I have been disassembling and assembling my computer since 1999, I know by heart how to put them blind, but if you ask me to draw it and pin point exactly where each of them go, I can't do it. But there was no better feeling than listening to the beep and watching the windows start up image.
If I started upgrading my PC since 1999 few pieces at a time and then with the loose pieces I put together another PC, it's the same PC or a different one? Are both my PC or neither of them is?
Now you're making me realize that the little speakers on mobos have been long gone for well over 20 years.
I remember using the "PC Speaker" driver to play audio on win 3.1 before we could afford a soundcard. It'd lock the computer up until the sound finished playing, but it was worth it.
I've been building PCs since 1989, and it's only in the past few years that the pin locations have been standardized. The one in the picture is definitely a layout I've never seen before, with the HDD LED kind of separate from the rest of the pins.
I remember using a ball point pen to figure out what was what. Connected pins until it turned on and then worked out the rest from there. These kids dont remember setting master and slave drive jumpers either I bet.
Shh, you will scare the youngling with your old lexicon. They renamed default git branches from "master" to "main", cause "master" is somehow relevant to slavery...
And the pictured motherboard is way more clearly marked than most I've worked with.
Other posters also seem to be forgetting that most people had to connect these in tight spaces (and often upside down) because the motherboard was already installed, not sitting out on a table.
I have a extension adapter that came with my MSI mobo last year however I didn't use it as this was for a mATX build and I wanted to use shorter cabling due to limited cable management space in my smaller case.
The Asus Q connector is very appealing to me as its just the adapter without the extension. Looks like Asus stopped making it so I guess I gotta look at third parties.
All manufacturers should start including something like this, ESPECIALLY on high end motherboards. Like those pins are fucking tiny and often in pretty cramped areas of the case/mobo, if I'm spending $200-300 on a mobo surely they can spend 1-2 cents to make installation easier
ASUS doesn't do this anymore because they've adopted the "standard" layout that all major motherboard manufacturers apparently use now. Modern motherboards only support 4 headers: Power button, Reset Button, Power LED, and HDD LED. That's it. And they all use the same 5 rows of pins, with only the 4 first rows used and the 5th row being an unwired pin and a blank space that are used as the locator so that if your new case has a single connector you can't plug it in upside down.
This was a great idea. At least you can plug the case into this while holding it in the light and up close so you can see and control wtf you’re doing.
True. But some motherboard manufacturers provide a little plastic carrier with clips where you can clip all your front panel connectors in that little carrier, and then plug the carrier as one big thing on the board.
First time I saw this on an ASRock board. I emailed them immediately and said keep doing this and you will have a loyal customer. Then the boards went to shit......sigh.
When were they not shit? I've used them for like 10 years because they're always dirt cheap with no features and awful heat management, but I've always been building relatively weak PCs
Okay, I was a bit harsh when I said they "suck". I mean, they are very barebones.
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u/basicKitsch4790k/1080ti | i3-10100/48tb | 5700x3D/4070 | M920q | n100...1d ago
haha my $50 msi z97 PC-Mate mobo has been running a devils canyon OC for over a decade now. started out with that ridiculous anniversary edition pentium G3258 @4.2ghz (and the first day without the cpu fan plugged in doin compression tests) and has been pushing my 4790k ever since.
i've always just laughed at this ultra budget board just cruising and cruising
I had an asrock G41m-vs3 board I used with an ebayed q6600 that was OCed to around 3.2ghz run 24/7 near 100% for well over a decade. I still can't believe the VRMs in that el cheapo board handled that setup. Retired that system a couple years ago because it used around 300 watts from the wall under load. Any number of newer cheap used machines gave vastly better performance for under 100 watts soo...
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u/basicKitsch4790k/1080ti | i3-10100/48tb | 5700x3D/4070 | M920q | n100...19h ago
hell yeah! i have ZERO idea what i ran my e8400 on until that pentium replaced it but it was most likely budget as hell and worked perfectly 24/7 (it was doubling as my first media server when not gaming) until it got donated somewhere. in all honesty i've been building a la carte since my first athlon in the early 00s and have never had a core component go bad. and outside of one actual failure of an infamous seagate ST3000DM001, the only component to fail was one sata port on that PC-Mate a couple years ago which forced me to swap in an old am4/1700x board i had around and thankfully the 5700x3d had just launched for a really nice upgrade to the 4790k
I’ve bought four asrock motherboards. We are down to one that still works except for sound. Sound didn’t work ever due to design flaw on the model.
I had one board take out the Intel 10700 and ram with it. A second b550 board would hang with a third party nic. The onboard nic failed. Another was a steel legend WiFi ax x570. It would kill ram. Went through four kits! The final one that works is another x570 steel legend WiFi ax. That one only has the sound card ground problem. Both boards had static ok the audio output regardless of headphones plugged in. Different pcs. Different cases. Different cpu and psu. Same static. Even different os.
