Broken SATA plug on motherboard

I wanted to add a second hard drive to my computer. It's an older
desktop, but works well using XP. When I looked inside, I found the
plastic housing around the second SATA plug is gone. (This is the Data
cable plug). The metal pins are still there, sticking out of the
m-board.

I've dont a lot of soldering of electronics, but I dont know where I'd
buy a replacement. Then again, if I take one off a junked m-board, is it
really necessary to solder in a whole new plug, or can I just slip the
plastic housing over those metal pins, and glue it to the board?

I've also thought about just putting a cable onto the pins, and gluing
it on permanently with a large blob of silicone.

I have no idea how this broke. I bought the computer second hand, so
someone in the past must have done this.

I suppose my other option is to just replace the current HDD with a
larger one, or add a PATA (IDE) drive, since there is a connector for
that too.

Has anyone ever run across this rather unusual problem?

On Mon, 16 Oct 2017 06:52:06 -0500, wrote:

Has anyone ever run across this rather unusual problem?

I'd go with the mickey-mousing some sort of securement needed to hold
the connects, from the contacts on the MB to the SATA cable.

Even if you need to be careful of a stopgap fix, perhaps to lay the
MB/case flat. Provided the connects remain consistently secure;-
intermittent, a loose cable, for data transfers is corruption and
unacceptable.

Whatever you decide on, first pull the MB to get in there under a good
magnifier and lighting;- I've a thick x30-jewler's glass from the Hong
Kong market. Great for stuff like that. Strong Cree flashlites and
clamp-on lighting. Perhaps isolate and put the MB on a towel while
working on it.

Study it, what's broken on the surrounding casing, and less about your
electronic's "expertise". Respect the MB's more delicate aspects.

Think it through: the web search engines. Other people should have as
well tackled that problem, and can talk through their fixes, perhaps
with pictures to accompany a procedure. You may even find such ideas
for a departure point of your own, depending on a uniqueness to the
fix.

Going back to a parallel, buying a larger HDD - because of what you're
describing - is plain dumb. Fix it yourself. If it doesn't want to
be fixed, curse at it and then fix it anyway.

Still stuck? If you've got a spare PCI slot ... there are PCI HDD
controllers - cheap, too, if lucky with the right brand/drivers. Be
tempting to check glues, super-glue a cable permanently to the
residual mating if things got that exasperating.

wrote:
I wanted to add a second hard drive to my computer. It's an older
desktop, but works well using XP. When I looked inside, I found the
plastic housing around the second SATA plug is gone. (This is the Data
cable plug). The metal pins are still there, sticking out of the
m-board.

I've dont a lot of soldering of electronics, but I dont know where I'd
buy a replacement. Then again, if I take one off a junked m-board, is it
really necessary to solder in a whole new plug, or can I just slip the
plastic housing over those metal pins, and glue it to the board?

I've also thought about just putting a cable onto the pins, and gluing
it on permanently with a large blob of silicone.

I have no idea how this broke. I bought the computer second hand, so
someone in the past must have done this.

I suppose my other option is to just replace the current HDD with a
larger one, or add a PATA (IDE) drive, since there is a connector for
that too.

Has anyone ever run across this rather unusual problem?


I don't think it's an unusual problem.

There were some first-generation vertical connectors, where
some dumb-ass *forgot* to put a retention feature on the
plastic shell, to hold it to the PCB. The only thing holding
it in place, is the seven wires themselves.

I got one report from someone who had a brand new motherboard
with one of those, and they managed to rip the SATA connector
off it, right away.

Such a connector might have been marginally acceptable, with
the first generation SATA cables that didn't "pinch" the connector
shell. Once the industry figured out "oopsie, these SATA cables
keep falling off the back of the drive", then the second
generation of SATA cables implemented retention as a pinching
action of the connector aperture. The third-generation added
a metal "jaw" and release clip, so that there would be positive
retention and the appearance of a mechanism that was under
user control. (Press the metal finger release, and the jaw
lets go.)

So for the small number of first generation SATA boards, the
boards that had two SATA connectors, yes, a lot of those will
get ripped off. It's just a matter of time, and usage of
any sort of modern cable. In the same year, other manufacturers
managed to make connectors with plastic pins on the end, which
could be swaged into the PCB with a hot iron, to hold them
in place. Not all the SATA connector makers were that dumb.

If you go to repair it, you're not likely to have any means
to retain a modern connector (there won't be any holes in the
PCB for retention pins). You might even have to *file off*
the retention features, to make it fit your PCB. You could try
solder plus epoxy glue, but that (obviously) isn't maintainable
if you need to do it a second time. You'd have to Dremel the glue
off, with some risk to the rest of the PCB, if it needed to be
soldered a second time.

You can get a plugin card, as a workaround. The selection
of plugin cards is not great now, so you won't have the
same wide selection that was available at one time. It's OK
for people with PCI Express x1 slots on their board, as cards
for that are available. My computer store had a small collection
of those when I needed a couple PCI Express boards this summer.
But for the PCI ones, with maybe a VIA chip on it, you may not
have a lot of choices.

