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front panel connections

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#1 ·
Hi all,
I have a computer here I am upgrading. The case is old ATX (early 2000's I think) but everything fits ok. But the weird part is the front panel connectors. While they are standard and fit fine, when I had the power and HD lights set up according to the MB docs they wouldn't work. Case speaker, power, and reset buttons work fine, but not the lights.

At first I thought they weren't getting a good connection. The MB socket is in a odd spot and hard to get to with the case populated, not to mention the wires keep wanting to pull it back out of the socket. I hated to pull them back out as it took a long time to get the connectors to stay in the socket in the first place. In the end I did and I double checked the polarity (the back of the connectors has a little ^ which is standard). I did it right but they still wouldn't work. At one of those "pull your hair out" moments I flipped both the HD and case light connectors and reinserted them. When I finally got them to stay in the socket, to my surprise the lights now worked! Never saw a case that didn't have the ^ labeling the positive wire.

Now comes the question: should I reverse the speaker and switch (power and reset) connectors as well? They are working and I can't see why there would be a problem, but I thought I would ask here and double check.
 
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#2 ·
You can leave the switch leads as they are, polarity doesn't matter for them.

The speaker leads can also be left if it's a 'real' speaker, if it's a buzzer type that isn't part of the case then the polarity does matter but with that old a case it's probably a real speaker.
Basically if you hear a post beep then it's working !
 
#3 ·
Whew! I figured it was ok, but I wanted to make sure. And yes it is real speaker mounted in the bottom and I do hear the the post beep.

So glad I don't have to pull those leads again, it was a real fight to get them to stay in the socket. I was VERY tempted to use glue at one point.

Thanks!
 
#4 · (Edited)
You're welcome.

Asus include a neat device for connecting those leads with their higher end motherboards called a Q Connector that makes the job really easy. You connect the leads to the Q-Connector then plug the Q-Connector into the motherboard. Great idea, should be included with all motherboards by law. ;)

http://event.asus.com/2012/mb/tco_qr/pages/SuperiorDesign/Q-Connector.html

Just noticed that Gigabyte have a very similar device called G Connector, Patent Pending !
 
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