Front Panel Header Not Working

I have a 945GCT-M motherboard, which is an ECS socket 775. Everything works great, except the front panel mic and headphone. I checked the pin assignments and they are correct.

My front panel has the following pins labels (they are individual, not a block, so I have to connect each one individually):

Ground (black wire)
L-Ret (green wire)
Mic Power (red wire)
R-Out (blue wire)
Mic In (orange wire)
L-Out (white wire)
R-Ret (yellow wire)

On the motherboard, it has the following:

Pin
1 AUD_MIC Front Panel Microphone input signal
2 AUD_GND Ground used by Analog Audio Circuits
3 MIC_BIAS Microphone Power
4 AUD_VCC Filtered +5V used by Analog Audio Circuits
5 AUD_F_R Right Channel audio signal to Front Panel
6 AUD_RET_R RightChannelAudiosignaltoReturnfromFrontPanel
7 REVD Reserved
8 Key No Pin
9 AUD_F_L Left Channel Audio signal to Front Panel
10 AUD_RET_L Left Channel Audio signal to Return from Front Panel

I connected:

Orange wire to pin 1
Black wire to pin 2
Red wire to pin 3
I don't have a clip for pin 4, so left it open
Blue wire to pin 5
Yellow wire to pin 6
White wire to pin 9
Green wire to pin 10

I've seated and reseated these tight. I even unplugged the connector behind the front panel (it was one block). Nothing

My previous motherboard had the same pin assignments exactly, and it worked. Using same operating system. I see no damage to any wires and was very careful in removing and reinstalling.

I've tried contacting ECS for support; it's a waste of time. They tell you to do stuff that has nothing to do with the problem, like flashing the BIOS, when the BIOS update does not address any of this. You don't go flashing the BIOS just for the heck of it and take a crap-shoot and see if it works. It's something else, but what I have no idea.

Does anyone?

Make sure that the FP connector is actually enabled in the BIOS. Some motherboards allow you to enable/disable the FP header. Good luck!

Understood. Not all BIOSes support that feature. Was worth checking out. Sorry for your troubles. Good luck!

Not an issue of the mobo supporting the FP connector. If the mobo has one, it usually works. Are you wiring for AC'97 or HD audio mode? Also, are you using the Windows driver or the OEM's (for the audio device) driver?

It only has AC'97 connector, so I'm wiring that.

I'm using the OEM driver that came with the motherboard

PS: I had to use the OEM from the motherboard; before I installed, I had no sound, so Windows wasn't able to recognize the onboard audio..

º Realtek ALC883 6-channel HD audio CODEC

Thanks, but when I look at the motherboard wiring assignments and the front panel pin connectors, I can only wire them as they correspond. Unless my front panel connectors don't support HD audio. I do have the latest driver, also..

How would I wire for HD audio if I can't go by the pinout assignments on the board and my front panel connectors?

Nope.

Here's the manual:

http://download.ecsusa.com/dlfilee [...] DF_low.pdf

Page 23 of this is the only section about hooking up the audio...

Yep, that's the page I was looking at - that's what I'm using as my guide. My case..make/model? I bought this case about 4 years ago; it's a generic no-name one, but the pin connectors on my case are:

Ground (black wire)
L-Ret (green wire)
Mic Power (red wire)
R-Out (blue wire)
Mic In (orange wire)
L-Out (white wire)
R-Ret (yellow wire)

Go get one of these and connect to your mobo header. Adds a little "bling" to your rig as well.

Good luck!