Front Panel Connections

[Guest]

Okay, here I am building my first computer from scratch. I'm at the point where I'm connecting the front panel wires to the motherboard: power switch, power led, hdd led, speaker. But I'm sure I recall a technician warning me about getting the polarity of thew power switch reversed by accident, saying that if you power it up wrong, you could fry the whole board. Is this true? I'm using the Iwill KK266R mobo and can't find anything in the manual to clarify the ambiguity. How can I be sure I've got it connected correctly?

Thanks, yoda-type people,

Jianju

"If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes."

 

[dmcmahon]

Hopefully someone with more expertise will respond. I can tell you from experience that the polarity matters for the LEDs because one side is ground, and if you get them wrong, which I did, the system still works, but the lights don't work. After discovering this, I switched 'em, and it worked fine. I'm not certain but I believe that the polarity might not matter on the speaker. Again, if it does matter, I believe the worst that happens is that it doesn't work, and you can power down and switch it. But unlike an LED, which is an actual logic element, a speaker might not care which side is ground, it just cares about a varying voltage across the coil, if you see what I mean. But then again, with my stereo, there is a definite polarity and if you hook them up backwards, they don't work (but they don't blow up, either). Anyway my speaker worked the first time, which might just have been luck. OK, now the power switch. According to the person I consulted when I was at the same point you were (cursing the @#$%ing piss-poor documentation and poorly-labeled wires), the power switch is just a momentary-contact switch that in effect shorts the two wires together and then opens the contact again. According to him, the polarity shouldn't matter. Again, I can't swear to it, I just hooked it up at random (like the speaker) and it worked the first time.

 

[Raskall]

I've built more computers than I can count and I've never fried a board by pluggin the LED cables in backwards... If you know it's in the right place and it doesn't work right the first time, like he said, just turn it around and you should be good to go.
Take care
Jason

 

[Guest]

I don't believe the power switches are momentary contact. I think they latch their value somehow. In this case it would matter which way you hook them up but I agree that it wouldn't cause damage. In my experience, the wires have never been labeled in any way. But it always seems that one wire is either white or black and the other is a color (red,green, etc). Following the mobo's manual, hooking b/w wire to power/ground pin and the colored wire to the signal pin has always worked for me.

 

[Unolocogringo]

The power switch on a atx setup is an allways open switch.When you push the button it closes, when you let go it opens.IT does not matter which way it is plugged in.The LEDs do matter ,if plugged in backwards they just don't work. You will not blow them up.The speaker will work either way,but you will get better tonal quality if its polarity is correct.(who cares with todays systems. All the speaker does is beep.)

I aint signing nothing!!!