asus p4p800 deluxe usb/firewire question

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Upon my recommendation, one of my friends bought a new P4P800 deluxe
motherboard to upgrade his system. Last night he called me to tell me
that the front USB connectors did not work.

When I took a look at his machine this morning, he had connected the
Firewire cable to the USB connector. I switched the cables around and
the front USB ports now works fine.

His concern afterwards is that the P4P800 deluxe manual says that
connecting a firewire cable to the motherboards usb connectors will
damage the motherboard.

Am I correct in presuming that because the firewire cable that had
been mistakenly connected to the usb connector on the motherboard
never had a device connected to it is the reason the motherboard was
not damaged?

I'm guess that if he had plugged a firewire device into it that it
would have shorted out because usb and firewire use a different
pin-layout.

Pete

 

[HoldenMcGroin]

If it was an adaptor, then the pin layout differences would have been taken into account. The damage would have come from power constraints and clock speeds.