GA-F2A88X-D3H MOBO Sound?

I have a new GA-F2A88X-D3H MOTHERBOARD. And I bought a new case.
The latter came with two dongles to allow for motherboard sounds I
would suppose. The dongle is only about an inch long with 4-pin
female plug on one end and what looks to be a little sound device (?)
about an inch sized little cylinder on the other end.

This is no big thing, but I was just curious if the little dongle
would provide a bootup sound, which I thought I might like. Might not
of course. Anyway I plugged the female end onto the mobo pins each of
two ways, but I can get no sounds at boot either way. So I am
wondering if anyone out there have any experience with this mobo who
can tell me what I might be doing wrong? I have checked the manual of
course, but find nothing.

Thanks
\
Big Fred

On 11/8/2013 8:31 AM, wrote:
I have a new GA-F2A88X-D3H MOTHERBOARD. And I bought a new case.
The latter came with two dongles to allow for motherboard sounds I
would suppose. The dongle is only about an inch long with 4-pin
female plug on one end and what looks to be a little sound device (?)
about an inch sized little cylinder on the other end.

This is no big thing, but I was just curious if the little dongle
would provide a bootup sound, which I thought I might like. Might not
of course. Anyway I plugged the female end onto the mobo pins each of
two ways, but I can get no sounds at boot either way. So I am
wondering if anyone out there have any experience with this mobo who
can tell me what I might be doing wrong? I have checked the manual of
course, but find nothing.

Thanks
\
Big Fred

The manual seems to indicate that there is no support for a
sound device.
It is found here;
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/pro...14&dl=1#manual

wrote:
I have a new GA-F2A88X-D3H MOTHERBOARD. And I bought a new case.
The latter came with two dongles to allow for motherboard sounds I
would suppose. The dongle is only about an inch long with 4-pin
female plug on one end and what looks to be a little sound device (?)
about an inch sized little cylinder on the other end.

This is no big thing, but I was just curious if the little dongle
would provide a bootup sound, which I thought I might like. Might not
of course. Anyway I plugged the female end onto the mobo pins each of
two ways, but I can get no sounds at boot either way. So I am
wondering if anyone out there have any experience with this mobo who
can tell me what I might be doing wrong? I have checked the manual of
course, but find nothing.

Thanks
\
Big Fred

Look in the manual. The PDF I have, has this on PDF page 26.

F_PANEL (Front Panel Header)

The pins labeled SPKR+ and SPKR- have a spacing
of four pins total. That's intended for a case
speaker. OEM cases have a two pin spacing for
SPKR, in which case, that causes problems when the
world has two different standards for the stupid
things.

Some motherboards, will allow both two and four
pin spacings, the way they're designed, so you're covered
for both instances. The diagram in your user manual,
does not provide evidence of this feature. It only
shows a four pin spacing working. The silk screen
(white lettering) on the motherboard, may give hints
whether it's intended for both.

If the piezo has any polarity markings, please follow
them. Of the two types of piezos, one cares about
polarity and the other doesn't. The one that cares
about polarity, the internal circuit design is
unknown (so I can't guess at whether the piezo oscillator
smokes when it is reversed or not).

*******

There are two kinds of piezo devices. Transducer and
oscillator type.

Transducer, you are driving the capacitive element directly.
This requires a decent amplitude signal to get it working.
(AFAIK, piezos "need voltage" to work.)
The signal in this case would be AC for best results. It
could also work with DC_offset + AC, but like any ordinary
speaker, that affects how far the "cone" can move. The
DC would push the cone to one side, and limit the travel.

The oscillator type, they're driven by a DC source. The
device has an oscillator of its own inside, tuned for
the resonant frequency of the transducer (which gives
a loud sound, with moderate power consumption). Maybe
your smoke detector would be an example of this
type of noise source. The circuit would be designed
to deliver pure AC to the actual piezo element.

