Dell Optiplex 9020 usff Front Panel Connector and Front Audio Pinout (SOLVED)

GrumpyCat · April 20, 2022

Hello all,

Not sure if this has been covered before but I searched the entire internet to find the pinout for the Dell Optiplex 9020 uSFF motherboard front panel connector and found nothing.

Basically I got a few of these motherboards cheap and decided to make a NAS out of one of them.

In an effort to do this I needed to figure out the pinout for the front panel connector to adapt it to a standard case

There are 9 LEDs on the Dell OEM power switch breakout board which I believe are diagnostic lights and error code lights but for my purposes I only cared about the three below.

So long story short 4 hours later I have the following tested/working and a cable built.

Power Switch
HDD LED
PWR LED

So far the system has been up and running normally for about 1 week and the LEDs and power switch function as expected

If anything is wrong or I am missing something please let me know.

Below are the diagrams (including switch panel and front audio looking at the motherboard connector from the top) that will allow the board to boot without errors in a generic case.

If there is any interest on the rest of the build I can post pics and parts I used.

Front Switch Panel Pinout:

Front Panel Audio Connector:

I figured out that pin 2 and 4 need to be jumpred by a 2.0mm pitch jumper to eliminate the "I/O Cable" error on boot.

Since I'm using this board as a NAS I dont have any need for front panel audio so I likely wont continue to try to figure out this connector.

With the above jumper in place and the above cable the board functions normally with a power switch, power LED and HD LED and will boot without errors.

Thanks