Issues getting my front panel ports on my PC working

[dh020]

I recently just built my first PC. Thankfully everything worked correctly apart from few issues I am having with front audio jacks & usb.

Biostar H77MU3 motherboard.

Hope you experts could help as I am bit confused.

On my front panel I have number wires.

Pink Microphone Jack:
1. Mic-Power
2. Ground
3. Mic-In

Green Headphone Jack:
4. R-Out
5. Ground
6. L-Out
7. R-RET
8. L-RET

F_Audio1 on my motherboard pins:

1. Mic Left in
2. Ground
3. Mic Right in
4. GPIO
5. Right Line in
6. Jack Sense
7. Front Sense
8. Key.
9. Left Line in
10. Jack Sense

I am confused where the Mic & headphone wires go on F_Audio1 pins?

Also I have two usb ports that are wired in the correct location in F_USB1 and F_USB2 but Windows 7 cannot find the drivers for it and I don't have CD for the PC case which was given to me (no name).

Does any know any free software for find/acquiring the drivers I need to make these UBS ports usable?

Any help is really appreciated and thanks for taking time to read my issue.

Cheers
Daz

 

[Paperdoc]

Your mobo's manual on p. 16 says the F_AUDIO1 port supports both Azalea and AC'97 audio systems, which is VERY common. But it fails to give you all the details.

First, these are two different systems, and you get to use only one at a time. The choice is made in BIOS Setup. The BIOS manual on 25 under "Azelia" says you can manually set the Azelia system Enabled or Disabled, or set the port to figure this out automatically (the default). Leave it set to Auto.

Now, back to your mobo manual where the pins on the port are labelled. Those labels are for the Azelia system. Among the pins are 4 (GPIO and 3 Sense lines) used exclusively by Azelia, and I suspect are part of how the mobo can use "Auto" to figure it out. What your mobo manula does NOT show you is what my mobo's manual shows me (it's a different mobo). When the port is used as an AC'97 port - and this is MUCH more likely for most users - the pins are different:
1 = Mic L In
2 = Audio Gnd
3 = Mic R In
5 = Line Out R
9 = Line Out L
4, 6, 7 and 10 = No Connection
8 = Key (pin missing)

IF your case has a group of wires from the front audio connectors ending in a rectangular connector with (10 - 1) holes in two rows of 5 (one hole missing at Pin 8) just plug this into that mobo port. End of worries.

On the other hand, if the audio connectors of your case just have individual wires with numbers on the single-hole connectors on the ends, plug them in this way:
Mic-Power - do not connect. This is for supplying a voltage to a microphone type that needs a power supply, and your mobo port does not have such a pin. You probably will not have / use such a microphone.
Mic Ground to port Pjn 2 - Audio Ground
Mic In to port Pin 1 Mic L In

NOTE: Although the label you have on the case Mic port says the one wire is Mic Power, that MAY not be true. It is more common to have L and R channel Inputs on the Mic connector. This would mate with the Pins 1 and 3 of the mobo connector. So you can TRY connecting the front panel's Mic Power connector to the mobo port's Pin 3 Mic R In and see if that gets you stereo sound input from the microphone attached. If it does, check whether the L and R assignments are correct, and reverse if necessary.

Now on to the Outputs. Your front panel Headphone lines R-Out and L-Out should be connected to the mobo port's Pins 5 and 9. Connect the Headphone's Ground lead to the port's Pin 2. Now, Pin 2 already has a connection on it from the Mic, so you may have to arrange to connect these together. We are left with the R-Ret and L-Ret lines of the Headphone connector on the front panel. Those labels look like the mean they are the "Return" lines for the two ouput channels, also known as the "Ground" lines for those channels. So if you don;t get output to your headphones with these two line unconnected, try connecting them also the the mobo's Pin 2 Ground.

Regarding the front panel USB ports:
Normally these TWO ports together are connected to your mobo's single connector marked F_USB2 and FP_USB1. This is another (10-1) 2x5-pin port, this one with Pin 9 missing. If that's what you have, plug in there. Make VERY sure you do NOT the wires from the front-panel USB ports into any mobo connector other than this one. (If you mobo has one, the connector for a Firewire port looks a lot like this, but you MUST not mix the two.) You do NOT need any special USB driver for these front ports - they are already covered in the general USB port driver that Win 7 will have loaded during its normal installation.

 

[dh020]

Thanks Paperdoc for the big write up really is appreciated.

I decided to leave the mic out as I did not require this and went straight to your solution for the headset jack.

I am afraid both solution you suggested did not work for me. I tried plugging the R-OUT, L-OUT and Ground in the pin's you suggested 2 for ground, 5 for R-OUT and 9 for L-OUT (leaving R-RET & L-RET out) but got no sound.

I then stripped back R-RET and L-RET & connected these two wires to the Ground wire, but once again this did not work. Due to this taking to much my time I decide to cut them out with some wire cutters so don't worry about posting another solution lol.

Now for USB's I would love for these to work. At moment I have memory card reader attached into F_USB1 and this is working fine picking up SD cards.

In F_USB2 I have USB'S attached in the correct wiring method. Windows 7 detects a device in the USB port's but says its a defective device displaying a yellow ! sign.

I tried three separate USB pen's which work on my desktop fine but no go on this machine. When I try find the drivers through the internet with Windows 7 it displays they cannot be found.

So I am scratching my head to why these won't work, any idea's?

Here is couple pictures showing it's correctly plugged in:

USB1

USB2

USB3

 

[Paperdoc]

I agree the pics indicate the wiring is correct. I, too, am puzzled.

Three thoughts:
1. As a further test, what if you take the card reader that you know works and plug it into USB#2 on the front? Does it work there or fail?
2. Of the three USB memory sticks you've tried, are they all the older USB2, and not the newest USB3 type? USB3 devices SHOULD work OK on a USB2 port, but things can be odd!
3. Try all three USB memory sticks on the #1 front port - the port appears to work OK for the card reader, so it ought to work for all 3 sticks, too.

 

[dh020]

I agree the pics indicate the wiring is correct. I, too, am puzzled.

Three thoughts:
1. As a further test, what if you take the card reader that you know works and plug it into USB#2 on the front? Does it work there or fail?
2. Of the three USB memory sticks you've tried, are they all the older USB2, and not the newest USB3 type? USB3 devices SHOULD work OK on a USB2 port, but things can be odd!
3. Try all three USB memory sticks on the #1 front port - the port appears to work OK for the card reader, so it ought to work for all 3 sticks, too.

Paperdoc I did all above as you said and card reader worked fine on USB2 and 1. So I tried plugging front usb wires into where the card reader was and they still will not work (keeps looking for drivers with no success).

All my USB memory sticks are USB2.0 (I don't own a USB3.0 at the moment).

It seems like it needs some type of drivers or the actual front usb device is faulty.

 

[Paperdoc]

I agree with you. There is something wrong with the wiring of the front USB connectors - either in the connector itself or in the wires to it from the plug at the mobo end of those wires. Is it possible for you to disassemble the front portion of your case enough to see the back of the connector and inspect the wires? Sometimes you can see bad connections, but sometimes a poor solder joint is not easily seen.

I note that there are separate cables to each front connector, although the two cables both connect to the mobo port via one connector. That MAY help tracing out which port is which.

 

[dh020]

Cheers for all your help Paperdoc. I will just look to buy a new adapter to replace this faulty one (The PC Case I used is brand new but was bought for me in 2006 lol)