Project: HYPERCUBE² 21/03/2005 PICTURES FROM CEBIT

Hey all. I've been a viewer of these forums since "MacroBlack", but never joined to post until now. This mod is awesome so I figured, why not?

For bulk 80 Conductor IDE 66/100/133 ATA ATAPI Ribbon Cable (by the foot), try here:
http://www.mycableshop.com/sku/CZIDE66.htm

They are primarily a US and Canada based company, but they will ship to Belgium for an extra US$9.95. That's for a 10-20 business day ship. If you want it sooner it will cost more.

I agree and disagree.

It is true that few ATA-133 HD's will ever burst at anywhere near 133 mbs, and that most ide HD's have a sustained transfer rates between 19-32 mbs (within ATA-33 limits), BUT in order to be a UDMA ATA-133 certified cable the wires have to be made of a specific copper blend who's physical properties resist high frequency noise on the line and suppress resonant signal harmonics. This means that the cable can support a higher frequency signal. Higher frequency equals more bits per second, equals lower latency times, equals faster access of data. You probably won't see a difference during general OS usage, but you will during games and CAD (especially if Windows is configured to use page files).

Sorry for the lengthy first post. This mod is awesome. Good luck!

 

tnx for joining the forums. I feel honored you finally joined to say something in my project log. Seems you know a lot about this stuff.

So I got a question. The cube is gonna be used as a HTCP (or what is it called) I'm gonna use it to connect to a TV and play meedio on it (probably with Linux) So it will be playing movies, dvd's, mp3's, but also recording from tv. My question, is this ATA33 enough for all this? Or should i really go and try to fit in a U ata cable?

greetz,

Joungne

 

OT: Welcome fellow Wisconsin-ite. Where in WI are you from?

 

Either I don't understand what you're saying due to english not being my native languate, or the above is utter bullcrap (sorry )

If by 'a special copperblend' you mean they are manufactured from a special alloy, in that case its BS.

A 80 wire ATA cable is just that.. the same cable, but then with 80 wires. Every second wire is not connected (or grounded) to prevent 'overspraak' (i think the english word is 'crosstalk'). Special blends of copper or other stuff have nothing to do with it.

There are practicly no measurable differences between ATA100 and ATA133. ATA133 came to life out of marketing reasons, not because of technical reasons. However, there is a measurable difference between ATA-33 and ATA 66/100/133, that's true. Also it's true that in daly usage of your OS you probably wouldn't notice the difference.

I'd say give it a try with ATA-33, good chance you will never notice. ATA66/100/133 comes in handy when writingor reading stuff to the cache memory of the HD (in newer drivers often like 8Mb) or the so called 'burst modus'. Playing/recording divx however requires a constant datastream. There are no ATA133 drives that can reach the ATA133 bandwith on a sustained basis.

You can always go and change it later on if it doesn't suit you, but I don't think it'll ever be neccesary. If you'd experience any problems at all, it would be when recording data. Playback will never be a problem.

 

Argh, I did just write a big reply but IE crashed and I lost it but the gist of it was thus:

-don't worry about hdd speeds for media playing
-it's called an htpc or pvr
-you'll probably just want to get ata100, ata133 or s-ata if you're doing demanding tasks like editing media or gaming.

 

I saw that movie. Totally screwed. Awesome case.

 

There goes 2 hours of my life reading this, lol.

It was totally worth it though. HDD speeds dont really affect the normal OS running speeds that much. If you're really worried you could try putting the HDD's on differnt channels (not sure if that would make too much of a difference, but try it. People.) It's not really a motherboard BW issue I know. It's 3 am, I'm allowed to be a little stupid at this time .

But I was mumbleing earlier at this case. Stupendiously good work. Congratulations, you should be proud of it. It should be put in a musuem(sp?).

 

Just make sure you have plenty of RAM, that will reduce use of the paging file.

 

U Ata

Ok tnx guys for those replyes,

I think I'm gonna keep the cable for now. I spent 10 hours doing the job and I'm not up to doing it again right now. I already ordered a 90cm 80 pins cable, but that will fit in my storage nicely untill those cold winter nights

I got 1 GIG of ram for the mobo, so I guess that should do the trick for now.

Gonna try to hook up the front rheobus tonight and install some more leds (still 48 to go...)

greetz,

Joungne

 

Readed the progres on your site. GREAT WORK!!!!

 

your still using internet explorer erm seriously major worried i didn't realize anyone wants to have there pc infected with spyware? lol that was sarcasm, you should really try getting mozilla firefox, adware popup days are over with it, and your data won't be compromized ive had endless problems with ie and viruses getting into my pc via FSO (file system object) embeded things in webpages etc

 

I'm careful as to which sites I visit and I have adaware and spybot sd installed so I'm perfectly capable of keeping my computer protected from anything that I don't want.

Also, IE has a much better interface imo, and it's really only MY business whether I switch to firefox, plus I'm not shut off from the rest of the world so I do know about firefox, it's just not appealing enough for me.


//sorry for the thread-hijack jounge, i just had to clear that up.

 

Project HYPERCUBE² DAY 20

29/08/2004 DAY 20

I got this small idea...

Yesterday I when I was eating I got this (IMHO) great idea for placing a few leds. I had to test it out right away. It turned out AOK, so I'll treat you on a small update.


I had some leftover plexi (actually I ordered too much panels in case I screwed up some cutting) and I cutted out these very small pieces (they are only 8mm width)


Next a few 3mm holes to fit in some (what did you expect) ultra bright WHITE leds.


All the leds in place. Seems I still need to place a few leds....



All the leds wired up. The wiring had to be very low because the place where they have to go I only have the hight of the visible bolts.


Hmmm looks nice....


