Help with Front Panel/Power Button Connector

[JaxDrumm]

Hello! Recently, I transferred my Dell Motherboard (From an Inspiron 560) to a new Rosewill Challenger-S case. All of that went fine and dandy but now I'm facing another problem: I don't quite know where to plug up the cables from the case's front panel (power switch, reset switch, HDD LED). I found a port on my motherboard labeled "Front Panel" which matches the ports, but one is missing like normal front panel connectors, and the cables only take up 6 out of the 9 pins. So the real question is, where do you plug up the cables, or do you even put them in that spot?


Sorry if that sounded really nooby,
JaxDrumm

 

[Mellon Head]

Take a close up picture of your motherboard and post it so we can see it. please.

 

[JaxDrumm]

Pictures of port + Cable

 

[JaxDrumm]

Sorry for the low quality, trying to hold cables while balancing a flashlight and tablet to take a picture is hard on a bed, and focusing was a pain.:\

 

[Mellon Head]

Thanks for the pictures. That is definitely the correct spot to plug in the cables, according to the service manual for your PC. The problem is that the service manual doesn't show the pinout of the connector. Dell helpfully mentions that you should take careful note of where the cables are unplugged from so that you can reassemble them when you're done. Not very helpful in this case.

This is a common pinout for Foxconn and Dell motherboards (Foxconn makes a lot of Dell motherboards, btw).



You could try that pinout (at your own risk). Note that the negative wires on the front panel and HDD LEDs are the white ones. The colors for the power and reset switches don't matter.

I wish I could be more exact on the pinout, but that's all I could find. There is supposedly an exact pinout on this site:

Dell 18D1Y Motherboard Front Panel Pinout - CPUs, Motherboards, and Memory - Linus Tech Tips

But it requires registration.

 

[JaxDrumm]

Not anything happening, but I just got my power supply today, how do I check if it's DOA?

 

[Mellon Head]

Did you hook up the front panel connectors? Try pressing the reset switch and see if that does anything. If it does, reverse the Reset and Power Switch wires.

 

[JaxDrumm]

Nope, nothing. :\

 

[JaxDrumm]

Got some info! My motherboard is for the mini-atx version, it's the 0K83V0 Dell Motherboard. But even after trying that pinout at linustechtips, it still doesn't work.

 

[Mellon Head]

Ok. Well, that's discouraging.

Just to make sure, you have all of the appropriate power supply wires hooked up? Including the 4 pin CPU power connector up by the CPU? And the power wires connected to the board are in place securely? Also, the power switch on the power supply is turned on? (Don't laugh, I spent a half our debugging that one once.)

What you can do is try the power switch connection only and plug it into the front panel connector in the places you see on the pinout that I linked. Try the different combinations until the motherboard starts up.

If it still won't start up, we have another problem on our hands.

 

[JaxDrumm]

I tried that for about three hours straight yesterday, no luck.
:\

 

[Mellon Head]

OK. I need a little more background...

It's a Dell motherboard. What kind of power supply is it? What make and model? If the power supply is not a Dell, maybe it isn't compatible with the Dell motherboard. HP pulls tricks like that all the time. The pinouts on the main power connector are different than the industry standard and a standard PSU won't work.

And you did check all of the electrical connections like I asked you to, right?

 

[JaxDrumm]

Okay, something weird happened earlier...

There is a spot in the middle which is a "hotspot" of sorts, as in that's the only place where the led or switches will work... but my case smells hot when I do it, like something is smoking...

My case is a Rosewill Challenger S and my PSU is a Corsair CX 750.

 

[Mellon Head]

The middle of what?

 

[JaxDrumm]

Front panel connect on the mb, sorry for not making that clearer

 

[Mellon Head]

Ok. It looks like you have a short somewhere. And you've started another thread. PIck a thread and stick to it.

I'm out.

 

[Ranger4]

Jax has posted virtually the same thing here,

http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/388665-help-power-switch-psu.html

I have suggested that his MB maybe contacting his new case at some point & shorting, which seems like it might be so from his post #13 in this thread we are on now.