Old serial port and 10 pin USB conn

[MaouTsaou]

I have a Dell Inspiron 570 w/the usual bang up documentation and detailed information I've grown to expect from at least it's not HPaq (and let me tell you about life at the Tandy service center and what quality compaq built into the first Pentium boxes... no CPU cooling, just a cardboard baffle from PSU to CPU heatsink... a real class act and nice to see HP sink to such standards... paint cow spots on their stuff next...)
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/insp560mt/en/cs/cs_en.pdf
There's a pic somewhere that's no more informative really but in the course of adding decent Vid and a new PSU to drive it I was looking at my options for additional fans and one thing I noticed was...

Processor fan one 4-pin connector
Chassis fan one 3-pin connector
Front USB connector three 9-pin connectors

Now I'm reasonably sure that any additional cooling will have to run off the PSU but those 9-pin USB conn's... only 2 are used... one is open
It so happens I have an old serial port... mounted on a expansion knockout with a cable link that just so happens to be 9-pin...
Yes I know the USB to Serial adapters are cheep and probably the way to do this BUT, if memory serves serial outs @ under 8V with USB outting @ roughly half that... and pinout 5 is ground for both I believe but this falls squarely into the "just enough knowledge to be dangerous" section of my understanding and I'm interested in learning more about just how much of a fools errand I'm speculating on here... I don't believe I can cook her via this Doc Frank and his Abby Normal brain machinations but then again... ask not for whom the Dell tolls eh? The post test beeps at thee, or more accurately me, just as it has once or twice, twice... oh, make it three times a lady and she's just waiting to catch the errors in my addition
But I have an old Felix Puck (Altra Super Pointer) cursor "rodent" I'm eyeing with an eye toward full functionality again after success with some simple driver "modification" to get full function outta my Play Station/PS2 USB dongle
Hubris, thou art a harsh mistress... why couldn't you also passed me by like your sisters Fame and Fortune?
... also while I'm here... anyone out in the electronic aether able to speak to me of a Power Macintosh/PC 6100/66? Dual processors, a Mac & a PC?!?

 

[jsc]

If you are asking: "Can I use a 9 pin serial header and back panel i/o port with a motherboard USB header?", the answer is , "No."

The signaling protocols are different. USB uses a duplex (bidirectional) line switching between 5 volts and 0 volts. RS-232 is simplex (separate receive and transmit) switching between +/- 12 volts. An RS-232 peripheral will probably fry your motherboard.

 

[MaouTsaou]

Doah!
Well... I know your supposed to be willing to appear foolish and silly in the pursuit of knowledge but stultus est sicut stultus facit and there may be no stupid questions but that doesn't cover the fool asking the question now does it?
I may as well have bemoaned the fact that I can't seem to get any of my old parallel printers to go off a serial conn...
Still... stultior stulto fuisti, qui tabellis crederes, as the deeper question here now becomes, just how is it done w/adapters?
Don't they run virtual 232's?
http://www.hw-group.com/products/hw_vsp/index_en.html
Now I'm not trying to be a smart tuckius here but it seems to me the protocols...
12 volts?
Hummm, my Felix cursor runs at 5 volts off the serial... I wonder where the drivers are?
I still wanna scratch a bit deeper with this... not that I'm not sure your correct Sir but something keeps niggl;ing at the back of my skull over this...