I
learned how to do this a few
months back at
HardOCP, a site which I would be
ashamed to read
regularly.
If you've ever
worked with the
internals of
computer hardware,
specifically,
drives, you know that
ribbon cables are a big
mess to
deal with. All
wide, and so little
space for them. Well, there is a
solution.
WARNING: This will not work with ATA66 cables, because their conductors are really thin and break easily.
Use your
thumbnails to
tear the
conductors. This takes
practice, but after
awhile you'll get good at it. Put one
thumb on one of the
grooves between conductors, and put your other
thumb in the same
groove, on the other side of the
cable.
Push both thumbs into
each other until the conductors
split appart.
You should
tear every 5
conductors until you have a bunch of 5-conductor
strips.
Stack these 5-conductor strips on top of each other and
bind them
together with
electrical tape.
The
benefits of this? Your
cables are less
wide and
easier to
manage, and your
case temperature lowers because of better
air flow (those wide cables really
block a lot of
air).