Yesterday I pulled out the CPU intake fan as the screws holding it in were a little too close to the Heatsink for my liking so I cleaned the fan and did the zip tie mod to hold it securely. Anyway I digress..... Before I reinstalled the Fan I had a look at the part of the MOBO that is hidden under the fan shroud and was quite surprised to see 2 sets of holes ready for a pin headers marked as "USB Port 2". I was wondering if this would function if I soldered a pin header in there (probably a rightangle one) and connected it to one of the PCI expansion slot brackets?
See my pic below and let me know your opinions? Its Circled in blue and other USB is circled in red On the other hand it might be easier and simpler to buy a usb 2.0 and firewire combo card?
Registered: 06/07/04
Posts: 1266
Loc: Stoughton, WI USA
It doesn't look like it's attributed to any chips to control the USB, though if you have an old USB mouse or something I'd test it. My only question is why it's not the standard 5x2 USB, unless they didn't make a ground pin for one of them.
Very curious.
_________________________
MacBook 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo w/ 2GB DDR2 RAM & 120GB SATA 5400RPM HDD Canon Rebel XTI Google Cr-48 Beta Laptop
It doesn't look like it's attributed to any chips to control the USB, though if you have an old USB mouse or something I'd test it. My only question is why it's not the standard 5x2 USB, unless they didn't make a ground pin for one of them.
Very curious.
In a standard USB connector there are only 4 pins (+5v,Gnd,-data,+data). The fifth pin is usually a shield ground which in this case is the 4 larger holes around the 8 smaller ones. Notice the USB port 1 and how the shield is soldered into the board.
hmm I might get a meter in there and test if there is even any voltage on these first.
On the other hand it might be easier and simpler to buy a usb 2.0 and firewire combo card?
Yeh, it might, but wheres the fun in that? I say go for it! :woohoo:
_________________________
Macbook 2.1 core duo 1gig 160gb sata iMac g5 w/1 gig 160gig all-in-one and SWEET! iBook G4 IGhz Quicksilver Dual 800's iPod touch "Guys, I think we just lost the platform here" Pete Conrad When in doubt, try SCE to AUX
Sad News as Whitlock noted there seems to be no voltage/control chips for this set of ports!
I first tried testing ALL the pins in different ways with my multimeter but there was no power from any that I could find.
I did also note that there are several Caps and inductors that are missing quite close to the USB pins so that may be the culprit but my solderg is ok not great so I think I will leave it.
Previous Topic
Index
