Need help with PC replacement part

@woodhouse Does the case have any usb 3.0 ports? Might be easiest to just use those and a usb hub or something

@woodhouse It does, in the back, but I’d like to make it as whole as I can.

@woodhouse I just opened it up. Both the audio and USB cables plug in to the mobo.

I guess I could just disconnect the USB cable. I don’t want it getting any power. I have tape over it right now.

@woodhouse I know I’m hours behind the main discussion, but you have two fairly simple options.

A front panel replacement. Not necessarily in the exact spot, but use a 3.5" or 5.25" drive bay adapter to get the ports you need. The motherboard connections should be the universal standards.

The other is use the expansion card slots, and run the connections out the back. Less convenient of course, but workable.

@mikibell That looks interesting, but it’s a 2.0, not 3.0 Curious.

Thanks, I don’t know why I didn’t see that one.

@lisaviolet sorry, I saw that after I posted

@lisaviolet the picture is usb3.0 both on the blue usb and the connector for the motherboard

@lisaviolet, I concur with @sohmageek. The image illustrates a 3.0. It’s not at all unusual for a seller to be unfamiliar with what they are offering. I would contact the seller and ask if the item pictured is an exact representation of what you will receive. If they respond in the affirmative, you’re golden. That’s your part.

EDIT: all that said, it’s a pretty heavy investment for the repair of a used PC. Make sure the overall value is there for a repaired system. It’s possible you might invest $50 in the repair but only increase overall value by half that.

@ruouttaurmind @sohmageek @mikibell @narfcake @woodhouse @djslack
@blaineg @lordsalem @dashcloud

Okay, so here’s what I’ve decided to do. Get the part that @sligett posted.

I just bought it. If you go to the bottom of the page, it does say USB 3.0. And it says it’s new. If it isn’t, I have recourse.

Yes, it’s a fair amount of money for a used computer, but don’t forget, I was willing to pay over $90 (when you include shipping) from Impact computers. I’m sending these computers to a really super good friend who’s had some really shitty luck. Her 26 year old daughter died away at camp (she had health issues since childhood, the medical miracles that saved her life, damaged her in other ways). After her daughter’s death, I took up a collection to help them out financially (they didn’t have enough money to get the death certificates and this helped pay the cremation fees). She sent me her daughter’s only Special Olympics gold medal and it’s hanging in the family room, where I can see it all the time. Her family treats her like crap, she had spent so much of her life advocating for her daughter that she doesn’t have many friends. So, any little thing I can do to help give them an easier life, I’ll do it.

Her husband will have his own computer and she’ll have hers. And now she’ll be able to have a dedicated computer for her crafting room (her daughter’s old bedroom).

So, the monetary value of the system isn’t important. It’s that he can plug into a USB port in the front of the system. If that doesn’t work, I will just unplug the damned thing from the motherboard and send him a USB cable (for the back) and a hub. lol!

The part should be here next Tuesday.

Thanks to all of you for your input. I learned stuff. Don’t know if it will stay put, but I know I learned stuff. So, now, I need to go put all the plugs back into my computer so I can use it.

And wait for the gold thread to get here so I can finish the next five holiday cards.

Okay, I found some pics here:
https://www.impactcomputers.com/647115-012.html

But $85?! FUCK THAT!

If it’s possible, remove the whole thing and unmount the port portion to see if something else more common or universal can be put in place.

If not, then just leave the cable unplugged on the motherboard side.

@narfcake $85? They don’t have any in stock. I ordered one this morning, they cancelled the sale.

@lisaviolet It’s now $100 dollars. I hope the shipping is free at that, ahem “price”.

@rtjhnstn Still $28 on eBay.

@sligett That’s nice. It would be nice if it could work.

@sligett I really like that one. If I was sure it would work, I’d jump on it. No, wait, I’d buy it. I wouldn’t jump on it. I already have one that doesn’t work.

@lisaviolet that looks like it has the same plug as your picture.

@lisaviolet

@narfcake It isn’t. It’s one molded piece.

@lisaviolet In the interim, at least unplug that cable. The damaged port is probably shorting it out, hence why they’re not working.

The spot above the port assembly is for a 3.5 floppy. On the front bezel, is the cover with the “beats audio” label removable?

@narfcake Yes, it is.

@lisaviolet Pull that off. Is there a rectangular opening remaining and is the panel finished off underneath well enough to not look like crap?

If so, then the ports that go into a 3.5" bay would work out fine enough – which is a sub-$10 solution.
https://www.amazon.com/WANLONGXIN-Front-Floppy-Connector-Adapter/dp/B01KWOL2BY/

In any case, tape off the two existing ports. They will be unusable now.

