# SATA->IDE, Graphics card, please give help and advice



## D'hll'k (Oct 6, 2008)

G'day. I've got two questions for those more technologically minded than I am.

1. My current DVD writer (HP Pavilion 740b) is well and truly on its way out. Autorun has been very iffy, usually not working, and it has an extremely hard time reading any DVD's; when I installed Spore I had to sit through at least three dozen cyclic redundancy errors. Despite a good deep clean or three, it still plays up. I read that it means that a new drive is required soon, so I went and got myself an internal DVD burner (ASUS DRW-2014L1T) to put in my spare optical drive slot, on a SATA bus (is bus the right word? Please forgive my ignorance ^^; ).

Big problem. I didn't want to open the computer to see what I had in there until I had everything (I got some RAM at the same time). I opened the machine and to my horror, I discovered that the old drive is on an IDE bus and have no spare SATA plugs in the machine, despite the hard drive being on SATA.

Question: Is there some sort of SATA-to-IDE converter I can get for the internal drive? I've tended to see some sort of converters but only for external, or IDE-to-SATA ones, and I don't want to make another mistake with this issue thanks to my own ignorance.

2. I'm looking to upgrade my graphics card, but as the drive has taught me, I don't want to go "that looks good" and grab it without getting advice about it first. Currently, I'm on an nVidia GeForce 6600, and according to the specs sticker if it's any use, has "3D PCI-Express Graphics 256MB DDR, with TV-out port and DVI capabilities".

I'm interested in getting an upgrade to that and, if it all possible on the same card, to have some TV-_in_ capability as well. Given my specs below, what would be recommended?

General specs:
Computer Model: Compaq Presario SR1660AN (i.e. a desktop)
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3200+, 2.0GHz (more specifically: x86 Family 15 Model 47 Stepping 2 AuthenticAMD ~1989 Mhz)
Memory: 2GB (4/4 slots: 256MB, 256MB, 512MB, 1GB) PC3200 DDR
Monitor Model: Benq FP71V (may be FP71V+), 17" LCD, allows up to 1280x1024 32-bit colour (where I usually have it).

Thanks for any help and advice.


----------



## Koda (Oct 6, 2008)

No. There is no IDE to SATA cable adapter. They talk two completely different languages and you'd need specialized circuitry to make something like that work. Now I'm sure *something* exists, but I wouldn't recommend it. 

What you want to get is something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Description=sata+controller&x=0&y=0

I have one of these in my rig http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816124007 (I don't use it any more, but when I did it was great. Also kept one of my more valuable PCI slots free)

Most cards within a cheap price range are only going to have 2 SATA headers, but make sure the card is SATA 2!

==

As for your graphics card, you have to consider what interface is it running? That will really limit what you can get. 
PCI
AGP 
or 
PCI Express 

ATI has the All-In-Wonder card which does TV-in, but I dont have any direct expereince with that. I prefer nVidia based cards anyway.


----------



## net-cat (Oct 6, 2008)

Yes, SATA-to-IDE adapters exist. They work well enough. (Although you have to make sure you get SATA-drive to UATA-host and not the other way around. Read the specs.)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812156011
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812339152

A PCI or PCI-Express SATA controller will also work if you have the slot for it. It should be noted that some of them can't boot from optical drives, and most require drivers that are not included with Windows XP.

As for video cards, I am not a gamer. (And I'm happy with my Radeon HD 2600. ) From the people I've talked to who are, it seems like ATI is on top of the game at the moment with their 4800 series. And... well... Google "geforce bad asic" for reasons why you should avoid GeForce 8400 and 8600.


----------



## Bladekitty (Oct 6, 2008)

Well, no comment on the SATA-IDE bit, but since your card is a PCI-E card, I'd go for an AMD HD4850 or a geforce 9800GT/GTX (I use the 9800GTX) if you have a PSU running at least 500-600 watts. The HD4850 performs better to my knowledge but the 9800 runs cooler and uses a tad less power, up to you.

I'd suggest you upgrade your mobo, CPU and RAM as well if possible though - a 4850 or 9800 will be bottlenecked pretty quickly by an AMD 3200+ and DDR-400. If you can't upgrade those two and don't plan on any heavy SM4 (directX10, ala Vista) gaming then I would heartily suggest a Geforce 9600GT, since it's very good for mid-end solutions and can easily handle most DX9 games.

If you really want to splash out, upgrade your whole PC and grab a HD4870 (invest in some extra cooling though - they run HOT) or a GTX280 if you really want to spend.

Hope this helped


----------

