tbh, lve had the front panel off a couple of times, without disconnecting the usb (kinda hard to undo my cable management without messing it up.. that said its sorta crap lol as management goes) so lm wondering if there is a loose connection.. even more so considering l had off a few days prior as my last original fan (from my previous build) was starting to annoy me, the rattle was getting more audible.
all of my fans are now Arctic Cooling F12s, pretty impressed with how silent the comp is now as l can hardly tell its on. but l may have put more pressure than l should have on the front panel. maybe it might be worth getting another front panel on the cheap some point in the future, but lf l have to resort to rear ports its no biggie like l said lve already put a small length of USB cable between a rear 3.0 port to the front so l can easily access for externals etc, then l'll find out if the same thing happens which l guess would be a good indication if its just the front ports that care causing the issue.