With regard to VIA, I hope by now all the less-capable VIA chips
are out of circulation. My Asrock board with the 8237S, the letter
"S" indicated the chip was "fixed" for SATA II. It meant my
Southbridge could auto-negotiate with a SATA II drive, and still
run at SATA I like it was supposed to. The SATA interface is supposed
to be backward compatible. But in the case of the VIA chip, it could
not "withstand" the presence of SATA II or SATA III drives, and would
not negotiate properly. Using the Force150 jumper on the back of a
SATA II drive, and forcing it to SATA I rates, would work. Unfortunately,
another industry booboo, was having SATA III drives only drop to
SATA II rates, when the Force jumper was in place. Somebody "forgot"
that the only bug out there, was with SATA I chips, and consequently,
they should have made SATA III drives drop to SATA I rates to cover
this "bug". It means you cannot connect a SATA III drive to an early
VIA SATA I chip, and have it work (with or without the Force jumper
installed).

VIA fixed some of their stock, but you would be advised to check the
history of your plugin PCI card with VIA chip, to make sure it's one
that handles SATA II "a little bit". Other brands of chip are not likely
to have this problem - but there aren't a lot of other brands left
for the PCI bus...

My PCI Express x1 card uses an Asmedia chip, but Asmedia would not
have a lot of reason to make a PCI version. Intel made PCI obsolete,
by removing the PCI interface from modern Southbridges. Which
reduces the market opportunities for any company making PCI
add-in cards. So if you're wondering why there aren't a lot
of PCI cards left, that's one of the reasons.

If a modern motherboard maker wants to have a PCI slot,
they still can. Bridge chips are readily available, to convert
a PCI Express x1 lane into a PCI bus. And because a lot of
the bridges are bidirectional, you can take an Asmedia PCI Express
x1 chip for SATA, connect it to a bridge chip, and use it with
a PCI slot computer. But again, they don't sell a lot of PCI card
designs like that ("bridged"), and any company that did that, generally
retired from the market after their first batch of cards
did not sell. Only the card types with the very highest
sales figures, seem to survive.

Paul

On Mon, 16 Oct 2017 08:53:34 -0400, Paul wrote:

wrote:
I wanted to add a second hard drive to my computer. It's an older
desktop, but works well using XP. When I looked inside, I found the
plastic housing around the second SATA plug is gone. (This is the Data
cable plug). The metal pins are still there, sticking out of the
m-board.

I've dont a lot of soldering of electronics, but I dont know where I'd
buy a replacement. Then again, if I take one off a junked m-board, is it
really necessary to solder in a whole new plug, or can I just slip the
plastic housing over those metal pins, and glue it to the board?

I've also thought about just putting a cable onto the pins, and gluing
it on permanently with a large blob of silicone.

I have no idea how this broke. I bought the computer second hand, so
someone in the past must have done this.

I suppose my other option is to just replace the current HDD with a
larger one, or add a PATA (IDE) drive, since there is a connector for
that too.

Has anyone ever run across this rather unusual problem?


I don't think it's an unusual problem.

There were some first-generation vertical connectors, where
some dumb-ass *forgot* to put a retention feature on the
plastic shell, to hold it to the PCB. The only thing holding
it in place, is the seven wires themselves.

I got one report from someone who had a brand new motherboard
with one of those, and they managed to rip the SATA connector
off it, right away.

Such a connector might have been marginally acceptable, with
the first generation SATA cables that didn't "pinch" the connector
shell. Once the industry figured out "oopsie, these SATA cables
keep falling off the back of the drive", then the second
generation of SATA cables implemented retention as a pinching
action of the connector aperture. The third-generation added
a metal "jaw" and release clip, so that there would be positive
retention and the appearance of a mechanism that was under
user control. (Press the metal finger release, and the jaw
lets go.)

So for the small number of first generation SATA boards, the
boards that had two SATA connectors, yes, a lot of those will
get ripped off. It's just a matter of time, and usage of
any sort of modern cable. In the same year, other manufacturers
managed to make connectors with plastic pins on the end, which
could be swaged into the PCB with a hot iron, to hold them
in place. Not all the SATA connector makers were that dumb.

If you go to repair it, you're not likely to have any means
to retain a modern connector (there won't be any holes in the
PCB for retention pins). You might even have to *file off*
the retention features, to make it fit your PCB. You could try
solder plus epoxy glue, but that (obviously) isn't maintainable
if you need to do it a second time. You'd have to Dremel the glue
off, with some risk to the rest of the PCB, if it needed to be
soldered a second time.

You can get a plugin card, as a workaround. The selection
of plugin cards is not great now, so you won't have the
same wide selection that was available at one time. It's OK
for people with PCI Express x1 slots on their board, as cards
for that are available. My computer store had a small collection
of those when I needed a couple PCI Express boards this summer.
But for the PCI ones, with maybe a VIA chip on it, you may not
have a lot of choices.

