Asus M32CD - AS51 motherboard to front usb hub SATA wiring. USBs don’t work

[Abasiczombie]

Hey everyone. Seems like everytime I have a question google points me to this forum. I’ve searched everywhere and cannot find my answer. I have an Asus M32CD-AS51 [VivoPC Tower]. Motherboard number is in the picture. My front hub has 2 USBs that don’t work. I’ve done USB hub uninstall and reinstall for the driver updates. I’ve done all the other testing for allowing the BIOS to use them. Done a lot of testing and still nothing. All the rear USBs work. The audio and mic port on the front hub also works. I don’t know if Power is coming out of the motherboard at the 4 pin usb power header. If I knew how to test that I would, any help would be appreciated.

 

I figured I could try to find the correct SATA routing because maybe that would affect them too. I have the AAFP and USB-PWR1 headers installed. I do know that SATA 6G _1 is for my boot drive SSD and 6G_2 is for my HHD. 6G_3 would be for my DVD drive? And I would imagine the USB2_1/2 and USB 3_1/2 would be attached to my front hub, but have no idea how the SATA port colors of the motherboard and the colors of the front hub match(if they are supposed to) or how the SATAs are supposed to be connected. If I can’t figured it out or the front hub is indeed bad, I’ll just install a mini PCIEx1 to USB3.0 adapter and run them out the back. Thanks to anyone who can help! I also don’t know what the white 5 pin connector is.. 
 

 

[Kilrah]

Looks like they're misusing SATA connectors for "not SATA at all". Pretty dirty.

 

The 2 USB3 connectors on the front plate seem to connect to the blue and white SATA connectors, so I'd plug those 2 to the yellow USB3_12 ones, and the other 2 to the grey USB2_12 ones on the right.

[cobalt77]

1 hour ago, Kilrah said:

Looks like they're misusing SATA connectors for "not SATA at all". Pretty dirty.

 

The 2 USB3 connectors on the front plate seem to connect to the blue and white SATA connectors, so I'd plug those 2 to the yellow USB3_12 ones, and the other 2 to the grey USB2_12 ones on the right.

I managed to find a ok but not excellent photo of the board and it really is a OEM board, in that it is missing a number of headers that you would normally expect.  Like the typical USB 3.0 (20-1 pin) or USB 2.0 (10-1 pin) header for front USB.
Specs say 4 x SATA 6Gb/s, which would be the 4 SATA to the left. Which must mean the other 4 are as Kilrah aptly put it "not SATA at all". As for what goes where, that is harder, the left USB may actually to actually go to the black (FIO_CON1) not the white (CR_CON3) connector. Not a clue to where the little non SATA shaped connector (CR_CON1) is supposed to connect. This board is a mess! I say plug a cable from blue to yellow and test it with a old drive that you would not care about loosing. If that comes back working then try to get the other port working, and if that works just forget about the other ports/card reader.

[Kilrah]

 

31 minutes ago, cobalt77 said:

the left USB may actually to actually go to the black (FIO_CON1) not the white (CR_CON3) connector.

Yup indeed, my bad, even noticed it with the names but promptly forgot about it by the time I wrote the post. CR_CON likely stands for "Card Reader" and thus would be one of the USB2s.

I have no idea what the 4th is for, there are 2 for the USB3s and one for the card reader, but why a 4th? Unless they are splitting things as much as to have the USB3's high speed lines on one SATA each, and the USB2 lines for both ports in the 4th connector... in which case the order of the 2 USB2s might matter. It's a pile of mess.

 

This front panel might have been designed looong ago before the 20-pin USB3 header was introduced, at least I hope so...

