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Hardware

Front Ports for PCs? 38

Posted by Cliff from the now-why-didn't-I-think-of-that? dept.
Vassily Overveight asks: "After the 400th time hauling my PC out from under my desk in order to mess with the cabling, I'm wondering if there's a better way. I'd like to find a means of bringing frequently-accessed I/O ports to the front of the machine so that I can attach/detach things like my palmtop, digital camera and camcorder, microphone, headphones, etc. with ease. Frontx has made a good start with a drive-bay installable set of ports for multimedia (audio-in, earphone, microphone, and game port), with promises of other port types in the future, but I'd like to find out if there're any other offerings already available (particularly in the form of an external box) that also provide front access to serial, parallel, USB, firewire, etc."
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Front Ports for PCs? More

Front Ports for PCs?

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  • 4 front-mount USB ports (basically a 4-port USB hub) which you plug the cable through a hole in an included back-panel and into the USB port you have in the back. The little device mounts in a free 3.5" drive bay. There's also a 10-port and 5-port that I've seen for around $40 and $25 that take up a 5.25" drive bay and work the same way. If your motherboard has cabled USB ports (I.E. you can remove the port from the back and let it dangle) you can just plug it in internally and zip-tie it to a convenient piece of the frame, viola, front-mount USB ports, and a lot more to boot. My machine has 8, 5 of which are taken up by Gravis GamePad Pro USB's, with another for a Webcam and a few left over in case I need them, total cost was around $30 and about 10 minutes work. :-)
  • Typically your desktop is under your monitor, raising the height of your monitor. Well I have a 21" monitor, which means that if I want to open a desktop case, I have to lift this roughly 75 pound beast and put it somewhere else on my desk. And I'm a geek, which means that I'm unable to do that without endangering the monitor, endangering myself, and endangering my desktop.
    --
  • I've thought about using a Dremel to cut holes in a spare drive-bay cover to mount some serial ports. I'd need to get ports with longer cables to make them reach, and there'd be some difficulty in mounting the port on the plate. Glue could work, or a metal plate could be attached to the back of the plastic one and the port could be mounted in it. A newer case (where the drive bay panels have metal plates already installed, for RF shielding) would make this easier. An ATX mainboard would present more of a problem, since the ports are built in to the board and intended to mount in the back. Either one could desolder the ports and install a connector for a cable, or one could loop a cable out a hole in the back (through a serial-port punchout?) and connect it the the port, like the FrontX does.

    Alternately, as the anonymous coward suggested, one could turn the computer around so the ports are in the front, and cut holes in the back for the power switch and status lights. If you don't want the power cord coming out the computer's new front, one could open up the power supply, cut a hole in one side, run a power cord from that to your compuer's old front, cut a hole in the computer, and mount a new power connector there. You can cover up the now-unused holes in the power supply with metal plates, or you can mount power sockets in them so you can power other devices off of it.

    Alternately, you can do what we do at work. Just get extender cables and run them from the ports in the back to the front. You can run them wherever you want the ports to be. We use them for our rack of servers (a wire rack, not rackmount) so that we don't have to roll it away to plug things in.

    Speaking of racks, some rack-mount cases have front-accessable ports. You could find one that does, and then put rubber feet on it to stand it on a desk.
  • Instead of special-mounting the floppy and CDROM, one could also use to use a USB floppy drive and put everything else in an external SCSI enclosure.

    That, or put all your drives in another machine and export 'em over the network to the backwards one.

  • About 5 years ago I saw at an amature radio show a little box that mounted in a (empty) 5-1/4 disk drive bay. It then had everything you need to put headphone a headphone jack on the front of your case.

    Personally I'd buy a USB hub (and other USB gear, see other posters) and put it on my desktop. Then I'd head to radio shack and rig up a sound hub on my desk.

  • DIY (Score:1)

    by pb ( 1020 )
    Most of what they give you either involves a couple of buttons and a headphone jack on a CD-ROM drive, a port for a digital camera, and if you pay too much for it, external versions of the usual internal devices that take up valuable space up front, or get stacked up nearby and have too many cables.

    However, if you could move the power supply to the front, turn the case around, punch some holes in the back, and move at least the external drives over there, and fake some paneling, and... etc., etc.

    Really, it'd be best to design your own case. If you don't know how, find some people who can make plans for it, and know how to bend metal and whatnot. If you have to, you can paint that, or build a prototype out of whatever you have lying around.

    But the bottom line is, if you like it, and other people like it, then maybe you can sell it, or at least sell the idea! I'm sure it'd go great with a 'Happy Hacker Keyboard', preferably hooked up in the front too, like they used to be. (like my XT was... ;)
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].

