Tried to rewire front-USB cable on Antec case ... failed

[MDesigner]

I'm not sure what I did wrong. Check this page out:

http://www.antec-inc.com/specs/ezusb.html

So, given this info, I rewired the cable to match my motherboard USB header (Epox 8RDA+). I can't show you the pinout cuz it's in a PDF file, but here's the pinout, where pin 9 is the blank/empty pin.

1 = VCC
2 = VCC
3 = DATA0-
4 = DATA1-
5 = DATA0+
6 = DATA1+
7 = GND
8 = GND
9 = Key (empty)
10 = Over Current

Antec's front-USB cable is wired as such:

red, orange = VCC
white, yellow = DATA-
green, grey = DATA+
black, blue, brown = GND

Simple enough. I rewired the USB cable to match the Epox. Plugged it in, booted up.. doesn't work still. Now, this "over current" thing is confusing. What is that exactly? Is it GND? I wasn't sure what to plug into it, so I just plugged the blue wire (GND) into it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated...

 

[cheapgoose]

i don't think anything goes into overcurrent.

 

[MDesigner]

So, leave the wire out of the connector for overcurrent? Are you sure? "I think" isn't certain enough for me.. 🙂 I don't wanna screw up my motherboard.

 

[xbassman]

You are probably OK leaving out the overcurrent wire.
I am looking at the front usb wiring block for a Thermaltake case I am setting up and it only uses 8 wires. No wire plugged into number 10 at all.

🙂

 

[MDesigner]

Thanks for the tip. I left the overcurrent out, and it works fine...sorta. I have two ports in the front. Only the top one works. Very odd. I tried every possible wire combination, nothing worked... however, I plugged in an old 2-USB port thing that slides into a PCI slot and plugs into the motherboard USB header, and that worked fine (both ports). So it's not the motherboard. I imagine something is funky with the case cabling.

 

[Zepper]

Ground goes to ground nothing else. sheesh... :roll: Looks like it was already wired properly - if you had left it alone it should have worked fine.
. Also some Antec cases in the channel are still wired for USB 1 - often won't work with USB 2. Antec will usually send you a replacement front panel kit if you ask nicely.

.bh.

:moon:

 

[MDesigner]

Originally posted by: Zepper
Ground goes to ground nothing else. sheesh... :roll: Looks like it was already wired properly - if you had left it alone it should have worked fine.
. Also some Antec cases in the channel are still wired for USB 1 - often won't work with USB 2. Antec will usually send you a replacement front panel kit if you ask necely.

.bh.

:moon:

Actually, out of the box, the front USB did not work at all. Don't jump to conclusions. If it worked, why would I attempt to rewire it?? I had to remove the overcurrent wire to make it work. The other fiddling around I did was to get both USB ports working, not just the top one. But that didn't work out.

As far as ground going to ground... there are two ground pinouts in the connector, and three ground wires in the front-USB cabling. I don't know enough about electronics to know that they're all the same, so I just tried different combinations out. After a few attempts, I saw the pattern and realized it wasn't making any difference.

 

[Zepper]

One of the three grounds may be the shield drain (not the same as signal ground) - that should be connected to ground too (at one end or the other) for the best USB 2 performance. If your cable is shielded then it is USB 2.0 compliant.
. Used to be one of the extra pins on the mobo connectors was a ground pin just for that purpose. I have no idea what the darn overcurrent pin is. If you ever find out, let us know - perhaps it is another +5 to use if you have a peripheral that needs extra power on the bus.
. And it's fairly easy to mess up those header connectors so that the contact won't stay in place - perhaps that is the remaining problem. The contact goes in only one way - put it in the shell wrong and it will push right out.
.bh.

:moon:

 

[Mday]

the "overcurrent" refers to the SHIELDING, which is actually ground btw.