Some other plate with 3 leds...



So what are they for I hear you wondering.... Well I'll tell you right away, or even better scroll down a bit and find out for yourself.











































Well what do you think? I think I'll keep it



Thats it for this small update (I just wanted to share this little lighting thing...)
Oh, all the profiles will be filled with these plexiplates and leds an they will be also be hooked on the rheobus an maybe the heartbeat circuit i'm trying to figure out.



Greetz,

Joungne

 

Oooo, pretty.

As usual amazing work. If you don't mind I think I'll pull a few ideas out of your mod for my cube case perhaps. No copying, don't worry, just developing ideas off yours.

Great case!

 

I really dont mind. If I wouldnt want anybody stealing some of my ideas I wouldnt put it here on the forums ;-). Go ahead but dont forget to be creative. Use my ideas wisely


greetz,

 

Sorry for the delay in my response. I was up north for the weekend (no internet).

Yeah I think it will work (that is, not fail), especially if you are running Linux (it's not as needy as Windows). It will drag from time to time depending on how the media software you choose utilizes the HD and RAM buffering, but the gig of RAM you have will definitely help with that . However, I would definitely save the 80 connector cables for those cold winter days. I think you will find that it really helps when you are recording video while it is being streamed to you, or if you might be re-encoding a large video file from one format to another.

BUT, if you are planning on Linux to power this sweet box, you may run into some problems with DVD playback. About a year and a half ago was when I last looked into this, but at that time Intervideo's LINDVD was looking like it was going to never make it to the market and no one else was allowed to write a DVD player for Linux. I don't know how knowledgeable you on this subject so I'll just give you a full summery. There is sort of an international organization that controls the sale of DVD's around the world. This organization has broken the nations up into regions. Then the DVD manufacturers encoded a region algorithm onto the front end of the DVD so that only a DVD sold in that region could be played in that region. That way they could sell the same movie for US$20 in the USA and Europe while charging only US$5 in Hong Kong (because they know region 1 will pay the 20 bucks). ANYWAYS, a while back a software engineer cracked this algorithm in his spare time and wrote a fabulous open source DVD player for Linux that could play a DVD from any region. This really upset movie company accountants who immediately got a new law solidified in the states to nail this guys butt to the wall and then the media companies banded together and did an amazing job at immediately eradicating his code from every public domain on the internet. And Linux has longed for the ability to play DVD's ever since (unless things have changed in the last year).

I live in West Allis while I'm trying to get my degree in Biomedical Engineering at Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE).

OK, I agree with most of what you said. Some of this is the result of my choice in the vague word "blend". I was trying to keep it short by avoiding the following paragraph. But what the heck. I’ve already written this much, let’s double it. I did not mean "alloy". They don't use alloys in your run of the mill average US$20 cable. Think of it like speaker wire for home theatre systems. To keep the price of the end product acceptable manufacturing companies allow a certain level of dopants (contaminants) in a batch of copper. Sometimes these dopants can interfere with the quality of a high frequency electrical signal. They allow this because the purer the copper the more it costs. Now, the ATA 66, 100, and 133 classes of HD's are essentially the same technology. From the cables point of view the only real difference is the bus frequency (Hertz, oscillations per second). The hard drive manufacturers were able to "theoretically" squeeze more performance out of IDE’s horribly dated protocol (at least in part) by stepping up the bus frequency for 66 to 100 and from 100 to 133 giving them a theoretical 33 Mbs increase with each new generation (burst rate). Intel is another company that has mastered continually overclocking there current architecture to squeeze out more performance and make more money (it's cheaper than a total platform redesign). Granted, the actual performance increase between generations is a little lack luster. However, the bus speed increases did manage to reduce the average seek/read/write times of the HD's by .5 to 1.5 ms depending on the quality of drives you are comparing. That may not seem like a lot, but after a couple million I/O's it adds up to the difference between (for me at least) slightly annoyed and marginally satisfied.

SO what the crap does all of this have to do with ATA133 cables? Well, if the cable you bought says ATA133 compatible on the package it is "suppose" to be made of a higher purity copper wire to ensure a cleaner higher frequency signal. This is important because when the IDE controller detects the HD on boot, it asks what generation ATA it is and then pings it several times real fast at the different bus speeds with a short data stream. It then operates at the frequency that is the clearest (fewest I/O errors). So if you are trying to squeeze as much performance as possible out of you system, I would recommend good quality cables.

If you don't believe me, that is your right. If you want to believe me but just can't seem to except it, benchmark the two different cables yourself and decide if the difference is worth it. As for me, this is how a senior Computer Engineer at my university explained it to me and I believed him.

Sorry for the obscenely log post. I'll try to make this my last novel here. MOD on. It looks great.

 

Ah cool, I'm out in Pewaukee. My dad used to work in West Allis.

 

this so is the sweetest mod being made right now

 

Hi Joungne,

I dont normally post in the project logs but i had to in your case. This is the BEST case i have ever seen. period. Its also given you a great avatar! The attention to detail and the quality of your modding skills is second to none. I salute you!

Do you have pictures of any arcitectual models you have made? It would be interesting to see how you have used your skills elsewhere.

 

Hi Da_Rude_Baboon,

tnx for the reply. As for my architectural skills, I'm working for 5 years in an architecture office for wich I also made the website You can find the offices projects (and so also the projects I worked on, exp the concerthall in Brugge) at ___(link)___ .

I also have an own little firm that makes architectural presentations and visualisations and that one you can find over here ___(link)___ . But thats all in Dutch i'm afraid. If you want to see the projects go to "projecten" then click underneath on "zoeken op project" and then you can choose different categories (like architecture)

happy surfing

greetz,

Joungne