My poor PC...

[prince1142003]

The motherboard only has one internal IDE connector. Each IDE controller can hold a maximum of two IDE devices. Which means that if you were planning on using more than two devices, you'll need to purchase an additional IDE controller.

CD/DVD drives, as well as hard drivers are all IDE devices.

It does have 4 S-ATA connectors (with RAID support no less), so up to 4 S-ATA harddrives/dvddrives + 2 P-ATA (IDE) harddrives/dvddrives. Should be plenty.

I was just wanting to point out that he'd only be able to use a maximum of 2 IDE devices with the new setup.

Incidentally, have you ever tried to hook up a hard drive and a dvd/cd drive on the same PATA cable? They can be very temperamental, not to mention it's a pain in the ass trying to figure out how to position the hard drive so it sits snugly.

[Kimba]

My Seagate disk is connected on IDE. My DVD R/RW is also IDE. That Gigabyte motherboard (M61PM-S2 if you remember) seems to have one IDE connector. So I don't need new HD. What should I put to master and slave between HDD and DVD RW?
Anyway, what do you think about other things that I'm planning to buy (CPU, GPU, memory) ??

[vellu]

Incidentally, have you ever tried to hook up a hard drive and a dvd/cd drive on the same PATA cable? They can be very temperamental, not to mention it's a pain in the bumbum trying to figure out how to position the hard drive so it sits snugly.

I've always had it like that (that is, 4 different systems over the past 15 years or so.) and haven't had any problems of any kind regarding master/slave IDE devices. Whether they are both hdd or hdd and cd/dvd. As far as cable reaching a hdd and a dvd-drive depends a lot on your case, and the quality/length of the pata cable you are using. Also the motherboard layout might make a difference since the placement of the ide connector can be quite different between different brands. True enough, I have to use a longer than usual pata cable to reach both the hdd and the dvd-drive.

Also I never rely on the cable/motherboard to detect which device is master and which slave. I always set the jumpers accordingly.

Currenly I'm housing 2 S-ATA harddrives (RAID1, OS only) 3 IDE HDD's (2x160GB, 1x200GB) and a IDE DVDRW drive which shares its cable with the 200GB drive.

EDIT: A snip from Sandra system overview section

Physical Storage Devices
ST3160021A (ATA) : 149GB (D:)
Maxtor 6L160P0 (ATA) : 153GB (E:)
SAMSUNG SP2014N (ATA) : 186GB (F:)
NVIDIA STRIPE 68.95G (SCSI) : 69GB (C:)
LaCie BigDisk (USB) : 559GB (I:)
HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-H12L (ATAPI) : N/A (G:)

Logical Storage Devices
SOFTWARE (D:) : 149GB (55GB, 37% Free Space) (NTFS) @ ST3160021A (ATA)
DATA160 (E:) : 153GB (33GB, 22% Free Space) (NTFS) @ Maxtor 6L160P0 (ATA)
DATA200 (F:) : 186GB (57GB, 31% Free Space) (NTFS) @ SAMSUNG SP2014N (ATA)
SYSTEM (C:) : 69GB (46GB, 67% Free Space) (NTFS) @ NVIDIA STRIPE 68.95G (SCSI)
CD-ROM/DVD (G:) : N/A @ HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-H12L (ATAPI)
3.5" 1.44MB (A:) : N/A
LaCieHD (I:) : 559GB (58GB, 10% Free Space) (NTFS) @ LaCie BigDisk (USB)

[Kimba]

What do you suggest to buy? SATA HDD or SATA DVD drive?

[vellu]

What do you suggest to buy? SATA HDD or SATA DVD drive?

SATA HDD.

For a DVD-drive it really doesn't make all that much difference since the data transfer speeds of a dvd aren't that fast they would really require the extra bandwith of SATA (as opposed to P-ATA). Slimmer cable though, so better airflow through the case for extra cooling.

This will change though when HDDVD or BluRay drives start to get a foothold. Those will push much more data.

[snoopdogg879]

yeah what he said ^ ^

[Kimba]

I got my PC back from the service one week ago. Temperatures are ok (CPU 30-39 degrees Celsius), but since I defragmented my disk with Diskeeper 2008 Pro, performance reduced for an about 30% - 50%. I can see in Diskeeper that some system files are rated "low performance". Also Windows startup is twice longer than before! What can I do to return to normal?

P.S. I don't have many games or programs.

[Kimba]

Good news, I got it done. I just changed my PSU. It works now perfect