Question and Answers

Motherboard Power - Help!? - Allen I'm pretty sure I have the LED and power switch cords hooked up to the motherboard correctly - but in case I don't and I do turn it on - could it fry? If not what's the worst that could happen? I have an Intel (I believe it's Intel) ATA 100 motherboard. (They are the plugs labeled power led, HDD led, M/D switch, etc.)

Best Answer: Not much would happen. The power through those pins is an extreme safe low voltage as they hook up to buttons that the user will be touching. The worst case scenario is you've hooked up an led to the reset switch as soon as you turn the system on it refuses to boot as it'll be locked in a reset cycle. Keep in mind that the power switch and reset switch aren't too bothered about getting the plug on the board the right way round (In effect there's no + or -), but the led's are specific. If an led doesn't light up then just try turning the plug on the board 180 degrees and putting it back on the same pins. If you're that worried then look in your motherboard manual (if you havn't got a physical one then download the pdf version from the manufacturer) for the pin out diagram for the front panel header. --------- Edit: mi deng - Whatever you did wrong it wasn't to do with the front panel headers. You must have screwed up somewhere else hooking the board up because there's no way hooking a front panel header up wrong could blow up the power supply. Stop making something so small seem so dangerous. Actually the front panel header doesn't send any signal to the PSU. The PSU powers up a small part of the board as soon as the power is on (hence how a computer can suspend to ram with an ATX power supply) The ATX power supply receives a power good signal from the board and so long as that signal is constant the PSU will stay powered up. In your thought process you'd have to hold the power switch in to keep the power good signal constant. The ATX power supply is controlled by a small controller on the mainboard NOT the front panel header. Shorting out led pins on the front panel header will have absolutely no effect especially if the board isn't fully powered up, trust me I do know as I've done it several times when wet testing boards that have been sitting on a non conductive mat out of a normal computer case. - Ebilan

the worst that cud happen is you'll not be able to turn you pc on using ur power button nothing will fry - Gigg G

Just check with a manual or something to make sure... a lot of things can go wrong if they're hooked up incorrectly. For me, when I connected the power switch to 2 incorrect pins (was in a hurry), the power supply literally exploded when I pushed the power button. All I heard was a loud "BOOM" and smoke started coming out so I shut off the power strip. The computer was fine actually, but I just tossed the power supply because I was kind of scared to test something that had smoke coming out of it. Good thing it was a fairly old PSU. My guess is the others are just talking out of experience and really don't know much. I'm not making this up. Why don't you guys test it then, huh? It's a very small issue right? Try connecting the power switch to incorrect combination of pins and pressing the button. I'm pretty sure you'll damage something and I'm also pretty sure no one will care to try because in most people's 'experiences', if they haven't seen it then it's presumably false anyway. Also, how it it unrelated? The front panel connectors is the ONLY part that sends the signal to power on the PSU. - mi deng

Ah yes. I remember freaking out when I did my first one! The worst that can happen is that the pc won't switch on. Honest. Make sure that the motherboard is on the mounts, though (the little hexagon shaped screws). If any part of the motherboard is touching metal, then it WILL fry. Well, short out anyway. Then hold you breath and turn the power button on! :) - Triodz

If you dont hook up the power LED wires, the worse that can happen is the light for the power LED wont light up .. Some cases dont have these wires.... It wont damage your computer If you hook up the power switch wrong, it just wont turn on.. - Wartai

Report Abuse

Best Answers are selected by the person who asked the question or other Yahoo! users. Find out more at Yahoo! Answers.