3.0 header to 2.0 front pannet

[agentspa2]

hi, i got a new motherboard and it only has usb 3.0 headers on it, my case is the haf 932 and it only has usb 2.0 in the front panel, is there an adapter that will covert the usb 3.0 header to 2.0 so i can have the front panel usb working?

 

[mavroxur]

I've never seen a single adapter to do this, even though it's relatively straight-forward. But you could use this

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Internal-to-external-USB-cable-USB-A-to-5-way-header-/230853107801?pt=UK_Computing_USB_Cables&hash=item35bfeae059


in conjunction with this

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2Port-USB-3-0A-Female-to-20-Pin-Header-Motherboard-Cable-Internal-Connection-brz-/261100301536?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3ccaca6ce0


And it'd work. You'd just need to order 2 of the first item, and one of the second, and plug it all together, but i've never seen a one piece adapter to go that direction. Usually these days it's the other way around.

 

[s3anister]

If you have an internal USB 3.0 cable of your own you could cut off the internal USB 2.0 header and re-wire the USB 2.0 cable to the USB 3.0 cable by reusing the USB 3.0's header (and a portion of its cabling.

This would work because the USB 3.0 cable/connectors still have the four wires that USB 2.0 uses to transfer power and data.

If you are going to attempt this I would suggest soldering the wires together and using shrink wrap on each individual wire and then a larger tube of shrink wrap to cover the four individual shrink-wrapped wires. If you don't have access to soldering equipment and/or shrink wrap you could twist the wires together and then use electrical tape to protect the exposed copper wire but you want to absolutely make sure that no bare wire is exposed anywhere otherwise you risk injury to yourself/others or serious damage to your computer/data.

Wiring diagrams for USB 2.0/3.0 can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB

 

[mavroxur]

I just recommended the two cables so he could just plug and go, without soldering. But you're correct, he could cut off the plug and do some splicing, but things like that are beyond the technical ability of most people.