28 pin front panel header?

[Mathew Schau]

Alright, I'm trying for a different sort of build that involves some "odd" computer hardware. One of these weird components is the mother board which is the motherboard from an old t3600 dell precision. Overall the motherboard can run my basic needs however the issue is that the designated front header pin connection has 28 unmarked pins. I have no idea how I will plug this in with an average case header cable. Please help.

Manual:

http://2d3d.com.ua/assets/files/files_with_features/Dell_Precision_T3600_Workstation_Technical_Guidebook.pdf

[SLAYR]

You cannot plug in the front io cable into it,  You will have to try to find either a pinout of the connector, which dell keeps classifed, or the best way would be to buy the whole the front io for the system, most likely it is a ribbon cable, and a smal pcb with buttons on it.

[Riley-NZL]

You could try and guess, do you just need to get the power button working, or everything including the USB/Audio ports? 

 

It may be possible to use a multimeter to find the power on headers, with the computer powered off but plugged in test the voltage across pairs of pins, there should be two pins with a small voltage across them (5V I believe). The only problem with this is that the USB ports may also be providing 5v even when powered off if they have the USB sleep charging function. If you only find one combination that is 5V you can probably assume it's the power button headers, but if you find multiple you might be screwed.

 

Once you've found it, short the two headers together and it should power on. If you do this to the wrong headers, it shouldn't do any damage, unless it has the aforementioned  sleep-charging USB ports.

 

Finding the other headers will be somewhat harder, finding the Power and HDD LEDS probably won't to hard, but will require the computer to be on and running to find them. This of course increases the risks if you accidentally short something while measuring for voltages.

 

 

[avgeiss]

Hi Mathew, I have a precision t5600 motherboard, which I believe has the same front panel header as the t3600, but no case. Did you find the correct pins?

[OneHandedDJ]

On 8/30/2016 at 2:06 AM, avgeiss said:

Hi Mathew, I have a precision t5600 motherboard, which I believe has the same front panel header as the t3600, but no case. Did you find the correct pins?

Did you end up finding the pin layout!?