With regard to VIA, I hope by now all the less-capable VIA chips
are out of circulation. My Asrock board with the 8237S, the letter
"S" indicated the chip was "fixed" for SATA II. It meant my
Southbridge could auto-negotiate with a SATA II drive, and still
run at SATA I like it was supposed to. The SATA interface is supposed
to be backward compatible. But in the case of the VIA chip, it could
not "withstand" the presence of SATA II or SATA III drives, and would
not negotiate properly. Using the Force150 jumper on the back of a
SATA II drive, and forcing it to SATA I rates, would work. Unfortunately,
another industry booboo, was having SATA III drives only drop to
SATA II rates, when the Force jumper was in place. Somebody "forgot"
that the only bug out there, was with SATA I chips, and consequently,
they should have made SATA III drives drop to SATA I rates to cover
this "bug". It means you cannot connect a SATA III drive to an early
VIA SATA I chip, and have it work (with or without the Force jumper
installed).

VIA fixed some of their stock, but you would be advised to check the
history of your plugin PCI card with VIA chip, to make sure it's one
that handles SATA II "a little bit". Other brands of chip are not likely
to have this problem - but there aren't a lot of other brands left
for the PCI bus...

My PCI Express x1 card uses an Asmedia chip, but Asmedia would not
have a lot of reason to make a PCI version. Intel made PCI obsolete,
by removing the PCI interface from modern Southbridges. Which
reduces the market opportunities for any company making PCI
add-in cards. So if you're wondering why there aren't a lot
of PCI cards left, that's one of the reasons.

If a modern motherboard maker wants to have a PCI slot,
they still can. Bridge chips are readily available, to convert
a PCI Express x1 lane into a PCI bus. And because a lot of
the bridges are bidirectional, you can take an Asmedia PCI Express
x1 chip for SATA, connect it to a bridge chip, and use it with
a PCI slot computer. But again, they don't sell a lot of PCI card
designs like that ("bridged"), and any company that did that, generally
retired from the market after their first batch of cards
did not sell. Only the card types with the very highest
sales figures, seem to survive.

Paul

I dont know if this is SATA 1 2 or 3. How can I tell?
This is the first and only computer I have owned with SATA drives. All
my older ones had IDE drives.

I dont really know the age of this one either, but a google search
brought up a manual and its dated 2008.
http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWebSite/Pro....aspx?DetailID
=847&CategoryID=1&DetailName=Feature&MenuID=24&Lan ID=0

Since the computer is open, I jotted down the motherboard info.
This is what it is:
ECS ALIVE6100 VSTA V1.0 motherboard.

When I bought this used computer, I was told it was top of the line (at
it's time). It came with a 750gb HDD, which was (at that time) large.

All I know is that it's fast, and works well. (using XP Pro SP3).

There are no spare PCI slots, but there is a networking card that I
could remove since I dont use it. There is also some other card that I
dont know what it's for at all, it has two funny looking holes in it,
which are larger than USB, smaller than phone jacks.

By the way, the fan on the CPU is not plugged in. There is a plug for it
on the MB, but there is also a case fan right next to the CPU, and that
fan is plugged into that plug labeled "CPU FAN". That case fan seems to
be keeping it cool. That CPU fan has never been plugged in since I
bought this computer about 3 years ago. (I never opened the case till
now).

If I should run both fans, I guess all I can do is splice the wires from
both fans together.

wrote:


I dont know if this is SATA 1 2 or 3. How can I tell?
This is the first and only computer I have owned with SATA drives. All
my older ones had IDE drives.

I dont really know the age of this one either, but a google search
brought up a manual and its dated 2008.
http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWebSite/Pro....aspx?DetailID
=847&CategoryID=1&DetailName=Feature&MenuID=24&Lan ID=0

Since the computer is open, I jotted down the motherboard info.
This is what it is:
ECS ALIVE6100 VSTA V1.0 motherboard.

When I bought this used computer, I was told it was top of the line (at
it's time). It came with a 750gb HDD, which was (at that time) large.

All I know is that it's fast, and works well. (using XP Pro SP3).

There are no spare PCI slots, but there is a networking card that I
could remove since I dont use it. There is also some other card that I
dont know what it's for at all, it has two funny looking holes in it,
which are larger than USB, smaller than phone jacks.

By the way, the fan on the CPU is not plugged in. There is a plug for it
on the MB, but there is also a case fan right next to the CPU, and that
fan is plugged into that plug labeled "CPU FAN". That case fan seems to
be keeping it cool. That CPU fan has never been plugged in since I
bought this computer about 3 years ago. (I never opened the case till
now).

If I should run both fans, I guess all I can do is splice the wires from
both fans together.

OK, you can see in the picture, the board has room for four
SATA connectors, and only two connectors are populated. This
leaves the copper pads so we can look at them.

http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWebSite/Pro...uID=24&LanID=0

The pattern is seven electrical connections in the center,
plus two objects outside of those which are larger. Those two
objects retain the connector shell. So it does have retention,
and is not the "Bad" design.