I’ve had good luck with asrock gpu and psu but not the motherboards
I have a really well featured ASRock Z390 Taichi that is still kicking and gave me zero issues over the years. It's my only ASRock product so it's a pretty small sample size for comparison. I generally stick with mid-range+ MSI mobos as they have been rock solid for me over the years.
I have only had two biostar motherboards and I didn’t like them. One was doa and the other worked but it was touchy.
I am 2 for 3 on msi and both gigabyte boards had issues. One had a bios with uefi bugs and the other had a broken usb header on the motherboard when I got it. I’m using that board right now on my gaming pc. (265k box) the msi b650 in my Linux box is great.
It's been longer than 10 years since I owned on. There was a point where they were just reliable. Like spilled soda while running reliable. Yes, some boards where feature deficient but for most people I was building PCs for the features didn't matter.
They had absurd failure rates during gen 3-4 Intel i-series chips 11-13 years ago. Every time I considered one, they had another quality issue. Gigabyte was always my choice for a durable, quality board that wasn't overpriced.
Yeah, it can totally be line dependent. Anecdotally I've found Gigabyte boards to be higher quality but with less fancy features, although that's biased to when I built my systems and what chipsets I was looking into.
They were one of the safer options when AM5 first came out and several other manufacturers were frying CPUs with excess voltage. I have zero complaints with mine
Every manufacturer had that problem, asrock especially... It was because AMD didn't prevent the board partners from making insane overclocking profiles, and they fried the chips because the CPU didn't have built in safeguards. It expected the motherboard to take care of the power limits.
I recall GamersNexus covering the issue, and they found several motherboards were overvolting even when they manually set the proper value. I thought they said ASRock was one of the only ones that actually operated at the voltage they set
I made the mistake of following reviews for the X570 Phantom Gaming X, which were glowing. Made me try it since always hearing shit things about Asrock.
I've regretted that purchase. LEDs on it burned out in a year, thermals were never as good as the reviews stated, and then a month after warranty expired 2/4 RAM slots died. I won't ever buy anything Asrock again. Only reason why I still use it is because its working and I just don't want to buy another mobo.
If you buy the cheapest H series or A series board it's the same with all of them. Though Asrock always manage to have the cheapest and most basic ones.
I build SFF and play indie games, these days the only features I need on a board are: FPIO headers, one nvme, one GPU slot, at least 1 USB 3.0 on the back, and built in wifi. So ASRock is still fine for me!
That brief period where they figured their shit out for a cycle of am4 boards and had rock solid VRM, then shortly after started melting cpus again lol
my asrock z77 extreme4 was $105 in 2012 and i used it for 8 years on an overclocked to shit 3770k at 4.7 GHz and no c-states. i sold it for more than it was new.
Are you jumping on them?
The oldest ASRock main board I bought has 12~ years of duty and works without a problem, like all the other system with an ASRock board.
The first time I encountered one was about 15 years ago with an Asus motherboard. I'm not sure who the first one was but first mention of one I remember is from a magazine article about 20 years ago, maybe more. Seems it was more of an upper range board thing but has shown up in cheaper boards over the years. Call it a perk.
This has actually been changing towards a standard layout. Some new cases have everything on one plug and also have a breakout plug if your board doesn't use the typical layout.
u/URA_CJ5900x/RX570 4GB/32GB 3600 | FX-8320/AIW x1900 256MB/8GB 18661d ago
But it greatly improves compatibility, you can slap a old ATX motherboard in a new case or a new motherboard in a old ATX case and the basic front IO would be your least concern - now compare that to standards like front panel audio and those have changed making for compatibility issues during the transition period from AC'97 to HD Audio.
Not every case has the same features, like in the photo above I can see the speaker is connected, but not every case has a built in speaker.
The best solution I've found is motherboards that come with a separate piece that you can connect the front panel connectors to, then plug into your motherboard.
This really doesn't make a ton of sense. The connector is FROM the case. If your case doesn't have a speaker, your connector just doesnt have wires coming from those pins. If the pin layout was standardized it'd be trivial for case manufacturers to just make it a single plug (and believe it or not it is starting to happen, I've seen a couple cases do it already because from my understanding newest standards are trying to standardize it). It just needs more adoption
It literally is a standard, it's in the Intel Front Panel I/O Connectivity Design Guide, which has existed since the early 2000's, and you will find that most motherboards actually do follow this design.
The motherboard in the OP example predates the standard, and some newer boards simply chose not to follow it.
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u/x10guy 5950X | FTW3 3080 Ti | 32GB 3600MHz CL16 | EKWB WC1d ago
The document you posted is literally a guide. Not a standard. The sections are literally titled Recommendations.
