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Any suggestions on "port drives" for 5in bay?

1kayaker

Senior member
I've heard this is a viable option for those looking to extend ports to the front of their cases. Any suggestions? I'd love to have 2 USB, 1 Firewire, Gameport, speaker out, line in, mic in. I did a search before I posted but couldn't find anything...Maybe I looked up the wrong thing. Thanks in advance.
Semper Fi,
Philip<imkayakn@att.net>
 
i've seen some USB 4 port and FireWire extensions that goto the 5.25 bays on your case, this is achieved by attaching the extension "port drive" that goes in your 5.25 bay with a "fly cable" to the extra USB headers on your motherboard, so for example some Motherboards have 6 USB capability, but only 2 ports on the actual motherboard through to the I/O sheild at the back, and the other 4 can goto one of these "port drives" OR some ports on an slot plate, which screws onto an expansion card entrance on the back of your case.

I've never seen a port drive with all the things your saying, but it would be possible, maybe a better option would be to put them on your I/O slots unless you have a lot of bays free.

I've also never seen one with sound/game on, firstly because the sound is always on a card (which needs lots of chips etc) or a OnBoard motherboard chipset. The Game and Sound are often together on the back of a MoBo i think because they are both controlled by the southbridge or sommat so maybe if you could somehow get a flycable from your sound card and from the game (easy if you have an AT motherboard because the Game port is on a cable from the motherboard which goes to the I/O plate but you can move it to the front if u want) then you could do it so having the sound onboard which would have the Speaker out, line in, mic in especially if u had an older AT board like i said.

Another option for the sound thing is to buy the Creative Sound Blaster Platinum/Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum which has a 5.25 bay as well as the standard thing on the I/O slots and is very advanced but costs a lot.

If you could get all the stuff on flycables from your different chipsets on the MoBo or cards, then maybe also you could make the front panel yourself. If youve got one of those spare 5.25 bay plastic cover things then you could buy the cables (make sure u get the right ones) and the ports from somewhere like Maplins (www.maplin.co.uk), solder them all together right, and put them into some holes you can carefully cut (like those custom mod cases have been cut) and then you would have your port drive! This might be a really interesting thing to try and do if you had the time, in fact, i think i might on my old AT motherboard computer.

Hope this helps, if you want any pics explaining wot im trying to say, like mobo & flycable pics, email me and thanks to you as well cos you've made me fink 2day!

Good luck.
 
No never used one but if u look at the image in the post by eplebnista then u can see that all the fing does it put a cable from the port drive thro ur case, gathers all the port's cables up to one 15 pin port which comes out of one of your I/O slots (also meaning you lose a slot), and then a patch lead out the back of your comp, splitting the wire up again, to the varios ports on the back, so for one of these to work you must already have the ports on your system.

The way i did it was to goto headers on the MoBo, i idn't think of it going out the back and then to a patch lead. Hmm. Very clever.
 
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