AaronS wrote on 2024-04-08, 04:47:

I hope this isn't some annoying bug in the bios but at this point it looks like it probably is. Also the adapter is connected directly to the IDE header/port on the MB, so its not the 40 vs 80 wire thing.

The same adapter works at "full speed" on a Thinkpad T42.

The 40 vs 80 wire detection problem is more electrical than physical. Soldering a wire between pins 30 (GND) and 34 (PDIAG#) will fool the system to always assume the connection is 80-wire thus allow you to set higher UDMA levels.

Some BIOS offers workarounds for handling 40 vs 80 wire detection (Host, Device or Both). For only a single disk, the workarounds may be helpful, but the results may be unpredictable with multiple disks as well as with optical drives.

EDIT: Can't see the image you posted... for some reasons imgur isn't loading correctly on my end...

PS: This post has some useful info about this.

I see the image...

But the fact that it offers ... very very old... single-word and multi-word DMA modes, and tops out at UDMA2, makes me think the system's bios just cannot handle it...

But OP says it correctly shows UDMA5 for a spinny disk. Curious.

I'd guess you are right that this is an 80-wire cable detection mishap.

wierd_w wrote on 2024-04-08, 06:36:

I see the image... […]
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I see the image...

But the fact that it offers ... very very old... single-word and multi-word DMA modes, and tops out at UDMA2, makes me think the system's bios just cannot handle it...

But OP says it correctly shows UDMA5 for a spinny disk. Curious.

I'd guess you are right that this is an 80-wire cable detection mishap.

Was able to see the image on another system... This is AMI BIOS (likely Core8). It indeed provides options for SWDMA/MWDMA even with newer chipsets.

Again, the issue is definitely with the adapter used. The PDIAG# pin is not grounded, thus the system thinks the disk is not connected via 80-wire and limited it to UDMA2.

For the 40 vs 80 wire issue, AMI BIOS does not explicitly tell you about this, but Award BIOS does. The only indicator you can check on an AMI BIOS is to see whether it reports UDMA2 or the maximum UDMA level depending on the disk or chipset.

Yes that checks out in Intel Application Accelerator, its seeing it as 40 not 80:

And you can see here compared with the 60GB HDD (only in the bios because I wiped the drive):

That's annoying, I have no soldering iron / experience but if that's my only option then I'll have to give it a try. I assume every adapter is going to be like this on this motherboard, they'll all be wired up the same? Because like I said it does actually run at UDMA5 on my thinkpad.

AaronS wrote on 2024-04-08, 21:51:

Yes that checks out in Intel Application Accelerator, its seeing it as 40 not 80: […]
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Yes that checks out in Intel Application Accelerator, its seeing it as 40 not 80:

And you can see here compared with the 60GB HDD (only in the bios because I wiped the drive):

That's annoying, I have no soldering iron / experience but if that's my only option then I'll have to give it a try. I assume every adapter is going to be like this on this motherboard, they'll all be wired up the same? Because like I said it does actually run at UDMA5 on my thinkpad.

Does your board's BIOS offer the "ATAPI 80-Pin Cable Detection" option? If it does, try fiddling it. There's a possibility one of the option will enable your adapter to use high UDMA speeds but the options does have side effects like causing other already working drives (such as optical) to be limited to UDMA2. As such, there's probably no perfect option that will make all your connected drives work.

It's possible your Thinkpad uses a different approach to detect whether it's 40 or 80 wire, similar to that BIOS option.

On the other hand, soldering a wire to manually ground the PDIAG# mainly works around this issue when "ATAPI 80-Pin Cable Detection" option is set to "Host" which is the default option and behavior.

Unfortunately no, the bios is very limited, I actually spent a good few hours tracking down the latest update, and the only thing it offered was the ability to turn off Intel Hyper Threading on the Pentium 4 it has. I'm not sure if theres any hidden menus or whatnot but I don't think that there is.

I also did try removing the optical drive as you can see in Intel Application Accelerator, so that the HDD is the only drive connected. The optical drive is connected to a smaller connector, I dunno if I can get a cable of some kind and try plugging it into that, maybe that one has better speeds.

Also tried a mSata adapter, same thing, UDMA-2, I guess all these adapters are going to give the same result.

I think soldering a wire is my only option since it cant be done through software. At least if I mess up its only the adapter that'll get ruined.

Sorry if this is a repeat question, but I didn't see it answered earlier. Have you tried you using a different 80 conductor cable?

It's an "m.2 sata"-> IDE adapter.

My guess is that it is 'IDE female'at the connector, and goes straight onto the motherboard.

No ide ribbon.

wierd_w wrote on 2024-04-09, 12:21:

It's an "m.2 sata"-> IDE adapter.
My guess is that it is 'IDE female'at the connector, and goes straight onto the motherboard.
No ide ribbon.

OK, if the OP isn't using an 80 conductor cable, then it's clearly an issue caused by the lack of an 80 conductor cable.

The OP could either ground pin 34 on the sata bridge or the OP could buy a cross over cable to use with an 80 pin cable.

40 pin crossover cable:

It's a laptop 44 pin though, unless those also exist?

I didn't see the 44 pin part of the first post, sorry--

Here's the goal--

I've done mods for CF's and 40 pin DOMS before.