You're conflating this with the actual ATX standard. But even that is mainly where things go, not exactly how things are laid out.
There is no common /required/ standard as part of the ATX Requirements for the Front I/O connections.
It's criminal that this isn't standardized by now. Last 2 boards I worked on had no documentation of what pin was what and the onboard labels were microscopic.
I know well how to plug them in, but they're so damn tiny and you need to plug 4 of those... And whoever decided to make LED plugs separated, burn in hell. There was no reason to make LED plugs 1x1
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u/MrInitialYR7 9700X | 3080Ti | 64GB 6K CL30 | 6TB Gen.4 | 1000W | All STRIX1d ago
There was a reason for 2 1x1 separate LED plugs, as some motherboards had + & - for that LED 1 pin apart. F_Panel became more or less standardised between manufacturers during early AM4 days, but even then Gigabyte sometimes made reset_sw contacts under power_sw and sometimes shifted one pin to the right.
Dell still makes mobos with 3-pin combined power_sw & power_LED. Fuck Dell.
Dells power switch is a complete mindfuck I did a custom case project last year with an old dell precision and it took weeks to figure out that harness. I ended up shoving an arduino in there so I could reverse engineer the thing and get the diagnostic codes
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u/MrInitialYR7 9700X | 3080Ti | 64GB 6K CL30 | 6TB Gen.4 | 1000W | All STRIX1d ago
It's pinout is available online, but how to actually use the connector is a fucking mystery until you examine it with oscilloscope, multimeter or, as you did, arduino MITM scheme.
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u/1d0m1n4t39800x3d, RTX 4090, 64gb DDR5, 2tb Gen5 NVME, F. North 1d ago
Yep I tried to cut into one to add a power button outside of the PC ( Arcade cabinet), I had never in my life seen a PC throw a power button cable error until I did that...
Especially when the +/- text is printed in 0.5pt font on black plastic, so you're basically performing open-heart surgery with a phone flashlight clamped between your teeth
u/Connor_rkRyzen 7 5800x | 4070 Super 12GB | 32GB G-Skill RIPJAWS 1440p1d ago
i always enjoyed fiddling with those tiny plugs at the very end of a build, was like a final boss, the last puzzle to solve before the end of a journey and the start of something new
These people are absolutely fucking terrified of plugging these into the wrong header. You think they're gonna start intentionally plugging them into the wrong headers? lmao
No better time than now to teach those coming across this comment thread that, at the end of the day, your HDD and Power LED are just that: An LED.
They're a polarized light emitting diode, the only thing that you can do to fuck them up is plugging them in backwards (that is, negative to positive and positive to negative), and like 98% of LEDs manufactured this decade have a build in protective diode that prevents the LED from being damaged by sending power through it the wrong way (it just wont light up until you plug it in correctly)
You literally can do no harm to your PC by plugging the LED into any of these dupont connectors, it'll either light up the LED, or do nothing.
EDIT: This was meant to be a reply to u/poop_socket , i'm kinda low key regarded when it comes to using reddit theses days. As the kids would say, I'm literally turning unc.
EDIT 2: Ok, actually there is harm you can do, but its not permanent harm. You might not have a good time if you cross a switch pin with an LED pin (for example crossing power switch with power led). But i think the worst you can do is trap your PC into force shutting itself off whenever it powers on (until you fix the wiring mistake). Or kill a built-in motherboard speaker
I built a scratch made case recently and didn't bother put an HDD LED, i would want one but it's extra steps i didn't want to make as i was due to complete it, it's useful for me and some but maybe manufacturers think like me and in the same period.
I’m a special case but I’m glad they’re not. Years ago the power on/off switch on my case broke and it just kept cycling my systems power. I unhooked the power-/+ connections from the pins on the motherboard and just boot my computer with a gold plated 1/4” headphone adapter by jumping the pins. I would have had to replace my case if it wasn’t for that.
So back in the day I had a pentium 1, I think 180mhz, on a creative brand motherboard. The pins for the various connection were NOT right next to each other. Back then boards were sometimes only 3 layers so traces could not be run to place everything next to each other. This is why unconnected panel plugs are a thing.
Why? You could independently remove the annoying LED cables (they make a bright circle on my ceiling in dark). And also reset sw, I don't remember using the reset sw after win7 or even xp.
Case/MB manufacturers standardized the slot spacing forever ago, and the I/O port cluster somewhat later (but still now a long time ago).
For some reason standardizing this has never happened. The differences have mostly gone away but they're still different enough that you can't really call it standardized.
I think my least favorite thing is when the case manufacturer doesn't provide enough slack in these wires for where they need to go and you end up either needing to buy an extension cable or to route it dangling through the free space over the motherboard instead of being able to properly route it with the rest of your cables.
