Specifications

CHAPTER 3
148
All About Motherboards
HDD LED. Controls a light on the front panel that lights up when any IDE device is
in use. (HDD stands for hard disk drive; LED stands for light-emitting diode; and an
LED is a light on the front panel.)
Power LED+. Positive LED used to indicate that power is on
Power LED-. Negative LED used to indicate that power is on
Reset SW. SwiFtch used to reboot the computer
To help orient the connector on the motherboard pins, look for a small triangle embedded
on the connector that marks one of the outside wires as pin 1 (see Figure 3-54). Look for
pin 1 to be labeled on the motherboard as a small 1 embedded to either the right or the left
of the group of pins. Also, sometimes the documentation marks pin 1 as a square pin in the
diagram, rather than round like the other pins. The diagram in Figure 3-55 shows what you
can expect from motherboard documentation. Sometimes the motherboard documentation
is not clear, but guessing is okay when connecting a wire to a front panel header connection.
If it doesn’t work, no harm is done. Figure 3-56 shows all front panel wires in place and the
little speaker also connected to the front panel header pins.
6. Connect wires to ports on the front panel of the case. Depending on your motherboard
and case, there might be cables to connect audio ports or USB ports on the front of
Figure 3-54 Look for the small triangle embedded on the wire lead connectors to orient
the connector correctly to the motherboard connector pins
Courtesy: Course Technology/Cengage Learning
PWR_LED
On/Off
RST
+
++ –
–
SPK
HLED
16
8
9
1
Pin
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Pin
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
Assignment Function
+5 V
N/A
N/A
Speaker
connector
Hard drive
LED
Reset button
Function
N/A
N/A
Power LED
Power-on button
Speaker
HDD LED (+)
HDD LED (–)
Ground
Reset control
Assignment
N/A
N/A
N/A
Power LED (+)
Power LED (+)
Power LED (–)
Power button
Ground
Figure 3-55 Documentation for front panel header connections
Courtesy: Course Technology/Cengage Learning
A+
220-702
1.1
1435487389_ch03_CTP.qxd 7/30/09 5:23 PM Page 148