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Tom's Hardware > Forum > Motherboards & Memory > Motherboards > USB HEADER DILEMMA - Chieftec HM-02B HTPC Case with LLano A8-3850

USB HEADER DILEMMA - Chieftec HM-02B HTPC Case with LLano A8-3850

Forum Motherboards & Memory : Motherboards USB HEADER DILEMMA - Chieftec HM-02B HTPC Case with LLano A8-3850

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So i went out a couple of years ago and spent around $300 on a HTPC Case (Chieftec HiFi HM-02B) http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews [...] es_HM_02B/ I love absolutely everything about the case and here is my dilemma, i had a motherboard going on the fritz and it was just not worth the hassle so i decided to check out a Fusion based FM1 Configuration. I picked up the following:

AMD A8-3850 Llano 2.9GHz http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819103942
GIGABYTE GA-A75M-D2H http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128517
Muskin DDR3 8GB (2x4GB) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820226178

So i think that i'm bummed about my decision or i need to miraculously discover a mfg defect with this motherboard because $20 more i could've had a full ATX board. This is the first MicroATX Motherboard and how wonderful, it has USB2.0 and USB3.0 ports on the back, but inside there is only a single USB Header. I have the full 9-pin (2rows of 5 with one blank in a corner) for a front USB port/Card Reader and then a 5-pin port for the wonderful VFD Screen which with along the look of a real home theater Receiver, is the main reasons i initially chose this case. So what i'm wondering is this: Do i try to carefully pull the pins out of both of these devices, and combine them into a single 9-pin header? or do they make a small Internal USB Header "Y" or Splitter? I would much rather go this route than to potentially mess up the cables, shortening them if not destroying them. Any ideas/recommendations greatly appreciated!

Thank You in advance,

And for anyone reading this, trying to decide on a Llano based system, i absolutely LOVE it. I "upgraded" a Phenom Tri Core 8650 with Geforce 8500 on Asus M2n32-SLI-Premium with this and dont know what official benchmarks would show but i absolutely cannot feel a difference in power. Its definitely not slower and possibly faster in many aspects. I even tossed my Vertex2 120GB SSD in to use as a boot drive to speed things up a bit

Reply to jgutz2006
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The 'simplest' is to exchange for a GA-A75M-UD2H with 2 USB 2.0 Headers both are mATX. The Chieftec HiFi HM-02B requires an mATX MOBO and at least what I briefly read 5 seconds stated 'M-ATX.'

GA-A75M-UD2H -> http://www.gigabyte.us/products/pr [...] id=3928#sp
2 x USB 2.0/1.1 headers
1 x USB 3.0/2.0 header

GA-A75M-D2H -> http://www.gigabyte.us/products/pr [...] id=3930#sp
1 x USB 2.0/1.1 header
1 x USB 3.0/2.0 header

Side-by-Side -> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 128-517-TS

Reply to jaquith

I know the other models would actually help me out, not too much more to get it accomplished either, newegg is great with returns/exchanges but not really sure if they are as helpful when its just for the hell of it, which is why i wanted to see if there were any companies who make splitters or "Y"s for headers before i went down that road

Reply to jgutz2006

You'd need a USB HUB, or another USB Card with a 'header' e.g. -> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6815124047

Reply to jaquith

You could get a cheap PCI USB add on card that gives you another internal header. One like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6815166001

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Reply to rwpritchett
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