Don't EVER plug a standard motherboard into an eMachine case

[CougTek]

Because the front USB connector isn't standard and it will bust your motherboard. I toasted three freaking boards today before realizing this. That plus a customeer that must be the missing link between ape and man made my day a bad one­.

 

[Tannin]

Yike! I know what you mean about bad days.

USB connectors used to be all over the place like a dog's breakfast but are - thankfully - pretty much standard these days. Older cases, as you will remember, used to have seperate individual front USB wires so that you could use them with any motherboard, but the case manufacturers these days figure that the convenience of being able to plug just once instead of eight times is worth the incompatibility with an ever-shrinking number of old motherboards.

 

[CougTek]

Older cases, as you will remember, used to have seperate individual front USB wires...

In fact, our cheapest (and unfortunately most popular) case is still like that. That's one of the many reasons why I want to eliminate it.

 

[Bozo]

"That plus a customeer that must be the missing link between ape and man made my day a bad one­."

You met my boss :lol:

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[Mercutio]

Er... just so I know: were the wires on the USB connector weird colors or was there any indication on the board itself? I've found off-brand boards that used an odd USB connector before and stopped from attaching "standard" front USB to them because the +5V (normally red) wire didn't match the diagram in the manual.

The most common trick I've seen is to have the connector reversed on one side (ie +5V lines on top left and bottom right), which is an arrangement that kind of makes sense to me despite being different from the standard.

 

[Sol]

Yeah the backwards idea always seemed like a good idea to me as well but it seems that the one pin missing and one hole missing arangment caught on instead...

 

[CougTek]

The connector was a two-rows type, so reversing it would have left me with only one functional port. There was a filled hole on the connector preventing me from connecting it backward, using both rows.

I haven't noticed the wires colors, sorry. In fact, I have not paid that much attention to the connectors themselves. Plugging them = fried board was enough. I changed the enclosure and that was it.