  • USB (Score:1)

    by kneecap ( 4947 )
    Belkin [belkin.com] might have a solution. Their USB BusStation line of products allow you to have a stack of USB modules: USB hubs, Serial addapters, Ethernet, SCSI, etc. Theses stackable modules connect to your computer through one USB cable. You could place this anywhere you want; This is a much better solution then the proprietary external boxes by NEC or COMPAQ. I've only seen these at computer shows, I haven't used one myself, and I don't know if their are Linux Drivers or not.

    Another solution is to make your own box and put a USB hub inside, and if you want a Serial Cable extension. Or you could just mount a USB to serial adapter, a USB Hub, headphone jack or anything else, if it can fit, in an empty drive bay in your computer
  • True, my Compaq has USB, Firewire, and audio ports on the front. However, Compaq does not support their consumer-grade equipment with Windows 2000, so my newest machine is a home-brew Athlon machine running Linux. Compaq was really a fucker on that deal...
  • If I remeber correctly, Compaq cases already do this.

    Alternatively, get a set of sheet metal cutters and a Dremel and DIY.
  • If you are interested in you audio ports, the soundblaster live PLATNUM has this "live drive" unit which fits in a 5.25" slot. It has SPDIF IN/OUT (they're RCA jacks... don't know the format), line in/out, midi in/out and volume all on the front panel...

    it's a pricey unit, but it's very useful.

    -andy

  • HP Pavilions usually have a serial port and 2 USB ports on the front. I have no experience with the quality, but I have a feeling it is better than Compaq's.

  • What someone needs to do is build a case where the MB is turned around, and the externally accessible drives are mounted on the same side of the case as the ATX serial ports. Requires a redesign of the case, but shouldn't be too hard. Just flip the board around so the serial ports point toward the front, mount the CDROM and floppy on the same side, and move the HDDs and power supply to the new back.

    Only drawback is the reduction of the number of available external drive bays. And the ugly. Now you have to look at the cables that so many people try so hard to cover up.
  • Seriously. Its easier to put the power/reset switch on the back, and have the floppy/cdrom special mounted to come out the back.

    -- Crutcher --
    #include <disclaimer.h>
  • How this sort of thing ocillates based upon if the manfacturers are aimed at the corporate desktop or the home user this month? It's really annoying.

    -- Crutcher --
    #include <disclaimer.h>
  • I have a Belkin USB Ethernet adapter. Linux USB does talk to the USB side of the device, powers it up, and gets device info. There is a Linux driver for the chip (CATC USB-El1201A) under development and on the net, but it's not in the distributed kernels yet. [Incidentally, it is a 10Mbps half-duplex Ethernet 12 Mbps USB device]
  • You might not want to put drives at a 45 degree angle. I know that hard drives have to be at either 0 or 90 degrees since they rely on the gravity to be symmetric across the plane of the disk spin. (if it is at some other angle there is more force on one side of the bearings, thus wearing them out prematurely). I would suspect that some CD/DVD drives rely on that assumption as well...

    - Mike

  • Under the 'also' category, the reason I like having a tower so much (and putting it on the floor under my desk) is to keep it quiet. Modern machines tend to be a bit noisy, and getting it out of site not only frees up valuable desk space, but decreases fan noise as well.

    Probably the real reason the cards aren't put in front is that marketing people (and many people with some kind of 'asthetic preferences') would object to putting those nasty grey-metal card-ends on the front of the machine. It would be a huge eyesore...

    - Mike

  • Compaq does some strange stuff. Their servers seem to be pretty decent. We've had fewer problems with them at work than the HP's, and especially the IBM boxes. (Your own experience will vary.)

    However, the product line they sell for home users can only be described as flaming garbage. We bought several at my old job (as sort of minimalist PCs), and they were plagued.

    It's strange that a company would willfully choose to sell one product line that's good, and another that destroys their credibility.
  • At my old school's Students Recycling Used Technology program (Hey, Hammy!), desktop boxen were always positioned sideways, usually with cables on the left and front panel on the right, tower boxen usually placed backwards in more easily accessible locations. The only drawback to these solutions is that they're somewhat inelegant.
  • Any idea on the name of it so I can look at some online retailers.

