What exactly is Cable Select?

[Alejandro]

Hi, i've been wondering for some time now what is the CS jumper option in the IDE devices and how does it work. Been searching for a while and always find things related to master/slave which i already know quite well.

[Rick]

In Short CS is the drives are assigned master or slave according to their position on the cable

[john5211]

Rick is correct, in the CS setting the drives are automatically assigned to be the master or the slave based on their position on the cable (so it stands for Cable Select).

In order to implement it, you have to have special IDE cables that support the CS option.

John

[pentachris]

Adding a little to the perfectly good explanations offered so far, Paleo Pete said a few days ago...


Cable Select is flaky at best, and a nightmare at worst...



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Some mistakes are too much fun to make only once.

[iisbob]

Actually you don't need a specific cable to support CS; i know certain vendors ( like Dell ) that ship all their systems with the drive(s) set to CS.

Personally i don't like, nor use the option simply because some drives ( WD is one vendor i know off the top of my head ) firmware has a problem recognizing and initializing CS settings correctly.

The idea was a nice one, simply have the drive determine it's status by it's position on the cable-no more jumpers to worry about; but as i stated above-and as has been mentioned elsewhere above-it's actual functioning is " flaky " at best, downright annoying at worst.

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif

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iisbob

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.-Mark Twain

[john5211]

Well, yes, Dell ships all their drives in CS. But they also ship them with CS IDE cables. My first computer was a Dell, and I still have the CD IDE cables laying around.

Also, if you check the literature that comes with hard drives (at least the hard drives I have bought), it mentions that you need to use special cables to use CS (at least on older drives, it is apparently not a big issue on newer drives).

For more info, have a look at what the PC Guide has to say:
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/confCS-c.html

John

PS - If you've been using CS without CS cables, I expect that it has been exceptionally flakey http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif


[This message has been edited by john5211 (edited 05-31-2002).]

[mjc]

http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/faq/ata_cable_select.html
http://www.storage.ibm.com/hdd/support/rma/chkata.htm
http://users.netropolis.net/djsmith/cable.htm



There are several problems with the cable select system for IDE. The biggest one is that it is non-standard;


And more...
http://www.firmware.com/support/bios/cablesel.htm

I think this one says it best....

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/confCS-c.html


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mjc
Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

[old_kid]

Cable Select must be used if using 80 wire IDE cables

Guru Mueller, as a matter of fact, recommends using 80 wire when constructing new PC

the 80 wire has a ground wire adjacent to each cable wire - helps with noise etc

Mueller might have a point with PC speeds heading into the stratasphere - data integrity becomes an issue

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Old dogs CAN learn new tricks

[iisbob]

All the modern Dell drives i've worked on do come with 80 Wire cables, and the few older ones i worked on came standard 40 wire-and they were set to CS, so i always changed them to master-not telling the owner simply because i didn't deem it necessary to inform them of that trivility.

Even with modern UltraATA cables ( 80 wire ) i still wouldn't use it-and i have an old CS cable by the way that worked just great when i did play around with the standard-but as Charles points out-it wasn't widely adopted by the industry, so i quit fooling with it. Besides, on servers ide/CS settings are a mute point since you're gonna use SCSI.

Now, with the advent of SerialATA standards, i'm curious as to wether or not CS in a form will make a comeback. Seems to me that it would make drive attachment much more convenient if you don't have to worry about setting the drive up as master/slave, and in today's PC world-anything that makes it easier for the average consumer will make it sell faster and in greater quantities.




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iisbob

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.-Mark Twain