If one of the two remaining SATA have been ripped off the board,
then someone must have been pretty strong :-)

For some reason, it almost looks like the design uses half
the I/O present on the chipset. Some Southbridges of that
era had four SATA and two IDE, for a total of eight hard drives.
That microATX board only has two SATA and one IDE. And they designed
the PCB with four SATA in mind, but then decided to only
populate two of the connectors.

It's an AMD motherboard. Socket 754, single memory bus off the CPU.
Having the memory bus off the CPU, made it a lot better than the
AthlonXP before it.

NVIDIA GeForce 6100/nForce 405

It's a single chip, with graphics and Southbridge interfaces.

You have a PCI Express x1 slot. So you *can* go to the store
and fit a two-port SATA card with an Asmedia chip if you want,
and then you can use any SATA you want.

The 405 should not have a problem with negotiation, so again,
if you had a SATA connector that was mechanically in good shape,
it should work with modern drives.

This page doesn't list the 405, but you can see from the
"pattern" of offerings, that different capabilities were
offered by each in the family. I expect the single chip
chipset was "pin-compatible", meaning with the one motherboard,
they could put a different chip on it as a function of price
(marketing).

http://www.nvidia.ca/page/gpu_mobo_tech_specs.html

SATA/PATA drives 4/4 2/4 2/2

4/4 = four SATA, two IDE
2/4 = two SATA, two IDE
2/2 = two SATA, one IDE

Your board could be using a 2/2 flavor of chip, and that's
why the other two connectors have no SATA on them. Even if
you soldered connectors to the two unused ports, they've
been electrically turned off by NVidia as part of their
clever marketing scheme.

Your expansion slots, from nearest the CPU socket are

PCI Express x16, wired for x16 (has 16 pairs of caps)
PCI Express x1 (short white connector)
PCI
PCI

The spec here, seems to indicate the 405 has x8 lanes for
video. Why would they waste caps on 16 pairs then ? Seems
a needless sham. You would have to look at your exact
motherboard, and see if eight of the cap sets were
removed, reflecting the real technical capability.
It's not important, except to verify that chip is actually
under the heatsink.

http://www.nvidia.com/page/gpumobo_6..._features.html

If you wanted to add a two port SATA card, it would
go into one of the two PCI Express slots. An x1 card
can work in an x16 slot (I've done it, for testing).

Yeah, a CPU cooling fan would be nice. There is what looks
like a four pin at the top of the CPU socket. I don't see
any other fan header on the motherboard! To run a second
fan, you'll have to run it off a Molex.

The CPU fan header should monitor RPMs, so normally a three
or four wire cable would be on the fan you've got at present.
Otherwise, the BIOS would start beeping, indicating fan
failure :-) If you plug a two wire fan into that CPU FAN
header, the BIOS should beep, because there's no RPM pulse
on the third (missing) wire.

When it comes to fans, Newegg is full of bad deals.
This is an example. A $10 fan for $46 dollars. LOL.
The non-Newegg sellers are scumbags.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...9SIA7HN50G6721

I picked that one, to show it has a Molex power connector.
The fan has two wires, +12V and GND, so the Molex only needs
two electrical connections. The 1x3 connector has a white
wire on that. You would connect that to a motherboard header
so RPMs on the fan could be monitored. Since you don't
have a CHASSIS header on your motherboard, that 1x3 would remain
unconnected. And then that fan could be used for CHASSIS
cooling. If you needed to replace your only fan, you could
put the 1x3 connector on the CPU FAN header, and still
connect the Molex to the power supply to get power. The
fan speed cannot be varied on that one, since it runs off
the power supply directly. Using the 1x3 connector with the
single white wire, on the CPU FAN header, would prevent the
BIOS from beeping.

But at $46, you'd be a fool to buy that particular fan.

Noctua makes some nice fans, in their trademark brown color.
There are enough products here, I would almost suspect some
shenanigans with counterfeits or something. To pick a fan,
you need some idea of size (80mm or 120mm), the CFM you'd
want (30-35CFM). Too low a CFM is a waste of money. Too
high of a CFM (110CFM) on an "ultra", is too noisy. They
come in "low", "medium", "high", "ultra". And a "medium"
is about the best choice from a noise perspective, and
will be in the 30-35CFM range. They come in 15mm thick (slim),
25mm thick (normal), 37.5mm (blower). I have a 37.5mm thick
one here, and it's 110CFM. I only use that with a reducer
connected to it, to drop the voltage it gets :-) I had
that fan on the Test PC, but had to remove it and put
a quieter fan in its place, as it was getting annoying.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...STMATCH&page=1

The biggest curse of fans today is... LEDS.

I got what I thought were two acceptable fans at my local
computer store, only to find when I took them out of the
package, then had blinding blue LEDs on them. Arggh!
The Noctua products are not known for "bling", so
you should be safe from LEDs with their products.

