joe Negron from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, NY, USA
Guido Hörster
> Recently my Plextor PX-708A DVD burner died. I replaced it with a
> Plextor PX-850a. It installed easily (same type, therefore same
> connectors as the old one) and everything seems to work fine. However,
> upon bootup the BIOS now displays the message quoted in the Subject
> line. What's the BIOS complaining about?
>
40-pin-IDE-cable which only supports up to UDMA-33. Your new drive can
obviously run faster at UDMA-66 or higher but requires a
80-pin-IDE-cable to do so. Note that the connectors are still the same
with 40 pins but the 80-pin-cable has additional shielding signals every
other line to improve signal quality and thus enable the higher transfer
speeds. Look at the cable which connects to your harddrive - it is most
likely of the type you need for your new Plextor.
Joe Negron
Thanks. However, my hard drive is connected with a relatively thin red
cable.
Does connecting the DVD burner with such a cable mean that the burner
will perform better, or that the burner will have a lower drag on
overall system performance?
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Guido Hörster
>
> Thanks. However, my hard drive is connected with a relatively thin red
> cable.
>
probably connected via SATA-Interface. This is a totally different type
of connection.
> Does connecting the DVD burner with such a cable mean that the burner
> will perform better, or that the burner will have a lower drag on
> overall system performance?
>
burner is the limit and not the transfer rate of the connection type.
Maybe your board's BIOS offers an option to disable this message.
Joe Negron
>Joe Negron wrote:
>>
>>Thanks. However, my hard drive is connected with a relatively thin red
>>cable.
>>
>Look at the connector - if they are different, then your Harddrive is
>probably connected via SATA-Interface. This is a totally different type
>of connection.
Yes, it's SATA-150.
>>Does connecting the DVD burner with such a cable mean that the burner
>>will perform better, or that the burner will have a lower drag on
>>overall system performance?
>>
>My guess is that there will be no great difference in performance as the
>burner is the limit and not the transfer rate of the connection type.
Even for a 22X burner (the old one was considerably slower)?
>Maybe your board's BIOS offers an option to disable this message.
No such option, but it doesn't matter - the message itself is of no
concern now that I know it doesn't indicate something is wrong.
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Ilya Zakharevich
>> Does connecting the DVD burner with such a cable mean that the burner
>> will perform better, or that the burner will have a lower drag on
>> overall system performance?
> My guess is that there will be no great difference in performance as the
> burner is the limit and not the transfer rate of the connection type.
> Maybe your board's BIOS offers an option to disable this message.
Once, with 40-pin connection, I could not get more than about 3x DVD
burning; upgrade to 80pin removed this limitation.
Hope this helps,
Ilya