PC cables / flying leads / etc.

[NiceCupOfTea]

Recently bought a second hand "bitsa" PC from ebay, all works fine, no dramas.

Unfortunately it's missing a few of the internal cables - not sure whether they would have come with the case or mobo originally.

The case has 2 USB sockets and a couple of audio jacks on the front, so I guess those cables should have come with the case (it's a clear perspex Akasa one, looks great, but a PITA to mount anything, partly because the entire case has to be dismantled to get at the drive bays, and partly because the mobo is mounted to high and so no drives fit in the top 3 or 4 bays

Also missing are cables from the mobo onboard usb2/firewire headers. I'm keen to sort this (along with a panel with sockets on it for the front) as a separate i/o card takes up a precious PCI slot.

So, any ideas where I can find these cables? I've drawn a blank so far...

[Plotloss]

Have they been snipped off the front sockets? Usually they are soldered onto the sockets

[NiceCupOfTea]

no, the sockets in the case also have a multi-pin header on them...

[Plotloss]

Hmmm, sounds fairly proprietary to me.

eBay would probably be the best bet.

[NiceCupOfTea]

Trouble is, no way of knowing if the pinout is the same

Hopefully something like this would do the job...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Usb-2-0-and-Fir

Just need a cable to get to the front USB ports now...

Edited by NiceCupOfTea on Thursday 9th November 20:22

Edited by NiceCupOfTea on Thursday 9th November 20:22

[ThePassenger]

NiceCupOfTea said:

Trouble is, no way of knowing if the pinout is the same

Reasonably standard layout on USB headers from what I've seen, 4 pins 1 blank, 5 pins. sat in the same block. That sound right?

Make sure the mobo has headers for the front panel on it, as if it board is stopping the top three 5.25" drive bays from being used then something is very 'odd'.

[NiceCupOfTea]

That sounds about right.

I think it's just a really bad design of case - it's one of these:



Very nice and all, but the mobo is too far from the edge of the case and so the drives in the top bays won't fit in!

[leorest]

NiceCupOfTea said:

..

These "Nips" are dammed good at miniaturisation

[Graham@Reading]

leorest said:

NiceCupOfTea said:

..

These "Nips" are dammed good at miniaturisation

NiceCupOfTea said:

it's a clear perspex Akasa one

[nicecupoftea]

it worked when I checked the link last night!!

www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?art=84

Another review here which mentions just how crap it is!

www.planetamd64.com/lofiversion/index.php/t4940.html

I don't think Akasa can have even tried building a PC in it, nothing fits in properly!

[ThePassenger]

NiceCupOfTea said:

That sounds about right.

Sounds like you need something like this:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Front-Panel-USB

And then steal the cables from it to feed your own front USB ports. Alternativley have a poke around maplins and the likley suspects, alternativley make your own Seriously, so long as you always go pin1 - pin1 (or hell same wired to same pin) it should work... the front ports will have no USB circitry in them and are usually just dumb repeaters.

Edit: Jebus that case sucks! It's all arse about face! Opticals at the TOP! I SAID! OPTICALS AT THE TOP! As yeah, tower sits on floor, right pain in the rear to swap disks and whilst it's open it's happily sucking in your carpet.

At least the picture shows the fatal flaw of all perspex cases. They look really naff with the steel rear shroud in place, should ship a generic perspex one fitted.

Edited by ThePassenger on Saturday 11th November 01:13

[NiceCupOfTea]

Cheers, that looks just the job!

Yes, the case does look quite nice, but is utterly impractical! To remove / mount any drives you have to completely dismantle the case (including all cards and removing m/board

I can't understand how it got released on that basis!!

[mattley]

MMmmm clear cases and a little bit of work



sorry not much help, but any excuse tp heads up Gnomes fantastic work of tech art.

[ThePassenger]

mattley said:

MMmmm clear cases and a little bit of work



sorry not much help, but any excuse tp heads up Gnomes fantastic work of tech art.

Amazing what you can do with the pipe that feeds a shower head isn't it?

[nicecupoftea]

Very nice, wrong shape for Orac though!

Do they do a flashy blackboard called Zen or a manic depressive rotating blender called Slave!?

[JonRB]

There are several types of USB motherboard header pinouts. One is two 4-pin-in-a-row connectors, another is 4x2 and yet another is 5x2

Maplin stock all of them and they're both around a fiver each.

eg:




EDIT: Sorry, I think you're talking about a front panel after all, aren't you? In that case that is probably proprietory.

Edited by JonRB on Tuesday 14th November 09:19

[NiceCupOfTea]

Thanks Jon, that was useful anyway! Have just bought a few odds and ends off ebay so hopefully can cobble together both front/rear panels as both are useful...