Paul

On Mon, 16 Oct 2017 14:20:20 -0400, Paul wrote:

wrote:

OK, you can see in the picture, the board has room for four
SATA connectors, and only two connectors are populated. This
leaves the copper pads so we can look at them.

http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWebSite/Pro...LLERY.aspx?Det
ailID=847&CategoryID=1&DetailName=Feature&MenuID=2 4&LanID=0

The pattern is seven electrical connections in the center,
plus two objects outside of those which are larger. Those two
objects retain the connector shell. So it does have retention,
and is not the "Bad" design.

If one of the two remaining SATA have been ripped off the board,
then someone must have been pretty strong :-)

For some reason, it almost looks like the design uses half
the I/O present on the chipset. Some Southbridges of that
era had four SATA and two IDE, for a total of eight hard drives.
That microATX board only has two SATA and one IDE. And they designed
the PCB with four SATA in mind, but then decided to only
populate two of the connectors.

It's an AMD motherboard. Socket 754, single memory bus off the CPU.
Having the memory bus off the CPU, made it a lot better than the
AthlonXP before it.

NVIDIA GeForce 6100/nForce 405

It's a single chip, with graphics and Southbridge interfaces.

You have a PCI Express x1 slot. So you *can* go to the store
and fit a two-port SATA card with an Asmedia chip if you want,
and then you can use any SATA you want.

The 405 should not have a problem with negotiation, so again,
if you had a SATA connector that was mechanically in good shape,
it should work with modern drives.

This page doesn't list the 405, but you can see from the
"pattern" of offerings, that different capabilities were
offered by each in the family. I expect the single chip
chipset was "pin-compatible", meaning with the one motherboard,
they could put a different chip on it as a function of price
(marketing).

http://www.nvidia.ca/page/gpu_mobo_tech_specs.html

SATA/PATA drives 4/4 2/4 2/2

4/4 = four SATA, two IDE
2/4 = two SATA, two IDE
2/2 = two SATA, one IDE

Your board could be using a 2/2 flavor of chip, and that's
why the other two connectors have no SATA on them. Even if
you soldered connectors to the two unused ports, they've
been electrically turned off by NVidia as part of their
clever marketing scheme.

Your expansion slots, from nearest the CPU socket are

PCI Express x16, wired for x16 (has 16 pairs of caps)
PCI Express x1 (short white connector)
PCI
PCI

The spec here, seems to indicate the 405 has x8 lanes for
video. Why would they waste caps on 16 pairs then ? Seems
a needless sham. You would have to look at your exact
motherboard, and see if eight of the cap sets were
removed, reflecting the real technical capability.
It's not important, except to verify that chip is actually
under the heatsink.

http://www.nvidia.com/page/gpumobo_6..._features.html

If you wanted to add a two port SATA card, it would
go into one of the two PCI Express slots. An x1 card
can work in an x16 slot (I've done it, for testing).

Yeah, a CPU cooling fan would be nice. There is what looks
like a four pin at the top of the CPU socket. I don't see
any other fan header on the motherboard! To run a second
fan, you'll have to run it off a Molex.

The CPU fan header should monitor RPMs, so normally a three
or four wire cable would be on the fan you've got at present.
Otherwise, the BIOS would start beeping, indicating fan
failure :-) If you plug a two wire fan into that CPU FAN
header, the BIOS should beep, because there's no RPM pulse
on the third (missing) wire.

When it comes to fans, Newegg is full of bad deals.
This is an example. A $10 fan for $46 dollars. LOL.
The non-Newegg sellers are scumbags.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...9SIA7HN50G6721

I picked that one, to show it has a Molex power connector.
The fan has two wires, +12V and GND, so the Molex only needs
two electrical connections. The 1x3 connector has a white
wire on that. You would connect that to a motherboard header
so RPMs on the fan could be monitored. Since you don't
have a CHASSIS header on your motherboard, that 1x3 would remain
unconnected. And then that fan could be used for CHASSIS
cooling. If you needed to replace your only fan, you could
put the 1x3 connector on the CPU FAN header, and still
connect the Molex to the power supply to get power. The
fan speed cannot be varied on that one, since it runs off
the power supply directly. Using the 1x3 connector with the
single white wire, on the CPU FAN header, would prevent the
BIOS from beeping.

But at $46, you'd be a fool to buy that particular fan.

Noctua makes some nice fans, in their trademark brown color.
There are enough products here, I would almost suspect some
shenanigans with counterfeits or something. To pick a fan,
you need some idea of size (80mm or 120mm), the CFM you'd
want (30-35CFM). Too low a CFM is a waste of money. Too
high of a CFM (110CFM) on an "ultra", is too noisy. They
come in "low", "medium", "high", "ultra". And a "medium"
is about the best choice from a noise perspective, and
will be in the 30-35CFM range. They come in 15mm thick (slim),
25mm thick (normal), 37.5mm (blower). I have a 37.5mm thick
one here, and it's 110CFM. I only use that with a reducer
connected to it, to drop the voltage it gets :-) I had
that fan on the Test PC, but had to remove it and put
a quieter fan in its place, as it was getting annoying.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...STMATCH&page=1

The biggest curse of fans today is... LEDS.