[Abasiczombie]

Thanks guys! I new the motherboard was factory. Nothing special there but I was under the assumption that it had 8 SATAs and to me that was special since aftermarket boards don’t even have that many. But now I’m seeing there’s only 4 lol. No big deal. I’m also stumped as to why they used SATA style ports for all the front hub accessories too. I’m not at all worried about the card reader, so we don’t have to deal with that. I’m currently using the rear headphone and mic jacks, so no need to mess with that either. Basically just need the USB connectors. So do you guys think I just need the 3 wire 4 pin connector (USB-PWR1) and the two USB SATAs hooked up? Or would I need to plug the AAFP1 connector up aswell? Trying to get just the 2 front USBs working and remove unnecessary wiring.

[Kilrah]

AAFP is front panel audio, no doubt there.

You'll likely need the 3 FIO ones, i.e. black red and blue. I'd expect blue and black to USB3 and red to USB2...

[Abasiczombie]

On 3/27/2020 at 9:06 AM, Kilrah said:

AAFP is front panel audio, no doubt there.

You'll likely need the 3 FIO ones, i.e. black red and blue. I'd expect blue and black to USB3 and red to USB2...

Thank you thank you thank you!! Front USBs work! Black and blue went to USB3 1/2 and red went to USB2 1/2. I know I wasn’t concerned with the front audio, but it was working before and now it’s not lol. Would kinda be nice to have. By looking at the attached picture, do you think all the audio runs through the AAFP1 wiring or is the red SATA connector associated with audio as well? By looking at the connector and wire locations, do you think I should try to flip the AAFP1 connector? I don’t want anything to pop. Just completely modified this prebuilt to the max and almost have all the kinks worked out. 

[Kilrah]

It looks like you can't flip the AAFP connector, but maybe you need to swap the ends between mobo and FP. There's no power on there so no risk really. The 4th SATA shouldn't be needed but we never know, if it still doesn't work it might be worth trying to put it.

[Abasiczombie]

10 hours ago, Kilrah said:

It looks like you can't flip the AAFP connector, but maybe you need to swap the ends between mobo and FP. There's no power on there so no risk really. The 4th SATA shouldn't be needed but we never know, if it still doesn't work it might be worth trying to put it.

Alright, the 2 yellow ports labeled USB3 1/2 are hooked up to the black and blue USBs on the front io. The front USBs now work! The 2 white connectors on the front io (SATA style and wire connector style) both labeled CR are not connected as we assume are related to the Card Reader, which I don’t want/need. The red SATA style connector may or may not be associated with the audio?? I wonder if the red SATA connector is part of the audio and if it needs to be connected to one of the original 4 actual SATA ports? Switching connector ends from front io and motherboard did nothing and you’re right, they can’t be flipped over due to the capped off pin on the connector. Why would they make 4 USB SATA style ports on my motherboard?

[Kilrah]

Certainly won't connect to one of the real sata ports, no reason for that, it would be the last "special" right-side one. Try it...

 

11 hours ago, Abasiczombie said:

Why would they make 4 USB SATA style ports on my motherboard?

As mentioned this was probably done before the USB3 front panel connector appeared. Or they had so many SATA cables laying around that they found a way to use them and didn't care about it being messy since nobody opens a prebuilt normally...

[Abasiczombie]

5 hours ago, Kilrah said:

Certainly won't connect to one of the real sata ports, no reason for that, it would be the last "special" right-side one. Try it...

 

As mentioned this was probably done before the USB3 front panel connector appeared. Or they had so many SATA cables laying around that they found a way to use them and didn't care about it being messy since nobody opens a prebuilt normally...

Gotcha. I currently have the red port connected to the USB2 port 1, but I’ll try port 2 which will be the very last one. If that doesn’t work then maybe something in the AAFP connector is wrong. I’ll mess around with it for a little longer. If I can’t  figure it out, we’ll just live without front audio. Atleast the front USBs are working!! Thank you guys!

[Abasiczombie]

On 3/30/2020 at 7:46 AM, Abasiczombie said:

Gotcha. I currently have the red port connected to the USB2 port 1, but I’ll try port 2 which will be the very last one. If that doesn’t work then maybe something in the AAFP connector is wrong. I’ll mess around with it for a little longer. If I can’t  figure it out, we’ll just live without front audio. Atleast the front USBs are working!! Thank you guys!

