74 JANUARY2021|COMPUTERSHOPPER|ISSUE395
HOWTOFITINTERNALCABLES
W
ith the bulkofthe peripherals in your
case, it’snow time to start connecting
everythingup. In this guide,we’ll showyou
howtorun allthe case cables that youneed.
If youcan, routecablestothe back of the
case and bring themthroughtothe front
usingthe cutoutsprovided. Thiswillgive
youaneaterbuild.
FITINTERNALFANHEADERS
Most cases will shipwith some internal
fans pre-installed, butyou havetohook up
the powercables to the fanheaders on
your motherboard.Your motherboard’s
manualwill tell youwherethe fanheaders
arelocated.
Fanheadersusually have four-pin PWM
connectors foradvancedcontrol;they’llwork
withthree-pin connectors from fans, too. To
insertaconnector,lineupthe ridges on the
fan’spower connector with the plasticplate
on the fanheader and insertdownwards.
Repeat forall the fans youhave. 1
FITTHEPOWERSWITCH
To turn on your computer,you needtoroute
the powerswitchfromthe case (it will
probably have PowerSWwritten on it).
Plugthisintothe jumper markedinyour
motherboard’s manual.The cablewill slide
down easily,and it doesn’t matterwhich
wayrounditgoes.
FITTHEPOWER,RESET
ANDLEDCABLES
To turn on and resetyour computer and get
the harddrive activitylights working, you
need to hook up the cables from your case,
which shouldbelabelled, to the connectors
on the motherboard.These will be clearly
labelled in your motherboard’smanual (see
the diagram below foranexample 2 ).
Forthe powerand resetswitches, it
doesn’t matter which wayround the cables
go. Forthe powerand HDD cables, make
surethat youget thecable withthe ‘+’onit
connectedtothe ‘+’ terminal on the
motherboardoritwon’t work, and you
could end up damaging the LEDs. The
cables should slide into place.
FITTHEUSBHEADERS
If youhavefront USBports, youneed to plug
these in.Your motherboardwill likelyhave
USB2 and USB3 headers. USB2 cablescan
only be pluggedinone way: look at the pin
layout on the connector and line this up with
the motherboard.With USB3headers, the
job’s easier:lineupthe notchonthe
connectorwith the cutout on the
motherboard and you’re goodtogo. 3
FITTHEAUDIOCONNECTORS
Front-mountedaudio makesiteasier to plug
in aheadsetorheadphones. The connector
looks similartoaUSB one,but will be
marked HD Audio.Find the matching header
on your motherboardand connect the cable;
it canonlygoinone wayround. 4
TOP TIP
Missingapinonthefront
panelconnectorsiseasily
done,andmaymeantha
t
lightsdon’tworkoryourP
Cwon’tturn
on.Ifyougetthissituatio
n,carefully
checkthefront-panelconn
ectors.
1
2
3
4
Power
LED
2
+
+--+
-
10
19
HDD
LED
Power
switch
Reset
switch
JFP1