    Thanks!
    Fryless in VA!!
  • I think it is a holdover from the old "desktop" days where it made sense to have the cable connectors at the back
    even so, I noticed the latest set of "internet ready" keyboards we got from HP had a set of extra wires to go in the soundcard (mic and spk) which led to sockets on the keyboard case. you could do something similar with joystick and serial/parallel ports (most of which have off-the-shelf extensions or switches)

    In addition, my tower-case's motherboard ports are mostly on extension wires from the motherboard to a standard-slot carrier. assuming the wires would reach, you could mount them on a drive-bay blanking plate reasonably easily....
    --

  • The only problem.. (Score:3)

    by Inoshiro ( 71693 ) on Saturday September 09, 2000 @12:55PM (#791583) Homepage
    Most cases today are designed such that all ports are in the back. With the older AT motherboard layout, you could have long internal cables connecting the appropriate motherboard connector to a front panel one, but the ATX motherboards have the ports rather firmly attached at the rear.

    A possible solution is to develop a generic case that has front plate mounts, and hope it is adopted as a standard. Then people can have a comm port, USB connector, and firewire port on the front as standard (as well as add-in connectors for audio jacks and the like).

    However, until a standard appears, anything possible will likely be a hack that won't work the same on similar boxes.
    --
  • IMHO, the motherboard should be turned around so that you have an arrangement like this:

    PS|
    ---------|
    ___|mobo |
    drvs|crds|
    ____|____|
    front

    and the front of the machine would look like this:

    5.25 3.5 cards
    __V____V____V____
    |____|___||||||||
    |____|---||||||||
    |________||||||||
    ^ports,buttons,lights

    Also, I really don't get why people like towers so much, and why they put them on the floor. It's like they're ashamed of that big box controlling their nice spiffy peripherals. If I had a tower on the floor I'd end up kicking it and breaking my back trying to access the drives. If I put it on the desk, I'd worry about it tipping over, and I wouldn't be able to put thing on top of it because 1) most are curved on top, 2) again, it's not at natural arm level, and 3) it's too narrow for most things anyway. Desktops don't waste desk space because you can put lotsa junk on top of them. Someone please tell me why they think towers are better.

  • I agree that putting a currently decently sized monitor on a desktop makes it too high and the case hassle to get into, but there's really no reason to put any monitor on top of a desktop (unless, of course, you have a puny desk, or multiple computers on the same desk). I have my monitor and kb on the left side of my desk, and the box on the right, with junk piled on top of it. Had I gone with a tower, I could only pile half the amount of junk on that side of the desk. If I put it on the floor, it would just displace junk I have there (yes, my room is a pigsty of papers, boxes, and hardware), and I would still have the stretching-to-reach-the-drives problem. I just don't think I'll ever like towers, I'm a desktop zealot :).

  • I have all my computer eqiupment setting on some wire racks. I put casters on it, so now when I need to acces the back I just roll it away from the wall. It is the best setup I have ever found, I built a keyboard tray that is 3' wide for it, set of the racks to match the level I want the monitor and presto, I have a modular setup and all it cost we was 250, which would have been half the price if I had thought to look at sams when I bought the rack. No other setup even rack mount that I have found works as well and it is very inexpensive. Also think about leaveing enought space behind your desk for you to walk behind. I did that with my Home theater set up. I just cut access hole in the back and left enough space so I can walk behind it. Best of all this method is free, and works with all standard equiment.
  • Yes, many recent Compaq machines (Presario line) have USB and game ports on the front. The way they do it is with a very proprietary motherboard. In the case of the one I dismantled it looked like a cross between AT and ATX, only stupidly done, and broken. ('broken' meaning 'it corroded because they used shitty components') Ever seen a rusty motherboard? Not a cool thing.

    Anyhow. I'm quite sure that a generic ATX case with front ports DOES exist, and I've seen ads for it on the web. I'm searching for it, and if I find it I'll be sure to post the URL.

  • Even if you had easy access to front-of-case ports, you'd still have to get down on the floor, crouch, squint, wish you hadn't misplaced that flashlight, etc. while attaching cables. At least, you have to do those things if you're as old and half-blind as I am.

    What I'd like to see is the ports on the TOP .

    Think about it. If the ports are on top of a tower case, you can put the case in one of those desks that holds a tower case on a pull-out tray. The combo would be about perfect; pull out the case/tray and there are the cables, right on top, ready to be futzed with. I won't even have to get out of my seat to plug/unplug stuff.

    Another thought: Cut off the top leading corner of the case at a 45-degree angle and you'd have the perfect spot to mount the floppy, CD and maybe DVD drive. You wouldn't have to pull out the case to get to them and they'd be lots more convenient in that sort of top corner placement where they sorta face up at you. To me, this placement would be far better than the current situation with those drives on the front of the case and (inevitably it seems) always just an inch or two too close to the floor to be easy to reach.

