Desktop Computer

[RWebb]

thx - the only connector I can't figure out is:

[d] 4 wires, unlabeled; goes to the power switch on top of the case

at one end of the connector is a Green wire (it has the arrow mark and a white dot also); next to that, in order, are White, Black, Tan wires and then a blocked off pin

This 5 position connector with 4 wires (4 open female mounting receptacles) can only fit on the multi-pin connector on the motherboard shown below if you off set it by one pin - i.e. it won't fit (b/c of the block-off at position #5) if you try to put the Green wire connector on the pin that the arrow points to.

[RWebb]

It will fit if I move it to the left, and skip the pin below the "f" where the label says On/Off - then the blocked-off spot on the connector fits down into the open hole on the plastic board receptacle.

But it seems weird to do that & I don't want to blow anything up - I can't find any other place on the mother-board where this connector will fit, also "On/Off" makes sense. Pixxo, the case manf., doesn't have any documentation on it that I can find.

[red-beard]

Is it a single connector? Usually it is a series of 4 connectors with 2 wires each.
When I was building one with an old case, the connector was an 8 block. I had to break the connector to plug them into the right places.

Show a pic of the connector.

[RWebb]

Here it is:



I assume 2 wires are for the power switch and 2 other wires are for the LED power annunciator.

the 5th position on the connector (at R) is blocked off and prevents installation at the arrow on the Panel1 socket in the pic of the motherboard. I don't know that it should be inserted there - just a guess.

[red-beard]

I pulled this from the TA890GXB HD off the website

It looks to me the green wire goes to the edge. Run the wires back and make sure the white green wires go to the switch.

[RWebb]

yes, I have that diagram & pin out

if - if the green wire is for the power switch, then you'd get:

Green & White = power

Black = - LED
Tan = + LED

if the other wires really run to a LED by or on the Power switch (and who knows); if those are the LED runs then one could further hope it is the correct polarity

otherwise, I guess you'd blow the LED

I have an Email in to Pixxo so maybe they can explain what's what - their support has been poor so far tho.

[red-beard]

Well, the color coding for the LED wires seems correct. They've used black for the negative.

[stomachmonkey]

Red's correct. Typically that connector is two pieces. If it were me, I'd open up the 5th hole. It may be a manufacturing defect, meaning it was meant to be open but there is a little bit of material that did not get completely removed.

[red-beard]

Or tin snips to just remove the 5th position...

[RWebb]

thx, I'll do that if I don't hear back from the either manf. soon.

I was able to fritter away my excess spare time today bu planing, drilling, and countersinking some drawer rail supports (see my Just Jackin Around thread), and by putting up a support bar to mount a ski rack in my garage. I plan to drink and eat the rest of today and may go pick up some Bagua (chinese martial arts) training to top off the evening.

Sat. is football, more drinking, fizzy stuff drinking party, & maybe even look at the jumper setting on the m-board.

so I plan to keep busy - will just keep using the old desktop & a couple of laptops for backup, so... no hurry on this thing.

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by RWebb

& maybe even look at the jumper setting on the m-board.

Most of them don't have any jumper settings. The only thing most of my boards have for a jumper setting was reseting the bios to factory defaults. I did have one board with 2 other jumpers for opening up a 3 core AMD unit to a 4 core unit (4 for the price of 3!!!).

[RWebb]

the Biostar motherboard manual lumps "Headers" into a single chapter with Jumpers - a Header is just some sort of connector (i.e. serial, parallel, S-P/DIF and some extra (?) USB) - also has USB "power source headers for USB ports" which appear to be jumpers - guess I can safely ignore those

I DO see at least one oddity: the manual sez the Clear CMOS Header (a jumper, called JCMOS1) should be set to Pin 1-2 Close (jumpered together) for Normal Operation, the default.

However, the board came with Pins 2-3 Closed.

This sounds something like what you had.

I don't know if it matters as the instructions to "to restore the BIOS safe setting and the CMOS data" tell you to set it to pin 2-3 close; wait 5 sec. then change it to pin 1-2 close; turn on the power and then reset your password or clear the CMOS data.

- not clear what the idea here - maybe the jumper prevents alteration by the user going thru the BIOS?

[red-beard]

The 2-3 shorts out the capacitor that holds voltage to the bios settings. It would be the same as if the battery was removed for a few minutes.

[RWebb]

ah -- ok, I'll move that one