I got what I thought were two acceptable fans at my local
computer store, only to find when I took them out of the
package, then had blinding blue LEDs on them. Arggh!
The Noctua products are not known for "bling", so
you should be safe from LEDs with their products.

Paul

If I can buy a PCI card for the SATA drives that will fit in this
machine, that would be preferred. I have no problem soldering stuff, but
removing the whole motherboard and all of that seems like a lot of work.
Yea, I dont know how they managed to break that plug????

As far as my fan. I found there are two 3pin plugs on the MOBO. One says
"CPU Fan". The other says "SYS FAN". Whoever built this computer should
have plugged the CPU fan into the CPU plug, and put the case fan into
the SYS Fan plug (I assume).

I can change it and put the CPU fan on the CPU FAN connector. However
the case fan wires are too short to reach the SYS FAN connector.

So, I guess I have two choices. Either cut the plug off that fan and
splice in some longer wires, or buy a Molex adaptor for it. If they sell
Molex adaptors, that would be preferred. (Or do they sell fan wire
extensions?).

I know that case fan only needs direct 12V.

Thanks

wrote:
On Mon, 16 Oct 2017 14:20:20 -0400, Paul wrote:

wrote:

OK, you can see in the picture, the board has room for four
SATA connectors, and only two connectors are populated. This
leaves the copper pads so we can look at them.

http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWebSite/Pro...LLERY.aspx?Det
ailID=847&CategoryID=1&DetailName=Feature&MenuID=2 4&LanID=0
The pattern is seven electrical connections in the center,
plus two objects outside of those which are larger. Those two
objects retain the connector shell. So it does have retention,
and is not the "Bad" design.

If one of the two remaining SATA have been ripped off the board,
then someone must have been pretty strong :-)

For some reason, it almost looks like the design uses half
the I/O present on the chipset. Some Southbridges of that
era had four SATA and two IDE, for a total of eight hard drives.
That microATX board only has two SATA and one IDE. And they designed
the PCB with four SATA in mind, but then decided to only
populate two of the connectors.

It's an AMD motherboard. Socket 754, single memory bus off the CPU.
Having the memory bus off the CPU, made it a lot better than the
AthlonXP before it.

NVIDIA GeForce 6100/nForce 405

It's a single chip, with graphics and Southbridge interfaces.

You have a PCI Express x1 slot. So you *can* go to the store
and fit a two-port SATA card with an Asmedia chip if you want,
and then you can use any SATA you want.

The 405 should not have a problem with negotiation, so again,
if you had a SATA connector that was mechanically in good shape,
it should work with modern drives.

This page doesn't list the 405, but you can see from the
"pattern" of offerings, that different capabilities were
offered by each in the family. I expect the single chip
chipset was "pin-compatible", meaning with the one motherboard,
they could put a different chip on it as a function of price
(marketing).

http://www.nvidia.ca/page/gpu_mobo_tech_specs.html

SATA/PATA drives 4/4 2/4 2/2

4/4 = four SATA, two IDE
2/4 = two SATA, two IDE
2/2 = two SATA, one IDE

Your board could be using a 2/2 flavor of chip, and that's
why the other two connectors have no SATA on them. Even if
you soldered connectors to the two unused ports, they've
been electrically turned off by NVidia as part of their
clever marketing scheme.

Your expansion slots, from nearest the CPU socket are

PCI Express x16, wired for x16 (has 16 pairs of caps)
PCI Express x1 (short white connector)
PCI
PCI

The spec here, seems to indicate the 405 has x8 lanes for
video. Why would they waste caps on 16 pairs then ? Seems
a needless sham. You would have to look at your exact
motherboard, and see if eight of the cap sets were
removed, reflecting the real technical capability.
It's not important, except to verify that chip is actually
under the heatsink.

http://www.nvidia.com/page/gpumobo_6..._features.html

If you wanted to add a two port SATA card, it would
go into one of the two PCI Express slots. An x1 card
can work in an x16 slot (I've done it, for testing).

Yeah, a CPU cooling fan would be nice. There is what looks
like a four pin at the top of the CPU socket. I don't see
any other fan header on the motherboard! To run a second
fan, you'll have to run it off a Molex.

The CPU fan header should monitor RPMs, so normally a three
or four wire cable would be on the fan you've got at present.
Otherwise, the BIOS would start beeping, indicating fan
failure :-) If you plug a two wire fan into that CPU FAN
header, the BIOS should beep, because there's no RPM pulse
on the third (missing) wire.

When it comes to fans, Newegg is full of bad deals.
This is an example. A $10 fan for $46 dollars. LOL.
The non-Newegg sellers are scumbags.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...9SIA7HN50G6721

I picked that one, to show it has a Molex power connector.
The fan has two wires, +12V and GND, so the Molex only needs
two electrical connections. The 1x3 connector has a white
wire on that. You would connect that to a motherboard header
so RPMs on the fan could be monitored. Since you don't
have a CHASSIS header on your motherboard, that 1x3 would remain
unconnected. And then that fan could be used for CHASSIS
cooling. If you needed to replace your only fan, you could
put the 1x3 connector on the CPU FAN header, and still
connect the Molex to the power supply to get power. The
fan speed cannot be varied on that one, since it runs off
the power supply directly. Using the 1x3 connector with the
single white wire, on the CPU FAN header, would prevent the
BIOS from beeping.