    Surely someone has done this before. It just seems so...so...obvious.

    They haven't? Where's the name of that patent attorney...?

    :-)

  • My solution to the rear SB I/O port question is an odd one but applicable since I am using the ABIT SE6 MB with the useless CNR slot at the bottom, is to use the slot cover for the CNR to provide space for the daughterboard. Another solution on older MB's would be to use the Shared IRQ PCI/ISA slot hole on the ISA side to mount the card or the PCI side if you needed the extra ISA slot.

  • My motherboard (FIC SD-11), and several others I looked at, have headers for a front USB port, in addition to the ATX ports in the rear. They use a ribbon cable connector, the same as an AT USB capable board would use for rear ports. The motherboard does not come with the front port, but I've seen the cables at various stores (online and offline) that have a good stock of cables. It would probably be hard to find a case with a door for these, but you could cut a small corner out of an unused drive bay cover and wedge it in there. You may be able to find drive bay covers with them already built in, but that will be a little difficult.
  • I remember seeing an old 486 that had a little plug that was plug into the AT keyboard adapter and it ran wires up to a front adapter. Could something like this be done for the other ports (USB, Serial, etc.?) you might have to run the from outside the case then back in, but no one sees the back anyways. You of course would have to cut holes in your case to fit the new connectors though.

    As others have mentioned the Compaq computers do this, has anyone taken one of these computers apart to see how they did it?

  • I used to use a couple extension cables, especially one for the serial port, so I didn't have to dig around on the back of the PC to swap devices. You could put a couple of these together with shrink-wrap or something and terminate them in a plastic or metal box that you stuck on top of your case or next to the monitor.

    But personally I gave up and put my tower cases on wire shelving like a rack, so I can get to the back of the boxes almost as easy as the front.

    Any time I have to plug or unplug something on my wife's computer, though, I use a mirror so I don't have to move the case to see the back. It helps that her ports are well-labelled. I used to keep a post-it note on the side of one case that showed the layout of the ports, especially those 3 identical-looking jacks on the sound card.

  • Turn it backwards! Really, how often do you use the front of your computer? What is there to use on the front? A cdrom? A floppy? How often do you use those? Its been years since ive use mine, they just collect dust, so much id be afraid to use them.

    Ok so you do use the cdrom/floppy. How about sideways? Not as unattractive. You can reach both front and back. And save some room and the desk too.
  • What i did for mine was take a drive bay insert made of cheap thin plastic, heated it in a microwave until it was soft (not burnt) and then cut the holes the right size. Then it's just a question of unscrewing the ports from the dongle and putting them into the holes. Then glue. Quickie hack, but it's held up so far.
  • I've thought about using a Dremel to cut holes in a spare drive-bay cover to mount some serial ports. I'd need to get ports with longer cables to make them reach, and there'd be some difficulty in mounting the port on the plate. Glue could work, or a metal plate could be attached to the back of the plastic one and the port could be mounted in it. A newer case (where the drive bay panels have metal plates already installed, for RF shielding) would make this easier.

    If you're going to do that, you may as well buy the Frontx unit and make new holes in it for whatever additional type of ports you want. They leave some blank areas for their future port types. (Come to think of it, maybe that's what I ought to be doing ...)
  • The problem isn't the computer, it's the case. Nearly every factory-standard case on the market is a design disaster area. I currently have some rather nice limed oak, fretwork and a couple of leaded lights in the garage awaiting a spare moment. Thirty seconds with a brace and bit and I can have ports wherever I damned well please, and the whole thing *looks* like it belongs in my study. After that, the antimacassar for the mouse and a monitor with brass detailing. Sorted.
  • Why do people like towers?

    Because, when you have two video cards, two sound cards, a RAID controller, a video capture/TV tuner card, an ethernet card, a modem, an extra serial expansion card, three hard drives, two CD-ROM drives (one is a CD-R), and an LS-120; a normal desktop case just doesn't have ROOM for all that STUFF...

    :=)

    "What's this quote thing?"
  • Some nice Server Cases have the port on top, and a Big tower at the rear. I would like it for example to have 1 USB, 1 COM and a LPT(2) port on front and the other one's one the back. I would say that's a nice one ;-)
  • A company should release 5 1/4" bay covers that allow one to mount daughter cards such as my non-Sound Blaster SP/DIF card that takes up a perfectly usable pci slot. I can't see a way to modify a normal blank bay cover, but I assume there is a way to do it with some work.

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