What do I need to use Front Connectors on Antec Sonata Case ?

[JJordan]

I purchased this case for my wife's compuer in teh kitchen to get a quieter solution. It is a low end Asus p2b-f MB running a Celeron 300a at 450. I asked in MB forum about upgrading MB to take advantage of front USB and Firewire, but want to know if I can just buy a PCI USB card and Firewire card (I found a combo for $40 seems high) and use them to connect to the front connectors. The PCI cards say "internal" connectors, but the cables in the Sonata case do not look like a normal USB plug or Firewire plug, they look like they hook to pins (plug into pins). If I go this route (PCI Card) what do I need to get to use it with the internal connectors on the Sonata case ?

 

[yak8998]

USB 'internal' connectors are usually pin arrays from my experience, while firewire seems to be an actual cable (although i have very little exp. with firewire)

 

[DahDee]

I also answered your post in the Motherboard Forum (with other info), but here's a 1394/USB PCI card for $35 shipped at Newegg that would let you hook up those front ports and also give you 2 USB 2.0 and 2 1394 ports in the back of the case:

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?DEPA=1&submit=Go&description=N82E16815104223

Those cables in the Antec case are designed to fit onto the internal headers included on this card.

 

[JJordan]

So looking at this Picture, there are 2 sets of pins -- is one to hook the USB to and one to hook the firewire to ? It looks like there are also just two "Plugs" on the card. Maybe I just need to go to CrapUSA and look at one

 

[DahDee]

I *think* that's correct -- it looks like you have 2 options for the internal 1394 and USB connections: either use the funky little pin connectors at the far end/corner of the card, or use the regular 1394 and USB ports (one of each on the near side of the card, behind the bracketed ports). Pretty cool if that's the setup; I guess if you had a USB drive or something you wanted to put in a bay you could do that and just plug it into that regular port without having to run it outside the case or get some kind of adapter. I'd like to see confirmation somewhere that the 2 pin connectors are indeed for 1394 and USB; I don't know what else they could be.

 

[DahDee]

Hmmm, just saw this thread and you probably should take a look -- I think it involved the same add-in card:

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