Recently purchased, for a very minimal sum, an Asus ROG Strix GD30CI demo case. Initially thought there was no connectors in it, but, all the front panel connectors are there. That’s the good. Bad: Somehow, ASUS had these connecting to the motherboard via 4 specially marked SATA ports. Anyone seen this before/know of possible adapters? Or am I going to be practicing my soldering skills? So far no luck on google/ebay/ASUS website. Am I wrong in thinking these wouldn’t work in just a normal SATA port? My research so far shows they wouldn’t. Thank you for any help.
In uncovering the daughter board with the connectors on it, they were under a metal box fastened with screws on the case, the connections are SATA on that end too. Including a picture for reference showing the connector on the daughter board.
Do you have any pictures? It’s not uncommon for prebuilt PCs to come with non-standard connectors. You mention that the one end has SATA-like connectors (I would sure hope they are keyed differently), but what about the other end? If it has standard USB and audio headers on the other end then you may be able to find generic case cables of an appropriate length.
Soldering practice isn’t a bad thing. After I got better at it I have found myself using it very frequently. I would stagger all of the joints as opposed to cutting them the same length and having a massively pregnant cable trying to keep the connections from shorting out.
In uncovering the daughter board with the connectors on it, they were under a metal box fastened with screws on the case, the connections are SATA on that end too. Including a picture for reference showing the connector on the daughter board.
I have literally only seen very general reviews of the pc this was a case for. No tear downs or specifics on the internals. i was quite surprised to see these connectors. I did find 1 motherboard from one of these pcs on ebay, that’s how i know more about the connectors on the motherboard side of things.
I’m having the exact same issue with my GD30ci. I recently upgraded to a MSI MAG b550 Tomahawk and cant get my front panel working. Any progress or parts that you might have found to make this work? This is driving me mad!
I’m having a similar issue, but I actually have the motherboard so I can provide some more info.
I’m trying to connect standard USB wires from my new case front panel to my ASUS prebuilt motherboard but the motherboard only has the 4 sata ports used to connect to that old front panel.
On the motherboard here, you can see where the sata wires connect to, its 4 sata ports labeled U31_CON1 & U31_CON2:
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And on the front panel, at least on my old case, the usb ports seem to be powered separately using separate power pins, so may not be something like eSata: (see top-left
I honestly have no idea if these are standard in any way shape or form, any ideas on how to connect standard usb wires to the sata ports on the mobo is appreciated (but not sure if it’s even possible).
hi there! those connections are for the front panel USB 3. hook them up according to the labels on the mini board to the mobo. Just hook the 3 color coded mini wires (red, yellow, black) to any molex using an adapter (or make one male molex connector) to power the USB 3 ports. cheers!
