Using ide drives on a dell dimension e520

kaisersose77

I ordered a dell e520 today which as far as i know has no ide connections. I have two ide drives which i use in external cases ( samsung SH-D162C and pioneer 11d). And i want to put these in this pc. Do i need something like this:
http://cgi.ebay.ie/I-Ultra-ATA-133-PCI-to-IDE-HDD-Raid-Controller-Scheda_W0QQitemZ280054698090QQihZ018QQcategoryZ41994QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

If anyone has any links to what i would need it would be great. The cheaper the better!

I also want to get a hdtv satellite pci card down the line like this:
http://www.dvbshop.net/product_info.php/info/p238_Technotrend-S2-3200-HDTV-S2---Remote---Budget-CI.html

Looking at the manual below on page 68, it seems to have 2 pci slots, 1 pci expressx1 and 1 pci expressx16.

And the e520 has this video card:
Video card ATI Radeon X1300 Pro 256MB DVI/VGA output with 1xS-Video Output

I assume the video card uses one of the pci express slots? so I should have free slots for the satellite card and ata pci controller?


Manual for the e520;
http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dimE520/en/OM_en/NH730A01.pdf

If anyone can confirm these questions for me it would be great! as I havent touched the inside of a pc in a long while

BopNiblets

Whoa, it should have IDE connections, it hasn't been fazed out at all yet, or someone forgot to tell me!
I'm sure Dell wouldn't buy the latest mobos without IDE anyway even if it were so!
I hope it isn't or it will start to make me feel old.

kaisersose77

saw it mentioned in another forum and see no mention of ide in manual ( hopefully im blind and someone can tell me otherwise!)

duridian

I don't think there are any IDE connectors on the motherboard of the E520 at all. Judging by that manual you linked, by the layout it is a BTX board of some type.
A bit of googling
makes me think they are trying to phase out IDE in this form factor. Apparently it is something for which Intel has been pushing with their own recent board designs, and since that board really is just an Intel board with a different BIOS inside your Dell.... well you can see why it has no IDE.
Although for what you wish to, it is no doubt a pain in the a, in general this is probably a positive thing for computers in general as SATA cables and connectors are much tidier.
Anyway you have inside the E520 a 16x PCI-E gfx slot, a 1x PCI-E slot and 2 regular (old) PCI slots so the motherboard isn't the biggest hurdle as you can easily get a PCI ATA card.
The biggest potential problems of which I'd be wary and which you should consider/examine before spending a penny:
1. If you want to put 2 hard drives in along with the original you have only 2 hard drive holders/3.5" bays at the bottom front of your case (see the PDF manual page 86). There is a 5.25" bay free beneath the DVD drive but to use this you would need a 5.25 to 3.5 adaptor kit. Also the IDEs would need to be close together (master slave connectors are only centimetres apart on most cables) so they would need to go into the 3.5 bays down low, while the original SATA drive would have to move up to the adapted 5.25 bay. This may introduce a further need for a longer SATA cable as the original cable may not reach this bay.
2. ...And this may be the killer depending on the connectors of your PSU. given the design of your system your powersupply may have multiple SATA power connectors and not enough/any standard molex power plugs. Or you may be lucky. I honestly don't know and I can't determine from the manual, you'll just have to have a look inside your e520 and see.

It seems like an awful lot of changing to me, it would be a lot easier to just continue using the IDE drives in their external housings, but I hope something I said is of help to you.

kaizersoze

I can confirm there are NO IDE connections on the E520. Both HD and DVDRW are SATA. Oddly enough there is a floppy drive connection.

kaizersoze

duridian, there is a second 3.5" internal HD bay with holder included along side the occupied one but there is only a SATA power connection going to it. A molex adapter would have to be got for that. There is also only 2 5.5" bays and one is occupied.
I'm not sure about how many molex connections are on the psu but there are a couple. I have another one here that I didn't open yet so I'll have a look tomorrow.