Intel Application Accelerator lets you set the mode, double click on the items in the parameters column. If it only allows you to set modes for UDMA2 and lower you can force the mode via regedit under the correct key (I did this on Win98 years ago to force a drive to UDMA 2 from PIO mode).
To find the key change the mode to a lower mode first, the search the registry, it requires a reboot. When you find the key you can change it to UDMA 5. You could probably change key for the cable type in the registry to 80 conductor too.

douglar wrote on 2024-04-09, 16:27:

I didn't see the 44 pin part of the first post, sorry-- […]
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I didn't see the 44 pin part of the first post, sorry--

Here's the goal--

ide44pinout.gif

I've done mods for CF's and 40 pin DOMS before.
CF UDMA5 Mod.jpg
DOM Udma5 Mod.jpg

Actually I modded a SATA to IDE44 adapter like this before and it indeed does the trick. I also have some IDE40 DOMs that also have this "limited to UDMA2" issue, but I haven't tried as I don't know how to open the DOM cases without damaging them (so I can reassemble back)...

I'm not sure how the original 40/80 wire problem got its name, but with the adapters available today, this problem appears entirely electrical: Ground the pin in question and everything will just work without major issues.

LSS10999 wrote on 2024-04-10, 01:13:

Actually I modded a SATA to IDE44 adapter like this before and it indeed does the trick. I also have some IDE40 DOMs that also have this "limited to UDMA2" issue, but I haven't tried as I don't know how to open the DOM cases without damaging them (so I can reassemble back)...

I'm not sure how the original 40/80 wire problem got its name, but with the adapters available today, this problem appears entirely electrical: Ground the pin in question and everything will just work without major issues.

Some of the doms have latches you can lift to get them apart and others will snap apart when pried with a slim shim, but some I’ve had to get out the glue to put them back together sometimes when it doesnt work out.

Riikcakirds wrote on 2024-04-09, 19:36:

Intel Application Accelerator lets you set the mode, double click on the items in the parameters column. If it only allows you to set modes for UDMA2 and lower you can force the mode via regedit under the correct key (I did this on Win98 years ago to force a drive to UDMA 2 from PIO mode).
To find the key change the mode to a lower mode first, the search the registry, it requires a reboot. When you find the key you can change it to UDMA 5. You could probably change key for the cable type in the registry to 80 conductor too.

I got it to show as UDMA-5 but its purely cosmetic, probably because it still thinks its the 40 conductor thing, I looked through my registry for a good while but pretty sure that's not in there since you can't set it between 40 and 80 as far as I can tell.

Apparently it can be easily done in Linux with "libata.force=80c"
https://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,26182.0.html

But for Windows I might have to make the modification.

EDIT: Also checked AMIBCP, there's no hidden options, the bios actually is that limited 🤣

There's also mention of UDMA6!

Search for a key called MasterDeviceTimingMode in the registry (dword). If it is there the values are:
0x10010 UDMA Mode 5 (ATA100).
0x8010 UDMA Mode 4 (ATA66).
0x2010 UDMA Mode 2 (ATA33).
0x0410 Multi-Word DMA Mode 2 и PIO 4.

Unfortunately not, the way I changed it like the above image (which gets ignored) was this line:
"PrimaryMasterMode"=dword:00000ff5

by default its set to ffffff (highest, no limit etc.).

What would that be under maybe I can just add it?

douglar wrote on 2024-04-09, 16:27:

I didn't see the 44 pin part of the first post, sorry--

Here's the goal--

The attachment ide44pinout.gif is no longer available

Hi, I finally got around to messing with this again, and although my solder skills aren't great, I did this a couple of times and still only getting UMDA2, its definitely making contact on both:
https://imgur.com/a/IiOCov9

This is 26AWG, which I think is too thick but it should still work?

EDIT: Actually, I don't think this is the problem afterall and it is something to do with the bios, I downloaded a DOS program called "Hdat2", in there I was able to change the adapter/drive to UDMA6, and in ATTO it got around 85MB/s read (the adapter is capable of UDMA6 but I think the Intel Chipset/southbridge is ATA-100 because they never officially supported ATA-133, but anyway, its running at UDMA5 now). The problem is I can't permanently set this because it tells me its in "Frozen state" or something, so if I reboot, it will go back to UDMA2, the only way currently is to set it in DOS then exit to Windows. What a bummer.

I bought another adapter, this one has the Marvell 88SA8052, the same chip used on the well received Startech 40pin equivalent (which I own for my Xbox but didn't find any way to hook that up to a 44pin interface, most results are to get it the other way (44pin HDD to 40pin interface)). Anyway, it arrived today, I formatted and hooked up an old 240GB Crucial BX200 SSD that I have lying around. Plugged it in and once again, AMI Bios: UDMA2 limit:

Out of curiosity I went ahead with the HDAT2 DOS application and manually switched the transfer mode to UDMA5 (this is the SSDs maximum transfer mode and not the adapter despite being SATA because I tested this on another system and it gives the same UDMA5 limit, but since this laptop has an intel chipset that's as good as we can get anyway). But yeah we are able to get over 90MB/s which is excellent but the write speeds are still capped at UMDA2:
https://youtu.be/yvGIDjjjxTI

The adapter is a bit tall as well so it won't fit most laptops, including this one, I had to keep the bottom panel off. I don't really want to try the grounding pin on this I'd rather get my money back. I think the only way to get an SSD on here is to get those expensive Transcend ones because none of these adapters are working.