Motherboard woes

Just ordered a motherboard bundle for a guy from cclonline. I didn't have a decent sized picture, but he doesn't need anything great. So, it arrives and i unpack the bundle, ready to attach it to the casing...

... but it only had 1 IDE motherboard socket? (Myfault for not checking i guess, but i though every mobo these days had 2 IDE sockets)

Is this normal of mobo's these days? I find it a bit odd. I've bought rock bottom, cheapy mobo's before and they have had 2 IDE sockets on them. Not much good if you have a dvd drive a cd drive and a HD, or 2 HD's and a DVD drive.

Are SATA HD's really that popular?

Ive got a 780i board with
1 IDE
4 SATA
plus connections for addiction SATAs

Think they will fade away once the Cd/Dvd drive push the connection change to

Because the SATA connections are so small it allows for cleaner installations of hardware and improves air flow by dramatic amounts thus allowing larger number of divices to be connected while running cool

Yep SATAs are the rage and being pushed by companies as this format is now developing faster than the Old IDE
Since the Larger the Plater the Longer it takes to read from a Point so all overheads need to be streamlined

All motherboards I've bought in the last couple of years are pushing SATA over IDE.

Pretty much all new motherboards focus on SATA.

The newer Dell's don't have IDE at all anymore.

The majority of new motherboards seem to have either one IDE, or none at all. A few still come with two, but it's definitely not something to take for granted anymore.
(SATA is more convenient, though -- no messing with daisy-chained cables, no messing with jumpers, no finding out whether or not a specific harddrive needs to be configured as 'master' or 'single drive' (some systems won't boot with just a single master configured)

Yep. 1 IDE and 6 SATA on the motherboard here.

If you do need more ide then I guess you could buy a PCI IDE RAID card, plus there are also IDE<->SATA adaptors available too. Another option would be a 3.5" USB external HDD casing. These items will free up the mobo IDE port so he can plug his CD/DVD's into it. You would need to check about OS compatibility for hardware like this if he's running Vista. Also, depending on BIOS options, the PCI RAID or external USB solutions may not be bootable.

Another option is that there are SATA CD/DVD's drives available as well, and then he can plug his IDE HDD's into the mobo IDE port.

Adds to the price, but if you really must have more IDE connectors...

I'd try to persuade him to splash out and buy a SATA drive though. It's not expensive for a 100GB drive these days, plus it will be faster than even the IDE RAID.

Downside of those (other than the extra size) is that you're limited to ~25MB/sec throughput, while a typical internal SATA harddrive can do ~75MB/sec

4 Sata 1 IDE here. I thought IDE was legacy now.

If it has to be IDE you should be able to buy a PCI based IDE controller card.

And if you do: Keep in mind that your motherboard may or may not support booting from such a plugin adapter.

Also: When I last looked for these (my old computer had 4 IDE HD's and 2 IDE optical drives) I found that the IDE RAID adapters were cheaper than 'plain' IDE controllers... since the majority of them also allow you to run JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Drives) and don't require RAID, it might be a more economical choice. Do note that not all of the IDE adapters support ATAPI devices. (=optical drives), some do HD's only.

Thanks guys.



Yeah i'm afraid it does. I bought these parts for a guy who knows even less than me, and needs his computer asap. So, sending it back isn't really an option, and neither is telling him to buy SATA HD's.

Kind of strange though. If i was to buy a new motherboard, i'd probably need to throw out my old 80 GB HD as it's an IDE one. Thank god for the PCI adapters :o)

Thanks for the suggestion, i think that's the best way and cheapest way to go :o)

Theres plenty of motherboards with NO ide.
Mine has 1.

SATA ports are weak and pathetic. I'd imagine there's been a lot of drive failures due to loose cables.

Is SATA any quicker?

EDIT: A board without ANY IDE? How do you plug cd/dvd drives in? I thought that was the only connection they used.

It can be, but more importantly, the speed doesn't slow down when you have two devices on the same controller. (since it's serial instead of parallel).
in ye olden days you had to make sure your main HDD wasn't on the same channel as the CDROM drive because it would slow down your hard drive.

*EDIT*


You get a SATA one.

S-ATAII is specified for up to 300mb/s, where as ATA is < 100mb/s

And you can buy S-ATA CD - DVD drives ... I only have SATA in my desktop. Don't see the point in wasting money for hardware using an outdated standard thats going to vanish anyway.

Well, it would be wasting money buying a new HD and CD drive, when you can get a card :o) So i see it as saving money.

I'll know better next time! :D

Bear in mind that you may encounter issues if you try to plug an optical drive into an IDE RAID card (should you choose to go down that route). Plug the optical drive(s) into the motherboard socket and the HD into the RAID/IDE adapter card.

What issues would i get from that? I mean, plugging an optical drive into the card.

It may not work with a dvd drive plugged into the card. RAID cards are designed to have hard drives plugged into them. Download and check the manual of the card before you buy.

I couldnt get vista to install with my IDE raid card installed :(

There the de facto now on mobos. You can get IDE2SATA converters ( http://www.maplin.co.uk/SATA_TO_IDE_CONVERT.search )
Only problem here is getting it all to fit in a HD bay.


Yes your right ... your imagining it.
I have been using SATA ever since they came out and have never had any problems.
All computer components are fragile and should be handled with care. I've know people who've cracked mobo's just putting in PATA cables and knocking off bits of installed PCI/Graphics cards when installing additional cards because they weren't holding them by edges or damaging memory modules by not taking them out when removing HD's in certain types of chassis/case.

Not to mention round the wrong way when the IDE cable people cant be bothered to key the connector. Hunting for the pin1 end can be a pain, especially if its out of sight.

I personally think Sata is great, much easier when servicing PCs.