@narfcake Oh, so have the other one still available for the audio and a separate one for the USB. Hmm. I hadn’t considered that.

I think it’s just metal.

Did you look at the link @sligett gave me? It has both audio and USB.

@lisaviolet Yep to both. Since the audio does work, though, there’s no need to duplicate the function. The current assembly is proprietary to HP. A 3.5 panel will go where a floppy drive would have existed back in the days.

But if the front bezel doesn’t look good, then you might just be better off without it so it doesn’t look like crap.

On the case itself, the opening can be snapped out, hence the little screwdriver imprint.

To add:

@narfcake I don’t know, I put it back together. I’ll go take it apart again.

@narfcake I’m having a hard time getting the cover off.

@lisaviolet Don’t force it. And in that case, don’t count on it looking good.

At this point, I say just unplug the cable internally, tape off the plugs and have an extension USB cable from the back for convenient access.

@narfcake

Notice there’s also an expansion bay right above that one.

@lisaviolet Yeah, that makes it look like crap.

The 5.25 bay above is a spring loaded flap that relies on an optical drive tray to push it open. That’s not going to help for ease of access here.

@narfcake Okay, that makes sense.

I guess the best thing to do is disconnect the USB from the motherboard, then.

Darn it.

When I plugged the USB cable from the external backup into one of the front USB ports, the blue thing inside the port broke.

@sohmageek It’s the port that’s physically broken.

@sohmageek No, it’s one of the connectors on the front. When I ordered the new computers I got a 3TB external hard drive to backup files from both computers. I used the cable that came with the hard drive.

But, it was too tight a fit and when I tried to plug it in, then pulled the plug out, the blue piece inside the port on the computer broke off. The computer above is mine, the front i/o ports work, but my husband’s isn’t. I took mine apart for the pictures since I’m not on that one right now, I’m on my laptop, and he works on his off and on all day. We have the same model of computer so it was just easier to use mine.

I have a new computer to set up for him, I just wanted to wait until I had everything I needed to fix it before switching them out.

@djslack Look at some of the pics earlier. No standard 3.5" bay opening in the front and the 5.25" bay cover is a spring loaded flap that’s designed for optical drives only.

@narfcake my bad. So many words and pictures I thought the one with the red box was highlighting the floppy bay.

/giphy duct tape’ll fix it

@djslack Yeah, the case has a bay but the front bezel doesn’t because floppy drives aren’t a thing anymore.

@narfcake but card readers and other such things are. Please don’t make excuses for cheap manufacturer’s.

@jbartus The card readers are at the top of the case. Refer to the link in @lisaviolet’s original post.

@narfcake my point was there are still many uses for that 3.5 Bay besides floppy drives

@dashcloud first one is a scam. They don’t have the part. Disputed the charge with my bank this morning.

In the HP thread, I’m ellevee.

@lisaviolet before your post, I read it as “El levee”, or a Spanish retaining berm.

Then the light bulb came on.

/giphy El levee

And self-blame because I left out giphy on my last post

/giphy I forgot

@dashcloud not new, these are the ones I’m sending to a good friend and her husband. These are over five years old. New ones are in boxes in the living room.

I wanted to get everything done at the same time so I put off setting up the new ones. I was waiting on that part, which the “post office damaged” (no, post office never got it, all that was done was a label generated).

And here I am.

I made some cards!

@LordSalem Won’t work. The 5.25 drive bays are covered by a spring loaded panel. They open by an optical drive’s tray pushing on it.

I was hoping that front bezel still had a standard 3.5" drive opening behind the cover, but nope.

@LordSalem Yeah, I wish something like that could work. I even thought about having my husband cut the front panel to make room (he’s done it before, he’s quite handy, he cut the case of my Epson R1900 so the CIS tubes don’t get pinched and once he cut the front panel of a computer so I could get the new card reader thingy in and it fit perfectly, looked like it came that way…he doesn’t know much about techy stuff, that’s my job, but he’s really awesome with machinery).

@blaineg Yeah, I’ve noticed that replacement parts can be hard to come by. I even looked at systems that maybe didn’t work on ebay, but were just to be used to part out. Nothing.

It really annoyed me that it was all because the cable that came with the WD external hard drive was the cause of the broken port. That cable didn’t work on my computer, either. The drive spun, but the PC didn’t recognize it. Changed out the cable and the drive worked on both systems.

First world problems, right?

@lisaviolet

Exclamation points are my state of mind right now, just sayin’

Fumes from the glue?

@ruouttaurmind Mehbe. I’ll never tell.

!!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!!

@lisaviolet Yay!

@lisaviolet Something something blame something …

@narfcake Hey! Sounds like the scammers didn’t scam! Yay!

@therealjrn @lisaviolet Something something unblame something.