Replacing the front I/O panel on a Carbide 400R

The right front USB 3.0 input was dead on my 400R from new so I finally had the time today to replace it. I have also recently received the AFT Pro 57U USB 3.0 5.25 media card reader so I installed them both today. I took pictures along the way and maybe it will help the next person that has to do this.

Here is my 400R ready to disassemble and the replacement parts sent by Corsair, the smaller box is what they will send you if you requested the missing fan screws as well.

On the front panel bottom there is a area for your fingers to grab and pull from. It might feel like it doesn't want to pop off so be careful and work slowly and it will pop off.

This is the friction connectors used to hold the front panel on, they fit into corresponding holes on the body of the case.

2 screws hold the I/O control in.

Using a Phillips screwdriver remove these 2 screws.

Lift the panel from the bottom and the whole thing will come out as one unit.

I read on some other threads that some folks were confused as to where all the connections go. Here you can see they are all clearly marked.

This is the Molex connection for the front LED fans.

Gigabyte puts the HD audio connection in a odd location but Corsair gives you plenty of length to route it through the top left hole also used for the CPU 8 pin.

Bottom right is the front On/Off, HD light, Reset, & power light connections. To the left is where I plugged in for new AFT Pro 57U USB 3.0 media card reader. Next is the 1394 (firewire) connection, and to the far left Corsair is kind enough to include a USB 3.0 to USB 2.0 adapter for the stock front USB 3.0 inputs. I chose to put my new card reader to the only motherboard header because I want to be able to transfer photo's quickly. My SLR's use compact flash cards and photo's now load faster than ever. If your camera uses SD cards the USB 3.0 speeds won't help much.

I won these Cougar fans from a Facebook contest so I installed them on the hard drive cage while I had it open. They are really quiet and I would recommend them.

Everything in place and ready to fire back up and test.

Everything works and I'm happy to have my machine back in full force.

I took apart the original I/O control and you can see the missing connector from the top right unit. This is not a hard job to complete and it took me around 1 hour to complete. I'm not showing the back wiring until I receive my new SSD next week and get it installed.

Hi,I have a question about the 2-wire mollex power connector cable...I have an rma

for a new one since the original was defective...does this connect to the front

control panel?? and if it does is it hard wired or can I just unplug the orig. and plug in the new...?? thanks for any info...I'm in the dark on this and want to

be prepared when I receive the new cable.

 

Also.. I want to add two top led Corsair fans...don't see how to connect them,

are there more connections on the front panel to accept more fans?? thanks

I'm hoping the new fans corsair is sending me corrects the problem. Out of the box both fans where plugged into the wire harness coming out of the front panel at the top where the two USB ports and audio connectors are. Every wire from this harness is connected to the motherboard but the fans don't spin, and now i'm second guessing is there some additional wire I didn't see that needs to be plugged in. I remember plugging in the big USB 3.0 connector, and the HD Audio, but your Gigabyte board looks a lot different than mine. Can you or any reader here tell me which wire coming out of that harness needs to be plugged in to make the fans work. Everything else works fine.