HOW TO CONNECT FRONT PANEL
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Connect front panel connectors to motherboard. Locate on your motherboard the front panel connectors. Basically, these connectors slide onto a set of grouped pins on the Motherboard. Owing to the many variations of Motherboard, it will be necessary to refer to your Motherboard manual for the connection method of these cables.
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What is the front panel connector?
The front panel header is where the connectors of hard disk drive activity lights, case speaker, reset button, power on/off button, computer power on light, and key lock, are connected to make them function smoothly.
With all the hardware installed correctly, follow these steps to connect the internal cabling. You will have noticed during the previous work, that the PC Case itself has some cables. These are for the Front Panel Display. These are usually labelled as the following;
• SPK - Speaker - Small speaker mounted in the PC Case
• PWR SW - Power switch - System power on/off
• RST SW - Reset switch - Reset system
• PWR LED - Power LED - (usually green) Light shows when system is on
• HDD LED - HDD LED - (usually red) Light shows when system is accessing HDD
• SLP LED - Sleep LED - (in 'sleep' mode) Light shows when system is suspended
How to Connect Front Panel
Connecting the front panel connectors is a job that is much simpler than it seems. You may need your motherboard manual for a close up diagram for your motherboard connections but apart from that, its very easy.
Firstly, I would advise doing the LED's first because the + and - DO matter for these. The switches (marked as SW) are much easier because they don't matter which way round they go.
It is simple.... connect the + pin to the + pin on the mother board. On each of your connectors, if you look closely, you will see a small arrow on the black plastic ... this arrow is on the + pin.
THE HDD LED : the red wire is the pin that is +. Connect this to the bottom left pins on your motherboard. Make sure you align the + pin with the + pin on the motherboard. In your case it is the one on the most left.
THE LARGER POWER LED CONNECTOR : This goes to the bottom right of your motherboard connectors, just as it is labelled. The blue wire is the + pin. Align this with the left most pin, on the bottom right set, on your motherboard.
THE SMALLER POWER LED CONNECTOR : This goes to the top left of your motherboard connectors, where it is labelled " +PLED- ". Unfortunately both wires are white, so I cant tell which is +. You need to look for the small arrow on the plastic connector. The + pin goes to the most top left pin on your motherboard connectors.
RESET SW + POWER SW : These are the easiest to install. The + and - doesn't matter. Just align the whole connector with the corresponding connector on your motherboard. The Power SW goes to the pins labelled " + PSW - " and the Reset SW goes to the "- RSW + "
Tip: Don't worry... if you get the connectors in the wrong place or you get the polarity wrong. It will not damage your computer, the switch/ led just wont work ... that's it. So if you see that something isn't working, try swapping the connector around and make sure it is in the right place.