 

So... new development! The RED port on the front hub is apparently both USBs and only work in the USB2 1/2 motherboard port. It will not work in the USB3 1/2 port. I am sooooo confused! Does this mean the front USBs are 2.0 even though they’re blue?

[Kilrah]

That was one of my suspicions in a previous post, that they use all 3 to make 2 ports. One carrying the slow lines for both ports, and 2 carrying the fast lines for each port.

[Abasiczombie]

Last update. The red port is USB. It has to be connected to one of the last 2 motherboard ports gray in color labeled USB2_12. White port and connector socket is obviously card reader. I still don’t know what the black or blue port is for. As for the audio... nothing was wrong with the AAFP1 nor was the audio sent by one of the colored ports. This is going to be hilarious!! If using the SATA style ports for USB wasn’t rink a dink enough, they mislabeled the mic and headphone port on the front io
 

So now front USBs and front audio work. Still don’t know what the other SATA ports are for, but if everything works, I guess we don’t need them. Thanks again for y’all’s help! I can finally put the pc back together and start playing again!

[Kilrah]

And do the USBs work at USB3 speeds?

My guess is they work as USB2, but if you connect the extra cables they'll work as USB3.

[Abasiczombie]

On 4/3/2020 at 2:07 AM, Kilrah said:

And do the USBs work at USB3 speeds?

My guess is they work as USB2, but if you connect the extra cables they'll work as USB3.

Ahhhh.. I didn’t grasp what you were saying in earlier posts. Now I understand. How do I test USB speeds? And how do I know which motherboard ports to match the black and blue front io ports with? I have both yellow ports labeled USB3 1/2 and 1 gray USB2 1/2 available. Hook them to yellow and test the USB speed?

[Kilrah]

I mentioned my thoughts on what should go where previously. To test just take a good USB3 flash drive with a big file on it, and copy said file to a fast drive on the PC. If it's USB2 it'll max out at about 35-40MB/s.

[Abasiczombie]

4 hours ago, Kilrah said:

I mentioned my thoughts on what should go where previously. To test just take a good USB3 flash drive with a big file on it, and copy said file to a fast drive on the PC. If it's USB2 it'll max out at about 35-40MB/s.

Alright. Blue and black to USB3. I’ll test the USBs before and after.

[Abasiczombie]

On 4/9/2020 at 2:50 AM, Kilrah said:

I mentioned my thoughts on what should go where previously. To test just take a good USB3 flash drive with a big file on it, and copy said file to a fast drive on the PC. If it's USB2 it'll max out at about 35-40MB/s.

Does read or write speed matter more? Also does drive size and available space change speeds? I can copy and paste a 2gb movie from my dell 3.0 external hdd with 750gb available to my internal SSD in about 2 seconds(2gb/s) Same with my 16gb 3.0 flash drive. But copy and pasting to my external drive is 100mb/s and my 16gb flash drive is only at 36mp/s. Also from this info, can you verify the ports are indeed working at 3.0 speeds? Subsequently, my rear 3.0 and 3.1 port also allows a 36mp/s write speed into my 16gb flash drive but only allows 150mb/s read. I’m kinda out of my element here with formats, ports and speeds. Just want to make sure my PC is working correctly and which port to use for my Rift S

[Kilrah]

If you get 100MB/s transfers you're at USB3, as mentioned USBs max at 35-40.

 

8 minutes ago, Abasiczombie said:

But copy and pasting to my external drive is 100mb/s and my 16gb flash drive is only at 36mp/s.

That's why I specifically said read FROM an USB drive, becasue most USB3 flash drives can be read fast but will write at slower than USB2 speeds making that useless to check.

[Abasiczombie]

6 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

If you get 100MB/s transfers you're at USB3, as mentioned USBs max at 35-40.

 

That's why I specifically said read FROM an USB drive, becasue most USB3 flash drives can be read fast but will write at slower than USB2 speeds making that useless to check.

Awesome! Thanks again for your help!