Case wiring question

Just bought a new case, mb, and processor, and was looking at what had to be hooked to what. This is my first time doing this kind of thing. I have upgraded disk drives, modems, software, etc., before, but nothing from scratch.
The case is a Min Maw 3713.
Anyhow, there are 4 mini cables dealing with power, HD light etc.
3 of them are terminated in a 2 wire connector and even I will be able to figure out how to connect these. The 4th is a 3 wire connector with the middle position open. I don't recall what the colors were, but the plug-in on the motherboard is only 2 pins.

Before I take the wire cutters and soldering iron to the cable, has anyone run across this and what have you done to solve it ?
Does it make a difference which wire goes to which pin ?

Thanks so much, and wish me luck.

If you are carefull, you can insert something small, like a paper clip, into the one connector, and get it to POP out.
I have seen this way to many times, and I think its the HD power light, or the system power light. (this is what happens when you get old...)

Although, I have seen some MOBO's that do have three pins, but not many.

i dont think polarity matters with this, as its an LED.

Please shoot me if I am wrong.

Good Luck

The 3 cable Led may be your power led. You should have a green and a white wire that connects (terminates as you said) in the connector. The green is your pin 1 and the white is for pin 3. However if your mobo is for some reason only 2 pins. Anotherwards not 3 pins across then I have taken wire cutters before and cut the plastic pice down the middle where there is no wire at to make them into two sepearate pices. Then you don't have to break out the soldering iron. Less messy to.


Any Q's just ask. I have built over ton's of machines in my life.


CoNeSsIuS

I am quite certain that diodes do have polarity. They generally all face the same way, so if you get one right then you can use it as a guide line.


J :)

this is terrific advice and thanks again.

Gonna attempt it this weekend, so I will have approximately,
45 lbs under my belt. A small step on my way to a ton.

:D

Sorry hirschy,

Led's are polarity sensitive.
Not that you will hurt one, if it's back to front, you'll just not get a light!

Interesting, diodes were around quite a while, before they realised you could use them as blinking lights.

Computers used to have lots of blinkin' lights in the Star Trek, Dr Who days, I miss them!

Hirschy, a gentle suggestion, you may like to do some reading on the subject of the development of the modern computer.

ChrsR.

Without reviewing a motherboard manual right now...and from memory (bad thing for me to do!!) I don't think any of the case wires to those pins will hurt anything if they are reversed.

The LEDs either work or will not work, if they are not put on correctly...simply reverse them if they do not light up.

Power and reset switch connections work either way...they only short the two pins when the button is depressed.

Case speaker will work either way the socket is placed on the pins.

There are two way LEDS, but these will have 3 wires, with the common or ground wire in the middle...they glow amber or green usually, but I do not recall any of these on a computer case.

Recently, I put a computer together where the power on LED was a 3 pin socket and there was only a 2 pin place on the mobo at the end of the pin set. The socket had the 2 wires going to ajoining holes in the socket, so that allowed me to let one side of the socket hang out into empty space. I have had to use a paper clip to release the small inner part of the connector, remove it and push it back into a vacant hole to match up with the pins...this is pretty rare, however.

To make sure th epolarity is right. ...the color wire (vs the white or black wire) always goes towards pin 1. Some connections it doesn't really matter, but I've gotten in the habit of aligning all color wires towards pin1.