I just put an ATX motherboard in a Silverstone RM41 case, and the motherboard pins are right at the very edge of the case, total nightmare to get them on. I hooked them up before putting in the motherboard, but if they ever get knocked loose, it's going to be like building a ship in a bottle.
It can also be difficult to clearly see or access the pins in a microatx case. Especially if there are drive bays in the same area. But reddits going to reddit.
My only issue with these is having fat hands makes it hard to see where I'm plugging each one into since I can't look while I do it lol. Lately I've resorted to using a set of long tweezers
Putting a PC together is just Legos, doesn’t mean it has to be intentionally designed primitively. It’s ok that there is a better way, you don’t have to hold onto nostalgia.
I like my indicator LEDs and the reset switch is also handy in some rare cases. Different things for different needs but definitely not outdated nor useless
Yeah, because I went through many years where they were mostly standardized.. as long as you had non giant man hands, and realized they faced down in a lot of cases.. so when they're installed, it made 0 sense at all.
This should have been standardised 20 years ago. Whatever they are doing now is somewhat of an improvement, BUT the problem is when the case are lacking features like HD activity led, and there is no way of connecting your own to the comboplug.
Whoever INVENTED these connectors to begin with deserves to be shot... /s
Like, why is there, to this day, still no standardized single-piece connector for this?
Like for the love of god, we make such enormous advancements with CPUs and GPUs and so on, but the motherboards and especially the connectors on them are pretty much medieval.
Until you get a Wireview Pro for your 5090 and want to connect it to the power leads but can't because it's a 1 piece, so you have to buy an adapter and wind up with the same singles again.... :/
This is one thing that reaaaaly needs a standard moving forward. One pin layout and standard connector for the main items (power, reset, hdd activity, power led). The rest can be whatever per board/case, but that basic set should just be basic and universal. And it somewhat is but...cmon...
Whoever started labeling them is the real hero. One of the first computers I built in the 90's definitely did not have labeling on the wires, I had to rely on grainy AF images in my MB install guide. Between that, worrying about static, and bending CPU pins I was insanely nervous.
Motherboard makers should agree on a standard, then reach to the case makers to adopt it. When adopted, they can add a short adapter for backward compatibility.
I think they have already, it’s called JFP1 connector. Case makers have widely adopted it, the only exception are cheap cases that have split connectors for backward compatibility.
They don't really need to. These are non critical board components, sure would be nice to have a single plug for everything but it only saves the user 3 to 5 minutes of checking where the positive mark on the plug is and just checking the map. The most advanced design change i have seen is when they actually print a color pattern under the pins so it's visually easier to locate like red for HDD green for pwr and yellow for reset.
I never understood people complaining about this. Why is it so hard for some guys? This literally takes less than a minute and you'll most likely only do it once for the life of that computer.
In the old days it used to be really annoying. Partly because there were more of them, but mostly because you had to look at a diagram in your motherboard manual that was 3 pixels across and at a completely random orientation and try to figure out what goes where. Also they used to pick where the things went completely at random.
Nowadays it's so easy - the motherboards are labeled, the connectors are labeled, there's only a couple to plug in, it's always right on the edge of the board where you can easily get to them, only takes a minute and you're done..
Don’t forget that PC cases where also made of tightly confined razor blade hand traps back in the day. I had my own little PC building side gig back in the early 2000s and bled all over quite a few PCs trying to get these random unmarked suckers in lol.
From what I remember they didn’t label it so every motherboard was different? Takes a min huh? Having to find the fucking manual prob takes a min then you gotta find the mother fucking page which also takes a min then you gotta fucking jam your fat FUCKING fingers and hope you don’t get stabbed. Yea sure dawg it takes a FUCKING MIN
It's more about finagling the connectors on. I have man hands, and not tiny racoon fingers like the greatest technician that ever lived, so it's a bit harder for a chonker sausage finger to plop them in place sometimes. Plus I'm in my mid 40s..my eyes kinda suck now.
My biggest beef with it is that there's no fucking standard for some things. Some of the plugs are 3 pin for hdd led and the board wants 2, or vice versa. Similar for power led. And why the hell do the connectors sometimes have 3 pins and just leave the middle one empty. Like wtf is the point?
Because it's fucking ass and has always been ass. I remember building endless PIII and Athlon/Duron shitboxes 25+ years ago and it's pathetic that this part of building has never been improved or reduced to a single USB-C type connector. I think Intel - the originator of the ATX standard - probably released a guideline around the front panel header, but fuck if they care to improve on it.
USB-C is just one way I can think of to improve on this: you could easily design a supervisory module (SoC) that runs off a 5V and allows you to bluetooth pair for the purposes of remote control over POST/reboot, etc.
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u/bemused-chunk 1d ago
i remember a time when they weren’t even labeled