But at $46, you'd be a fool to buy that particular fan.

Noctua makes some nice fans, in their trademark brown color.
There are enough products here, I would almost suspect some
shenanigans with counterfeits or something. To pick a fan,
you need some idea of size (80mm or 120mm), the CFM you'd
want (30-35CFM). Too low a CFM is a waste of money. Too
high of a CFM (110CFM) on an "ultra", is too noisy. They
come in "low", "medium", "high", "ultra". And a "medium"
is about the best choice from a noise perspective, and
will be in the 30-35CFM range. They come in 15mm thick (slim),
25mm thick (normal), 37.5mm (blower). I have a 37.5mm thick
one here, and it's 110CFM. I only use that with a reducer
connected to it, to drop the voltage it gets :-) I had
that fan on the Test PC, but had to remove it and put
a quieter fan in its place, as it was getting annoying.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...STMATCH&page=1

The biggest curse of fans today is... LEDS.

I got what I thought were two acceptable fans at my local
computer store, only to find when I took them out of the
package, then had blinding blue LEDs on them. Arggh!
The Noctua products are not known for "bling", so
you should be safe from LEDs with their products.

Paul

If I can buy a PCI card for the SATA drives that will fit in this
machine, that would be preferred. I have no problem soldering stuff, but
removing the whole motherboard and all of that seems like a lot of work.
Yea, I dont know how they managed to break that plug????

As far as my fan. I found there are two 3pin plugs on the MOBO. One says
"CPU Fan". The other says "SYS FAN". Whoever built this computer should
have plugged the CPU fan into the CPU plug, and put the case fan into
the SYS Fan plug (I assume).

I can change it and put the CPU fan on the CPU FAN connector. However
the case fan wires are too short to reach the SYS FAN connector.

So, I guess I have two choices. Either cut the plug off that fan and
splice in some longer wires, or buy a Molex adaptor for it. If they sell
Molex adaptors, that would be preferred. (Or do they sell fan wire
extensions?).

I know that case fan only needs direct 12V.

Thanks

I make my own fan cables and extenders here. I was
able to buy bags of connectors and crimp pins at
my "real" electronics store. You would not expect that
at something like a Radio Shack, as it would be too useful
to stock such an item. For example, I chop up Molex Y-cables,
to make a means to tap into PSU power.

You can probably find an extender, but it should have a male
connector with a plastic "box" around the pins. If the product
uses an open male connector, if that drops down inside the
PC, it can short out, and the 12V wire will become incandescent.
Plastic smoke will fill the air. Be careful with fan extenders!!!

If you use a nylon wrap to partially secure the cable, you can
limit the range of the dangerous connector pins, so they don't touch
important stuff.

This is an example of the "dangerous kind". The connector on the
left is an open male, ready to short out... and smoke. The advantage
of the open male connector, is a three pin or four pin fan could
be connected to it. If the protective plastic "box" was around
the connector, *only* a three pin fan would fit. The connector on the
right is the female that mates with the motherboard connector. The female
would work with a three or four pin motherboard header, so the
female end could actually be connected to the CPU FAN header.
when only three of the four wires are connected, you lose speed
control.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...9SIAAD049D5932

*******

When you use three wires, pin 4 is not connected. This wiring
diagram shows the pin order. If you connect a 3 pin to a 4 pin mobo
connector, pin 1 goes to pin 1. And pin 4 goes open circuit, and
a four wire CPU fan goes to "max speed" when pin 4 is open.

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/a...8&d=1300219923

Pin 1 and 2 are necessary for the fan to spin.

Pin 3 measures RPM. Connect it to shut up the BIOS beeping noise :-)

Pin 4 gives CPU FAN speed control. Some more expensive motherboards
have four pin connectors for everything, allowing 2 wire, 3 wire or
4 wire fans to be used.

Paul

On Mon, 16 Oct 2017 14:51:32 -0500, wrote:

There is also some other card that I dont know what it's for at all, it has two funny looking holes in it,
which are larger than USB, smaller than phone jacks.

Pull the card and put it under inspection lighting. With a magnifier
look over the chips: find one that looks conspicuous and copy its
nomenclature for pasting into a search engine;- repeat with another
chip, should the first prove unrewarding, until the chip functions
reveal a type card and, quite often, the retail manufacture's card
designation and purpose for which it was sold.

If I can buy a PCI card for the SATA drives that will fit in this
machine, that would be preferred. I have no problem soldering stuff, but
removing the whole motherboard and all of that seems like a lot of work.
Yea, I dont know how they managed to break that plug????

As far as my fan. I found there are two 3pin plugs on the MOBO. One says
"CPU Fan". The other says "SYS FAN". Whoever built this computer should
have plugged the CPU fan into the CPU plug, and put the case fan into
the SYS Fan plug (I assume).

