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July 3rd, 2026 03:23
Area 51 R2 motherboard swap to retail board turn on all LED instantly when power on pc
so this issue has been nagging me for quite some time. I was only able to turn on 8 out of 9 LEDs without the alienhead, and if the alienhead led is turned on, the side panel LEDs are turned off.
I finally found a much simpler and elegant solution to turn on all 9 LEDs instantly when pc is powered on. and you can have this without installing AWCC in your Windows, provided that an AlienFx LED color theme was pre-written in the FIO in the past. So if someone or you had previously set up the LED color, and the motherboard is swapped, new motherboard does not need to have AWCC to have all the LEDs turn on at the previous theme color.
This solution does not involve connecting FIO to the retail motherboard usb 9 pins header. It connects both FIO front panel and usb to 9 pin front panel header of retail board.
previously, I had connected FIO to mobo via front panel 9 pin cable and USB 2.0 cable and installed AWCC (after editing board SMBCFG).
the LEDs are all set to the same color, green in this case.
then a clean install of Windows 10 on ssd, no AWCC. FIO remembers the theme of all 9 LED should be GREEN.
do this simple connection:
wire FIO front panel power switch pin 6,8 to retail board front panel pwr +,-
do not wire any other pin of FIO front panel
wire FIO USB2.0 pin1,2 (5V+) and pin 7,8 (Gnd) to retail motherboard front panel HDD LED/PWR LED +,-
I used three sets of dupont jumper wires (male to female) which comes in a cable set
this works perfectly
here is the wiring scheme for FIO USB cable.
| 1=HDD LED+ | n/c | n/c | 7=HDD LED- | |
| 2=PWR LED+ | n/c | n/c | 8=PWR LED- |
redxps630
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July 3rd, 2026 22:00
Blown up of the wiring scheme.
front panel 9 pin of retail board
connect USB #1 and #2 to the front panel #1 and #2
connect front panel cable #3 to retail board FP #3.
(edited)
redxps630
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July 3rd, 2026 03:27
so how did I come up with this solution.
I know the FIO USB when connected to retail board USB 9 pin header 5V and Gnd pins turns on alienhead LED instantly. It is directly turned on by 5v sb.
but that scheme kills side panel LED
I googled that HDD and PWR LED are also 5V.
but I am not sure if those can replace the 5V in USB2.0 9 pin to turn on alienhead.
my experiment shows they do. and they do not turn off side panel LED. beautiful. Alien puzzle solved for now.
(edited)
redxps630
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July 3rd, 2026 03:55
I know this is not for everyone
it does not let you control led
all LEDs turn on at a preselected color
the alien head led is off when pc is shut down
no breathing alien head led when pc is off…
but for a subset of users who just want a simple theme color of all LEDs to turn on instantly after press power button it offers a simple reliable solution
personally I detest breathing alien head led when pc is off: it was like an evil eye of the “one Ring” that watches you.
After pressing power button, alien head led turns on 1st followed by waterfall led then two side panels in rapid succession
works beautifully for me
this reproduces the Dell factory startup led setting “The factory "Startup Routine" is that on power-up, the Alienhead > Panel > SIDEs light quickly in a timed sequence”
(edited)
redxps630
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July 3rd, 2026 04:00
? why does this work but FIO-USB to retail board usb shuts off side panel led
i am not EE major but doing intuitive EE experiment
The 9-pin USB 2.0 headers on the bottom of the retail board frequently carry active 5V standby power (even when the PC is off)
I think if FIO usb is wired to retail board usb it gets a hard 5V sb on the 9 pin usb 1,2 pins which input into FIO black box and shuts down led to side panels (unless you pop open then close side panels to reactivate led)
whereas the 5V on retail board hdd and pwr led are soft 5V pulled down to 3V when wired to FIO usb pins which do not switch off side panel led. my layman hand waving explanation
(edited)
redxps630
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July 5th, 2026 19:32
I now tested the scheme on a ASUS legacy motherboard which has 20-8 pin front panel. Using a split POWER LED jumper wire, again proving the scheme works to turn on all 9 LED.
(edited)