USB Ports on Front of New PC Not Working :(

[GregE240]

Hope someone can help me here.

Just paid frankly silly money for a new desktop for someone, brand new. Spent most of last night building it (thanks Windows Update and your 15Mb worth of post SP1 Hotfixes :rolleyes )

However, I noticed right after building it (at 1am this morning) that the front pair of USB ports are dead as doornails. This leads me to believe that they simply aren't plugged in to the mainboard. Back ones (on the mainboard itself) work fine.

Does this make sense? How easy is it to fix (I know my way around the inside of a PC). What should I look out for?

Cheers,

Greg

[stc_bennett]

there should be a cable connecting the front usb ports to the motherboard. check if the cable is connected.

also check in the system bios if the primary and secondary sets of usb ports are enabled

steve

[GregE240]

stc_bennett said:

there should be a cable connecting the front usb ports to the motherboard. check if the cable is connected. also check in the system bios if the primary and secondary sets of usb ports are enabled steve

Cheers Steve!

Funnily enough, when I first booted it last night the CMOS needed resetting so I went in and enabled everything (or so I thought) manually.

I'll have a look when I get home.

Thanks again mate.

Greg

[outlaw]

the case will have a set of wires that nead concting
to the mother board usb headers.

some cases come with a buch of wires and not a muiltplug that cannot concet only one way roung

find the front usb cable/wires

and get the motherboard manual out and find the usb conectors for the usb on the mother board and conect them

pc make shaw you get them on the right way round and each usb conector has 4 wires one ground, one +5 v and two data`er wires.

[danhay]

Greg, it's not one of those new black & silver Compaqs where the front USB ports are deeply recessed?

If found that some devices wouldn't work because the USB connector wasn't the right shape to fit the recessed port on the front. (Worked OK on the back though).

Dan

[simpo two]

I have two USBs at the front and also 2 x 3.5 jack sockets for audio. (I didn't spec them, that's just how the case arrived!) The USBs certainly need to be connected up - spend some time picking through the mobo handbook and the board might even have 'USB' printed on it next to the relevant pins.

For the audio I ran cables out of the back (removed a blanking plate) and plugged them into the usual sockets. Amazingly after a bit of poking about it worked!

I think the answer is 'persevere' and try every combinatoin.

[GregE240]

OK, heres what happened:

I opened the case on Friday evening and found that the front USB ports were not wired up. Someone had thoughtfully cable tied the cables to the chassis and not plugged them in. Gee thanks

On Saturday morn I attacked the problem. However, there was a slight inconsistency; namely the USB ports had a 4 cable harness, and the mainboard had a 5 plug on it! Bit of messing around with the cables got the 4 cables I had in the right places to plug into the board, so to speak, but it still didn't work - you could plug in a USB device and it would say "Found new hardware...." but come back almost immediately and say there was a problem with it. There clearly isn't because if you plug it in on one of the rear ports it works fine.

So I couldn't fix it. As the PC was for a friend I bought a USB hub and used that instead, which worked out better as the hub is on top of the desk and so easier to plug in cameras and the like.

Thanks for everyone's help with this.

Greg

[Plotloss]

Was it a Gigabyte mobo?

[GregE240]

No it wasn't. 266 FSB, began with S. Sumi something? Can't remember.

[simpo two]

GregE240 said:

No it wasn't. 266 FSB, began with S. Sumi something? Can't remember.

Sumitomo? Still, the main thing is you got it going!