Unsolved
11 Legend
•
16.2K Posts
•
82.5K Points
0
61
July 12th, 2026 23:34
Area 51 R2 motherboard swap #4 front panel cable mystery
it is known the Dell oem front panel cable is too short for ATX motherboard swap.
options of homemade long enough FP cable including puncturing a hole in 9 pin internal USB 2.0 cable or 2.54 mm pitch 2x5 pin IDC cable, although IDC cable connector has a bulky foot print and cannot physically mate with some motherboard FP pins in a rectangular socket, like a mini-castle with wall to safeguard the FP pins inside.
No Events found!
redxps630
11 Legend
•
16.2K Posts
•
82.5K Points
0
July 12th, 2026 23:44
I used a Dell oem audio cable and punctured a hole so it can fit the front panel pins.
the motherboard swapped in R2 case has legacy ASUS 20-8 pin layout. I need to orient the cable so that FIO pin 6,8 are plugged in the board Pwr sw +/- pins. On the motherboard side, only 2 pins are plugged in. On the FIO side, 8 pins are plugged in (HDD - n/c).
The mystery is that. this connection works with R2 AWCC.
but if I use a simpler 2.54 mm pitch 2 pin only cable to connect FIO pin 6,8 with ASUS FP Pwr sw +/-, AWCC does not work b/c FIO board is not detected, b/c FIO is not detected as a USB device.
This finding suggests the audio cable connector 9 pin connection to FIO FP 9 pin (with one pin HDD LED- n/c) is doing something to help motherboard detect the board, even though only 2 out of 9 pin are electrically connected to board. strange, isn't it?
while the current audio cable substitute for a long enough FP cable works, the FIO is a black box that behaves counter intuitively.
(edited)