Help with Chaintech system

[Dan81]

Okay.I've got here a old Chaintech MPM800-000LE motherboard.I don't know what CPU it has.All good and nice,hooked most of the cables up....except the front panel.It doesn't write anywhere how to wire it up.Anybody can help me?
Sorry if I posted in wrong section.

[c_hegge]

Re: Help with Chaintech system

Can you post a picture of it? especially the front panel connector. There don't seem to be any decent pictures of it anywhere on the web.

[Dan81]

Re: Help with Chaintech system

The front panel that I can't wire is next to the IDE ports in the bottom right corner.I am searching a manual to check the wires,even though I don't have any luck.Sadly I don't have any camera

[tron]

Re: Help with Chaintech system

http://images.highspeedbackbone.net/...6-out12-hl.jpg

at lower right, below the two vertical IDE slots?

[Dan81]

Re: Help with Chaintech system

Yes.Right there.
I noticed the only difference between my board and the one in the picture is that mine uses a VT8235 chipsed,so the SATA ports are missing.

[momaka]

Re: Help with Chaintech system

If the front panel connector looked like this:
http://attachments.techguy.org/attac...nel-pinout.gif
then it probably has that standard pinout too. But on that picture above, it seems your motherboard uses a larger front panel connector, so it may be different.

I also found this, but it's for an Asus A8V motherboard, so it may be different too. Before even trying to wire up your front panel like the above diagram, I would strongly suggest you first use a multimeter to see if at least all of the ground pins match with the diagram above. If they don't it's probably a different pinout.

And if you really can't find a manual (at least I couldn't), you can always try to take some resistance and voltage measurements with a multimeter to determine the more basic stuff such as the PWR switch.

To do this, first disconnect motherboard from PSU and check which pins are directly connected to ground. Use multimeter's resistance setting on lowest scale (200 Ohms for most manual multimeters) and see which pins give a low resistance measurement to ground. Or, alternatively, you can use the continuity/diode test ("beep") function to see which pins are connected to ground. Make a diagram and note the ground pins on it.

Next, plug in the PSU and plug the PSU in the wall. Now check which pins have 5V and again make note of that on your diagram. Finally, take a resistor between 100 and 1000 Ohms and start shorting to ground each of the pins that has 5V on it (do it one by one). One of them should make the computer turn ON. This would be where you connect your power switch.

Reset, power LED, and HDD LED are a little more tricky. After you have found the power switch, you need to turn ON the motherboard. After this, note which pins on the front panel have 5V that did not previously have 5V on them with the PSU plugged in. These are all possible candidates for the Reset switch, power LED, and HDD LED. Again, use the 100 to 1000 Ohm resistor and short each pin that has 5V to ground with it. The one that makes the motherboard reset is the Reset switch.

Finally, the HDD LED and PWR LED. These are the trickiest of all. You're looking for pins that have 5V on them when the PC is ON and 0V when the PC is OFF. In addition, you have to make sure these pins are not directly connected to the 5V rail or 5VSB rail. Also, the pin for the HDD LED *may* go to 0V after the PC has been turned ON for a while. With this information, you can hook up some LEDs to the pins that match this criteria. But make sure to put a resistor of at least a 470 Ohm or higher in series with the LED to prevent damage (both to LED and motherboard) should those pins be used for something else.
Unfortunately, the only way you will know if you have the HDD LED hooker properly is once you hook up an optical drive or an HDD to the motherboard and start reading data from it. Before that, the LED may just stay ON flat, or it may turn OFF and remain OFF after POST. Once you have found the HDD LED, you can remove the series resistor from it (though it's not necessary, if you're happy with the brightness of the HDD LED, which may be reduced from that resistor).

[Dan81]

Re: Help with Chaintech system

Well,neither your first picture and the A8V pinout you gave work,as my MPM800 has a gap in the bottom right of the panel.I found a manual finally right now,attached is the pinout of the board.