I can change it and put the CPU fan on the CPU FAN connector. However
the case fan wires are too short to reach the SYS FAN connector.

So, I guess I have two choices. Either cut the plug off that fan and
splice in some longer wires, or buy a Molex adaptor for it. If they sell
Molex adaptors, that would be preferred. (Or do they sell fan wire
extensions?).

I know that case fan only needs direct 12V.

Removing a MB is essentially and procedurally normal, when indicated,
with added potential to assume the more efficient if subjective point
to incurring a reassembly.

Of course, depending, the proposition may lend itself to be directly
counter-intuitive. I've run into cases, NEC, assembled in Chinese
jigsaw or Rubic Cube fashion;- Dells and Tandy machines, with every
conceivable engineering stop pulled, intended to circumvent standards
and keep future maintenance profits solely within inhouse technician's
affairs.

By assembling you assume an opposite responsibility of supportive
measures and standards, directly by contributing means and goods
accessible to people and not just corporations.

Fans can all be a simple reduction from rerouting them directly off
the power supply, either/and by splicing or various adaptor plugs.
Their primary function needn't necessarily be affected, to be reported
back by disengaging secondary or auxiliary wiring, such as intended to
provide RPM monitoring or speed adjustments.

All in so much experience. Do enough and SATA connections, fan
headers, and such, increasingly become routine in like manner. I have
a wall of shelves holding various boxes. Saved and contained within,
they're extant parts, periodically discarded as they go irrevocably
obsolete. From which I pull and cannibalise pieces and bits for a
such contingency as, perhaps, you're describing.

(I've a likelihood of three or more PCI HDD/Device controllers,
offhand, various uni- or bidirectional SATAParallel connection
converters;-- powered, I'd imagine. Although with a perfectly working
signal chain, otherwise, surrounded by decrepit SATA encasing, as you
may be facing, I well might decide repair that, at first attempt.
Respective to skill levels, I suppose.)

From an IT's standpoint: Connection breakage is high, if not the
first among reasons to buy a replacement computer, in entirety;- A
starting point with large and now obsolete keyboard connections, not
entirely afar from a PS/2 ported circuit, as are regularly now
displaced by USB. Connections, for some, altogether are an
exacerbation: One user, I observed, upon failure of mechanically
securing a backplane mating, took a screwdriver, an adapt but
frustrated soldier of some manual force, to drive the screwdriver
through the computer casing in order to "kill it".

On Mon, 16 Oct 2017 16:38:42 -0400, Paul wrote:

wrote:
On Mon, 16 Oct 2017 14:20:20 -0400, Paul wrote:


I make my own fan cables and extenders here. I was
able to buy bags of connectors and crimp pins at
my "real" electronics store. You would not expect that
at something like a Radio Shack, as it would be too useful
to stock such an item. For example, I chop up Molex Y-cables,
to make a means to tap into PSU power.

You can probably find an extender, but it should have a male
connector with a plastic "box" around the pins. If the product
uses an open male connector, if that drops down inside the
PC, it can short out, and the 12V wire will become incandescent.
Plastic smoke will fill the air. Be careful with fan extenders!!!

If you use a nylon wrap to partially secure the cable, you can
limit the range of the dangerous connector pins, so they don't touch
important stuff.

This is an example of the "dangerous kind". The connector on the
left is an open male, ready to short out... and smoke. The advantage
of the open male connector, is a three pin or four pin fan could
be connected to it. If the protective plastic "box" was around
the connector, *only* a three pin fan would fit. The connector on the
right is the female that mates with the motherboard connector. The female
would work with a three or four pin motherboard header, so the
female end could actually be connected to the CPU FAN header.
when only three of the four wires are connected, you lose speed
control.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...9SIAAD049D5932

*******

When you use three wires, pin 4 is not connected. This wiring
diagram shows the pin order. If you connect a 3 pin to a 4 pin mobo
connector, pin 1 goes to pin 1. And pin 4 goes open circuit, and
a four wire CPU fan goes to "max speed" when pin 4 is open.

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/a...8&d=1300219923

Pin 1 and 2 are necessary for the fan to spin.

Pin 3 measures RPM. Connect it to shut up the BIOS beeping noise :-)

Pin 4 gives CPU FAN speed control. Some more expensive motherboards
have four pin connectors for everything, allowing 2 wire, 3 wire or
4 wire fans to be used.

Paul

If I had the parts, I'd make one too. But I found a 12" extender on ebay
for $2.99. I bought it.
It's male on one end, female on the other. I am not sure if it has a box
around the connector. If it looks like it can short out to anything,
I'll just wrap the connection with electrical tape. I've never had
anything like that short out, but I had an unused end of a molex
connector fall on the CPU fan in another computer. It was loud and
freaked me out, till I found what it was. A tie wrap made it so that
cant happen again. Nothing was hurt, but I was outside, walked into the
house and could hear it on the other end of the house. Sounded like the
whole computer was gonna blow up. I was glad to find it was nothing
serious.