R00kie said:
I have problems connecting Hardcano's 6 USB & FP AUDIO connectors to my
mainboard (ASUS A7N8X-X) because of different pin descriptions.
Can anyone please match the pins ? (Pin 1 = B, Pin 2 = D, etc.)
In case of mismatch (my worry) is it possible to damage the mainboard ?
*******************************
- USB 2.0 A7N8X-X -
Pin 1 - USB+5V
Pin 2 - USB+5V
Pin 3 - USB_P5-
Pin 4 - USB_P6-
Pin 5 - USB_P5+
Pin 6 - USB_P6+
Pin 7 - GND
Pin 8 - GND
Pin 9 - NC
Pin 10 -
- HARDCANO -
A=DATA+1 (Green)
B=DATA+2 (Green)
C=DATA+1 (White)
D=DATA+2 (White)
E=VCC1 (Red)
F=VCC2 (Red)
G=GND1 (Black)
H=GND2 (Black)
I=SHIELD (Dark Blue/Black)
*******************************
- AUDIO (MIC & SPEAKERS) A7N8X-X -
Pin 1 - MIC2
Pin 2 - AGND
Pin 3 - MICPWR
Pin 4 - +5VA
Pin 5 - Line OUT R
Pin 6 - BLINE OUT R
Pin 7 - NC
Pin 8 - (empty)
Pin 9 - Line OUT L
Pin 10 - BLINE OUT L
- HARDCANO -
A=EAR L (White)
B=MIC DATA (Red)
C=EAR R (Red)
D=EAR GND (Black)
E=MIC GND (Black)
*******************************
Thanks for your help.
I hope a couple of those "DATA" signals are minuses. That is what I
show in the following table.
USB 2.0 A7N8X-X -
Pin 1 - USB+5V VCC1
Pin 2 - USB+5V VCC2
Pin 3 - USB_P5- DATA-1
Pin 4 - USB_P6- DATA-2
Pin 5 - USB_P5+ DATA+1
Pin 6 - USB_P6+ DATA+2
Pin 7 - GND GND1
Pin 8 - GND GND2
Pin 9 - NC (do not use)
Pin 10 -
This leaves no place for the SHIELD wire from the case. You can
leave it dangling (but test with a USB2 device, to make sure the USB
connector is working all right). If you want to pick up a ground
connection for the SHIELD, sometimes there are CDROM 1x4 or AUX 1x4
audio headers on the motherboard, and they have a couple of GND pins
on them you could use. Just make sure it is GND before connecting it,
being extra careful not to plug into something like +5 or +12 (smoke
and fire...)
Making mistakes mixing up GND, +5, +12 signals leads to damaged
motherboards, smoke and burnt wiring. Power supplies won't
stop when presented with a small short circuit like this. This is
one of the chief dangers when wiring up a motherboard. The motherboard
will survive a lot of other mistakes, but not when messing with power
signals that come from the power supply. (A post just today will
provide a nice example for you.) Also, if you reverse the power wiring
on a USB or Firewire case connector, you could destroy any device
plugged into that connector, so verify those connectors carefully as
well. I'm still waiting for a sad tale from someone destroying their DV
camera on a miswired Firewire port.
As for the audio, you are not so lucky. Your case audio is not the
"Intel compatible" kind, which means if I give you a wiring table,
you will no longer be able to get sound from the rear audio connector.
The "Intel compatible" kind has a couple of return wires, and the
jack on the front of the case supports muting of the rear speakers
when a headphone is plugged into the front. Your wiring doesn't do
this, and will be more pain than it is worth. You can hook up the
microphone, but it might be better to just leave the two jumpers
in place for the speakers, so the rear audio continues to work.
Page 19 and 20 here, detail what an Intel compatible audio header
consists of:
http://www.formfactors.org/developer/fpio_design_guideline.pdf
As for the microphone, your case is missing support for electret
microphones. Since many electret microphones connect MICPWR to MIC
internally, there may be a workaround. But, you need to know more
about the microphone, to decide whether this is a good thing to do.
You may find a normal passive microphone has too low a level to work
well.
This link shows an example of hooking up an electret microphone.
The site uses popups, sorry for the inconvenience:
http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/dynamic_to_electretinput.html
They show how the tip is "MIC IN", while the ring carries MICPWR
(otherwise known as bias). The sleeve conductor is GND. So, to work
with an electret, you would connect MIC2 and MICPWR to the case
wire known as "MIC DATA"
+------+ / \
| |-----------+---------------- audio --------| |
| |mic+ | \ /
| mike | | +===+
| | +-------------- bias +5V -------| | 3.5mm plug
| | |===| to soundcard
| |mic- | |
| |------------ ground -----------------------| |
+------+ | |
+=======+
| |
Pin 1 - MIC2 ---------------------------------------+---- "MIC DATA"
Pin 2 - AGND --- "MIC GND" and "EAR GND" |
Pin 3 - MICPWR --------------------------------------
Pin 4 - +5VA (do not use)
Pin 5 - Line OUT R ---- "EAR R"
Pin 6 - BLINE OUT R --- ???
Pin 7 - NC (do not use)
Pin 8 - (empty)
Pin 9 - Line OUT L ---- "EAR L"
Pin 10 - BLINE OUT L --- ???
So, as you can see, this is nothing but a disaster area. You need to
connect two wires to Pin 2 (or use a spare GND pin from another header).
You need to connect MIC DATA to two pins, for powered (electret) mics,
or connect just MIC2 to MIC DATA for unpowered (passive) microphones.
You need to leave the two jumpers in place (pin 5 to 6, pin 9 to 10),
to continue to have audio on the lime jack on the back of the case,
which makes it hard to connect the EAR R and EAR L wires at the same
time. If this were my case, the audio wires would be left dangling on
the bottom of the case, leaving the two jumpers on the FPAUDIO header.
HTH,
Paul
P.S. For you Antec Sonata case owners, if your microphone doesn't work,
it could be that Antec reversed the MIC and MICPWR. We need to see a
posting from someone who has emailed Antec tech support to verify if
this is indeed true or not. Case manufacturers are so careless...
