I used a “blank” from one of the 5.25” bays to achieve a clean and functional appearance by drilling and carving holes to accommodate the ports protruding from the panel assembly. I’m sure I could have used the original equipment but I liked knowing the Dell ports were newer and would definitely work without modification. The front panel, with audio, USB and diagnostic/HDD LEDs, was used as the proprietary pinouts made it much easier to use them to avoid more wire tracing and avoid the front panel I/O cable failure error on boot. I didn’t want to chance doing any damage to components trying to solder at the connector or LED PCB.ĭell’s pinouts on the USB and AUDIO headers have all of the grounds shorted together with additional wiring inside the I/O panel assembly, connecting all of the grounded pins and wires at the ports. I stuffed everything but the heat shrink covered solder joints back into the jacket, pulled the boot back over the end and taped it all up with electrical tape, letting the new leads hang out. I accessed the wires by sliding the boot at the end toward the connector and scribed the jacket a couple of inches, then opened it up and pulled out the two wires that I cut, stripped and soldered to the leads going to the new LED. I then spliced the positive wire for the new HDD LED into the red VCC lead, which seemed to regulate the voltage sent through to all of the LEDs on the LED PCB. Merely going to any negative (-) / ground (common) left the light illuminated constantly rather than with disk activity. After testing for voltage, resistance and continuity, I managed to get the HDD LED on the case working by splicing in the negative (-) / ground (common) wire to the green HDD lead going to the second pin in from the corner nearest the center of the motherboard. After quite a bit of time scouring the web and getting nowhere, I disassembled the front panel I/O assembly and removed the diagnostic/HDD LED assembly. So the bi-color LED shows through to indicate power/failure state. I actually disassembled the power button and used just the interior portion to replace the original green power LED, making sure not to push it in far enough to depress the switch. Shorting them brings the voltage low enough to cause PSON (power supply on). So the yellow was negative (-) / ground (common) and the black was positive (+) 5VDC. They both lead to negative (-) / ground (common). I can confirm that pins 1 and 5 (yellow and red) are shorted together. P/N 085DX6 I spliced in the new case’s momentary contact power switch to the appropriate leads. I found information on the web about the 5 wire pinout for the power button and bi-color LED harness with 6 pin connector (one cut and used as key).
Use this information at your own risk and ALWAYS confirm everything personally because assumptions are the mother of all mistakes. I am not a manufacturer, engineer, work for Dell or even have any credentials to show that I might know what I’m doing. Do what you do and don’t blame me for anything. Here’s what needed to happen to make it function properly.ĭISCLAIMER: I am not responsible for anything in your life.
Being driven by a desire to expand functionality and mitigate temperature concerns, I have successfully migrated necessary components from a Dell Optiplex 390 DT from its originally case to a full size ATX case that was from the first computer I built years ago! What I started, thinking it would be a simple task, was tedious, meticulous and potentially hazardous to my equipment.