kaisersose77

theres one normal power supply connector it seems

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dimE520/en/SM_EN/techov.htm#wp1060548

so hopefully if i can connect burner to that and a pci card it will work, is there such thing as ide to sata power adapters? so i could connect another ide drive to sata power connector + pci card

ps: may as well ask here, would the e6300 be powerful enough to view satellite hdtv with a better graphics card ( think all the cards atm are software based)

duridian

An alternative approach would be to get a pair of IDE to SATA converters(not cheap though) and just use the SATA connectors already on your motherboard.
This is the cheapest one I could find but the problem is you need so many plugs that it almost becomes unviable as the adapters themselves need a floppy type power connector as well. Note the floppy (Berg or P7 as Dell call it) power plug on the back and the empty P7 connector on the first adapter I linked.
On the other thing you mentioned, I would think your machine would be well capable of decoding HDTV satellite tv without any need to change the gfx card. Core 2 Duo chips are very decent processors, even the basic ones, and I think it is still more the cpu that decodes the satellite tv rather than the gfx card. I think all the gfx does is take the decoded image and overlays it, but I cannot swear to the certainty of this (I haven't played about with tv or sat cards in a few years) so maybe one of the others who is more up on the new tv cards can say for sure.

P.S Isn't it hilarious how the IDE ports are being phased out but the floppy connector lives on.

kaisersose77

I forgot i had a sata controller pci card that i got ages ago but never had to use. I cant check the item page on ebay anymore and couldnt find the same on on ebay, but it looks basically like this:

http://cgi.ebay.ie/2-Port-SATA-1-IDE-PCI-PC-Card-VIA-VT6421A-Chip-Cable_W0QQitemZ130053744744QQihZ003QQcategoryZ90715QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

except the external sata port isnt there ( its to the left of the ide port) and it has the VIA-VT6421L chip.

would this be what im looking for?

duridian

Provided that the PCI card which you already have has an IDE connector (as the one you linked does) then yes that should do the trick. All you would need then is something to split the one molex, like this so that you could power the 2 IDE hard drives. (Also you would of course need a suitable IDE data cable but you probably have one of those laying around anyway.)
If the PCI card is SATA only then I can't see any point in using it as you already have 4 SATA ports on your motherboard.
One thing I am wondering about is what you intend doing with the original SATA hard drive in your Dell. Since the IDE drives will need to be near each other in the cages at the bottom, are you removing the SATA drive or are you relocating it to the spare 5.24" bay?

kaisersose77

by sata drive do you me the dvd drive or the hard drive? im taking the sata dvd drive out for sure anyways. I'll see what the story is when i oped it up whether i can fit 2 ide drives in. If i get the 2 in, it'll be a bonus but aslong as i get the burner in i dont mind.
So a molex splitter and ide ribbon that supports 2 drives is needed, hopefully thats it.


http://cgi.ebay.ie/40-Way-IDE-Ribbon-Cable-Lead-70CM-SENT-TODAY_W0QQitemZ270059515921QQihZ017QQcategoryZ41994QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

would i need 40 way or 80 way? dont think theres any unused ide cables around in the house.

sorry for all the questions

duridian

The SATA drive I meant was the original SATA harddrive. There appear to be two hard drive spaces at the lower front of the case (the original SATA hard drive is currently occupying one of these). So as I see it if you want to fit both of the IDE hard drives and since they must be close together (because the connectors on the IDE cable are close together) these 2 hard drive spaces at the lower front are the only suitable location for the IDE drives.
Now if both the IDE drives are installed there, that means you must remove the Dell's original SATA hard drive (as you can't fit 3 hard drives into 2 spaces). This leaves you with the job of finding an alternative position for the SATA hard drive. There are only 2 other possible places that I can see a 3rd hard drive fitting inside that case.
1. Below the DVD drive there should be another DVD-sized space with just a blanking plate at the front. This space is normally used for a second DVD drive, but it is possible to get a reduction bracket so that it holds a smaller item like a hard drive. DVD drives are 5.25 inches and hard drives are 3.5 inches, hence the need of a reduction kit.
2. It seems like there is an external 3.5 inch bay just below the DVD bays intended for a floppy drive or media reader. There probably is either a floppy drive or media reader installed there already, so this space is probably not usable, but it is worth checking nonetheless.

Go for an 80 way IDE cable, I think you are safer getting 80, especially as you want to use 2 IDE drives.