PCI - modem slot for SATA controller card?

replacing my hard drive on a 3 year old HP media center - thinking of
upgrading the HD to a SATA drive - since it is IDE , I was told will
need to install a SATA controller card in an open PCI slot - of which I
have none left. my question is, can the modem slot be freed up, modem
card removed and replaced with the SATA control card? will it
function and do its thing in this particular slot? any advise would be
appreciated!
rob

 

If you are not using the modem, and it is a PCI slot, then by all means pull
it. A SATA controller will work fine in any PCI slot.

 

Urban myths or not.

"Dont use the PCI slot next to the AGP slot as they share resources."

An even older one.

"Put your VLB sound card in the slot farthest from the processor,
usually the last slot on the motherboard."

 

said in @h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com:

Sure, as long as it's a PCI slot. Then again, if you are using a machine
old enough to have to use an add on SATA card, you're going to a lot of
expense to get a performance gain you really aren't going to notice.

Jerry

 

Jerry - I was wondering that myself - (if I would notice the difference
and would it be worth
the trouble of adding the SATA to it) - it never was that speedy to
begin with. thanks again.

 

anyone else have any opinions conerning Jerrys thoughts about it the
increase in speed being relatelively unnoticeable vs the trouble and
expense of upgrading to a SATA drive?
thanks

 

said in

My opinion would be buy a bigger/better PATA drive and use the money you
would've spent on the SATA setup on more RAM. I am sure you would see a
better performance improvement via that route.

Jerry

 

Well, that's only true in that all the VLB motherboards I ever saw had the
VLB slots farthest from the processor. Why? Dunno. Probably because the long
cards interfered with the layout of other components on the board. Dunno
though, there /might/ have been a reason for that...

I don't recall ever using any VLB sound cards though. The motherboards I
used had two VLB slots: one got a video card, and the other was the drive
controller (often a multifunction card - ports & drives).

 

Sure. If you're doing this because you think it'll run faster, don't bother.
If you need more storage and you've already used up the other IDE
connections, then SATA is fine. There are also add-on IDE cards, but SATA is
easier (sometimes adding other IDE cards causes resource allocation
difficulties).

SATA doesn't run substantially faster than IDE. Now, a RAID array might run
a little faster...but that requires multiple drives, and it probably still
isn't enough faster to justify the cost.

 

thanks Toolman - seems there is a good sales job going on with how much
faster SATA is and to switch over.. the base processor is not as slow
as I first thought.. it is a P4 2.4GHZ-
think I will just replace it with a standard IDE hard drive and call it
a day - probably asking for trouble, given my limited computer skills
adding the control card on... thanks again.

 

Jerry - thanks for your thoughts - I upgraded the RAM after first
buying it - it has 1GB and I don't use that heavily exc for streaming
and photoshop occasionaly. can a PATA drive take the place of the
stock IDE drive that came with the machine?? as you can tell,
skills/knowledge are limited.. rob

 

Be sure whatever new drive you get is at least 7200 RPM with 8MB cache.
THAT'S where the performance comes from. See this article:
http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,115629,00.asp

 

IDE is PATA (parallel ATA). You can either add a second drive for more
storage and leave the OS on the original (if you have an open IDE channel)
or "clone" the existing installation to the new drive, or install the OS
fresh to the new drive.

Oh - here's a kicker for you: I have a two year old HP desktop that came
from the factory with an IDE drive. I needed more space, and found a good
deal on a SATA. So I bought it AND a PCI card. When it got here, I opened
the case and found that the HP motherboard had SATA connectors already on it
<g>! However, the power supply didn't have SATA power leads - I did find an
adapter for that.

So you might want to open the case and look over the motherboard before you
decide. This site shows what the SATA connectors look like:
http://www.directron.com/patasata.html

 

I do believe I have a few here that have an IDE channel on board. ie it
was for the CDrom drive.

 

I do believe I have a few here that have an IDE channel on board. ie it
was for the CDrom drive.

 

Well, the old VLB motherboards I had were made back when the IDE controllers
weren't built-in. So I've got a few VLB cards still in the scrap bin that
have IDE.

 

Probably the same as "don't use the PCI slot next to the AGP as the DAMN
THING WON'T FIT now that graphic cards have huge fans (and even if they do
just fit they block off the airflow and cause the graphic card to overheat)


[Incidentally, some motherboard do share an INT with the AGP and one of the
PCI slots, but its designed to work that way.]

Mainly because of the case design - long slots only fit at the bottom (on a
tower case) as the hard/floppy drive cage was in the way of the slots above.

I had (probably still have; along with loads of other junk) a mobo with 3 VL
slots.. no idea why though as I only remember VLB bsing used for video and
IO.. but I suppose you could have 2 IO cards if you really wanted to.

 

Yeah - that's all I remember. I don't recall any sound cards on VLB. And it
was before Windows 9x and the ability for two monitors. Hmmm...why three
slots?