[fastloudguitar]

I ordered a replacement motherboard for a dell dimension 4550. The board looks identical to the factory board EXCEPT a place to hook up a white connector that comes from the front panel where the USB port on the front is and I'm assuming that it is wired to the power switch on the front as well. In similar Dells I have seen this connector hooked up to a Sound Blaster sound card. There is no place on the board to plug in this connector. How can I get around this? I took a sound card out of a different Dell and tried to hook it up that way but the PC still would not boot. Any help would be appreciated.

[Advertisements]

What is the model number on the motherboard? Did it come with a manual? Usually the manual will indicate the location for the usual computer case connectors such as power buttons, internal speaker, upfront ports. The motherboards connector will usually look like a bunch of color coded pins sticking upward, and the case will usualy have a handfull of wires with plastic little connectors with holes for the pins to go in, usually they are labled like "power sw", "reset sw", "spkr", "usb1", "usb2" or something of the like. You need to have the power switch plugged into the right pins for the computer to start up, the others are not required to power the computer. If any, the connector for soundcards would be like a 4-pin connector labled "cd-rom" or "aux" or "line" that would be connected to the back of an optical drive because in the "old-days" you would insert a cd in your drive and it would decode the audio right there and send it directly to your sound card. I would just try looking for something labled "power" and consult the manual of the motherboard to find where to plug it in.

[Thebinaryman]

What is the model number on the motherboard? Did it come with a manual? Usually the manual will indicate the location for the usual computer case connectors such as power buttons, internal speaker, upfront ports. The motherboards connector will usually look like a bunch of color coded pins sticking upward, and the case will usualy have a handfull of wires with plastic little connectors with holes for the pins to go in, usually they are labled like "power sw", "reset sw", "spkr", "usb1", "usb2" or something of the like. You need to have the power switch plugged into the right pins for the computer to start up, the others are not required to power the computer. If any, the connector for soundcards would be like a 4-pin connector labled "cd-rom" or "aux" or "line" that would be connected to the back of an optical drive because in the "old-days" you would insert a cd in your drive and it would decode the audio right there and send it directly to your sound card. I would just try looking for something labled "power" and consult the manual of the motherboard to find where to plug it in.

[fastloudguitar]

Unfortunately there is no manual for the motherboard and I can't find the schematics on Dell's website. The connector that I'm speaking of isn't the cd in or aux in 4 pin connector, it is a female connector that hooks onto a 9 pin receptacle on the factory board. The mobo model number is 6u214 according to the reseller. The board also has the number E210882 on it which matches the stock board.

[dsenette]

this board is actually an intel D865GLC (theoretically...through my research...though...when entering E210882 on the intell site..you get afew odd hits...mostly fcc compliance documentation but i did find the d865glc info on another site...someone asking a similar question to yours)
here is a manual for the board i th ink y ou have

http://cache-www.int...20762_20762.pdf

[fastloudguitar]

I see what the issue is now....it is indeed to the soundcard. The factory board had sound on board and the replacement doesn't. Thanks for all the help.

[dsenette]

that shouldn't cause the machine not to boot..

[fastloudguitar]

I know...there must be another issue

[fastloudguitar]

four beeps a pause and then two more beeps when you power it on now and all the drives and power to them are disconnected, tried reseating the memory and cpu and got the same thing

[Tyger]

The ATX connector for the power supply is configured ever so slightly different for Dells than for standard ATX. If you go to the Dell website for your model information it should tell you what the pinouts are for your machine. You can either switch to a plain ATX supply or extract the pins that are changed, from the connector, and rearrange them to the ATX configuration. I know that I can do that for my Dell machine, so I hope you can for yours.

[dsenette]

the dell website has absolutley no information for this board....all the info is on the intel site...

[fastloudguitar]

I've tried switching the power supply out with a new echo star ATX and you get the same result. The only things i can come up with since all the peripherals are disconnected is A) the memory is fried or B) the cpu is bad

Edited by fastloudguitar, 22 November 2005 - 04:17 PM.

[Tyger]

the dell website has absolutley no information for this board....all the info is on the intel site...

That's right, but it will tell you how the power supply is configured for the old board, which may well be part of the problem.