Hi,
I am setting up an ASUS Terminator C3 as a home backup box and have had
a few problems.
My Terminator will only work with the ASUS CDrom drive that it came
installed with. I have tried installing a Compaq DVROM and a year old
Sony CD-RW drive. Changing the CS, Slave, Master jumpers does not
resolve the problem with these drives. These drive were pulled from a
working system that had bad SDRAM.
The ASUS CDROM will work with either the
I am trying to determine if the ASUS C3V motherboard will only work
with other ASUS parts or if both optical drives were somehow damaged in
the old computer?
Also, is there a source for the Firewire 1394, USB and TV out headers
for this machine?
Thanks,
Internal port cable assemblies are available here. You can find
some Asus adapter parts on Ebay, but this solution could be
neater looking than having to hack up your own PCI bracket.
These parts fit in a drive bay housing and are modular.
http://www.frontx.com/order2.html
CPX108-2 Dual USB - This one likely has identical pinout to a
standard Asus 2x5 header. The wires can be
moved around in the header if required.
CPX105-2 Firewire - Uses same pinout as Asus 2x5 header. It is missing
the redundant VP and GND wires, which is not a
problem according to FrontX.
The video will be loads of fun. For starters, this header does not
match the pinout of the existing Asus AV/S adapter. SVHS is
Luminance, Chrominance, and two GND. The RCA TV connector is
Composite and GND, AFAIK. That is a total of six wires, and the
Asus header has eight wires.
For components, I would use the following three items:
CPX107-2 S_video Internal - Has four wires.
CPX106-2 RCA video Internal - Has two wires
CPX075-4 2x5 plastic holder - Remove wires from above two items, and
plug them into this 2x5 plastic body.
The last item in the list can be seen on this page:
http://www.frontx.com/order_c.html
You will need to pull the four plus two wires from the first two
assemblies, and plug the wires into the correct holes on the 2x5
plastic holder. You will need to contact Asus and get the pinout,
because determining the pinout by experiment will be challenging.
The following section is how I would try to solve the problem
if Asus is clueless or unhelpful:
*******
One way to narrow down the pinout of the Asus connector, is use
an ohmmeter, and identify all the pins that are shorted together
on the 2x5 TV header. Those will be GND pins. By shorted, I mean
they will read between 0 and 1 ohms on your meter, as in a real
good connection. The signal pins might also trigger your meter,
but should give a higher reading (no idea how high).
That will leave you with three signal pins. Using the CPX106-2
RCA TV connector, you would try the three signal pins one at
a time, to drive the center pin of the RCA connector. The outer
shield of the RCA connector goes to one of your GND signals.
One of the three signals will drive a baseband video input
properly (75 ohm baseband input, this is not an RF modulated
signal on channel 3 like your old Pong game). The signal that
makes the TV monitor input work properly is the composite signal.
With the Luminance and Chrominance, there are two possible
orientations, and I would try both until the SVHS device works
properly. (Again, you would connect the two GND wires on the SVHS
assembly to GND pins on the header.) If the first combo
doesn't work, I'd swap L and C and try again. Perhaps a SVHS
tape recorder would be a better experimental vehicle for this
than a monitor, as I don't know if monitors like to have L and
C reversed. The only issue with monitors, is causing them to
operate at scan frequencies outside of their limits.
The wires can be pulled out of the FrontX plastic bodies, by
lifting the tab next to the pin with an X-Acto (hobby) knife.
With the tab slightly ajar, the wire will pull out of the header,
allowing you to plug it back in where ever it is needed.
*******
FrontX is a pretty expensive way to solve this problem, but you
can restrict yourself to buying only the parts you need. If you
deal with Asus directly, they might be able to arrange the sale
of the necessary adapters - the hardest part is getting their
attention, and the phone is the best way to do that. The
service level you get, varies from country to country, so
don't hold your breath. It is also possible, due to the fact
that the product is pretty new, that the TV-OUT accessory hasn't
been created yet.
HTH,
Paul
