Spooky IDE cable problem

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linuxn00b2004

VIP Member
Oct 28, 2004
528
0
Missouri
Hey y'all,

How's it goin'?

I'm having some problems here...

I've begun the process of moving my Xbox into a PC case. It's been actually been pretty challenging, from drilling new motherboard mounts and extending EVERY cable (in fact, now I need to cut every little controller port wire and put extensions on those... sigh). Well, maybe not REALLY difficult, but extremely time consuming... whatever.

Now, I finally have all the important things in the case, but I'm encoutering a problem with the IDE cable. I have bought a longer dual-device, 40 pin IDE cable from Radioshack. If I plug it into only the mobo and the HDD without the DVD drive, the Xbox runs just fine (except for a stutter on bootup) and plays all the games off the HDD great. Now, if I plug the DVD drive in, the startup stutter disappears, but a new problem developes:
If I play one of my backup from the HDD that originally required the disk to play, the game becomes corrupt. DDR's graphics and sound completely go bizare. Mega Man collector series says I have a dirty disk. However, things that were not originally designed for use with the DVD drive (emulators, dashboards, other homebrew games) work fine.

Another kicker is the fact that if I use the stock cable, everything works fine and dandy.

Help! I am totally clueless... well, not totally, but I don't know what to think of the situation. Thanks!

- Greg
 
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linuxn00b2004

VIP Member
Oct 28, 2004
528
0
Missouri
Is cable select the same thing as Master? If so, that's the way it was shipped... I haven't messed with it and it has worked fine for the past few months. Unfortunately, the drive does not say on it where the copper bridge needs to go to have it at slave, master, etc. I can double check, but I think that bridge is in the right place.

Martin C... if you read this, I know you once said any 40 pin IDE cable would work fine... could you expound on that a little bit? :)

- Greg
 
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linuxn00b2004

VIP Member
Oct 28, 2004
528
0
Missouri
I know there is a lazy way out... and I'm about to take it, assuming I can find one. I'm looking for an IDE cable extension. Like, basically a ribbon cable that has a female end on one side and the male on the other, so it simply serves to extend one of the slots. I KNOW the stock cable works great (this one is giving me headaches) so, if all else fails, I can simply extend the stock one with that method, although I'd prefer to find the real solution.

- Greg
 
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Rookio

VIP Member
Feb 15, 2005
3,804
0
Sydney, Australia
Cable select is different to Master, but don't think it would affect your situation. I can confirm that the stutter usually happens when booting without the DVD plugged in (you can turn dvd off in the X3CL to get rid of it... but that's irrelevant)

Strange that it doesn't work though. Have you tried that cable in another xbox or PC. it could be a faulty cable? Other that i don't know either :)
 
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lunghd

Full Member
Mar 10, 2005
44
0
Anomie
Last edited:
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linuxn00b2004

VIP Member
Oct 28, 2004
528
0
Missouri
Hmmm... that's strange.

The problem seems to have gone away by itself... wierd. Hey, I'm not gonna complain! Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

- Greg
 
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linuxn00b2004

VIP Member
Oct 28, 2004
528
0
Missouri
And the problem returns all by itself... I guess I should have been suspicous. Let's keep those ideas rollin' guys!

- Greg
 
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