The motherboard side, I can find at least two driver
configurations. I could find an open collector circuit
(that's the kind I would do, as an "analog dummy").
I could also find an emitter follower circuit. The
emitter follower was biased from VCC3, driven by
the SPKR pin of the Southbridge, and on the output
side, the collector is connected directly to +5V.
The output voltage would be one diode drop below
the bias voltage, max. And this means, with an output value
of around 2.3V or so (0 to 2.3V signal), the output
on the emitter follower motherboard is not likely
to be enough to power an oscillator (beeper) type
piezo. The output from the emitter follower
might be too low for the job. The oscillator might
want 3.3V or so.

So my answer would be, it's possible you got caught
in the details. If you use a regular magnetic case
speaker, both motherboard circuits would work with that.

The emitter follower circuit is marginally safer,
in that if the SPKR+ or SPKR- wires are pinched
by the bare metal of the computer case (short
circuit), the bias circuit times the Hfe gain
of the transistor, limits current flow. And even
if the transistor is heroic, the transistor can
probably burn without anyone noticing smoke or
anything :-)

PDF page 74 features emitter follower SPKR+ driver.
Max voltage on pin would be VCC3 minus one diode drop.
Min voltage would be zero (when the transistor is off).

http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets...ics/252812.htm

PDF page 32. Analysis is more complicated with a
capacitive piezo of some sort connected, but a guess
is this makes more amplitude available than the previous
circuit. And is more likely to run a beeper of any type.
If you pinch the red SPKR+ wire with this circuit, the
red speaker wire glows red hot (ATX +5V shorted), and
all the vinyl insulation on the wire burns. Spectacular.
(A poster years ago, described such an event, pinching
that wire by accident in the computer case door.)
The design idiots don't waste money on a fuse, or adjust the
circuit to not do this! As a digital designer, this
is more my style :-) Although I would probably
split the load resistance, into two 18 ohm resistors,
and put an 18 ohm in each leg. Then, instead of
a spectacular "wire fire", one 18 ohm resistor goes up
in smoke :-) And the 5V rail hardly notices.

http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets...x/BXDPDG10.PDF

*******

The piezo provided, you could use the part number off
it, to look up the characteristics.

Chances are, it's rated for 5V operation, if it's thrown
into a motherboard box.

You could take three dry cells, giving a 4.5V supply
and try and test it. If it is the transducer type,
connecting the red leg to +4.5V, should make a "tick" or
"click" sound. If it is the oscillator type, connecting
the red lead to +4.5V will make a loud beep. Probably
causing you to throw the batteries in the air :-) If
I was doing this test, I'd probably stick a limiting
resistor in line for the test. But not everyone has
multiple drawers full of resistors, to do this. I have
a fairly complete collection of 1/4 Watt and 1/8 Watt
resistors. So I'm well prepared for these experiments.

If the piezo has one black wire, that's the negative
end. If the piezo has a red wire, that's the positive
one. But they could use other, non-black wire color
for the positive one (like white or orange). But it
would be tradition for the wire to be red. (Red for
"fire" maybe :-) )

If both wires are the same color, there are no
polarity markings, it could be the transducer type,
and be more likely to give some sort of signal.
The oscillator one, with two different color wires,
and a diet for DC on input, could be more picky.

Have fun,
Paul

On Fri, 08 Nov 2013 10:27:41 -0500, Paul wrote:

wrote:
I have a new GA-F2A88X-D3H MOTHERBOARD. And I bought a new case.
The latter came with two dongles to allow for motherboard sounds I
would suppose. The dongle is only about an inch long with 4-pin
female plug on one end and what looks to be a little sound device (?)
about an inch sized little cylinder on the other end.

This is no big thing, but I was just curious if the little dongle
would provide a bootup sound, which I thought I might like. Might not
of course. Anyway I plugged the female end onto the mobo pins each of
two ways, but I can get no sounds at boot either way. So I am
wondering if anyone out there have any experience with this mobo who
can tell me what I might be doing wrong? I have checked the manual of
course, but find nothing.

Thanks
\
Big Fred

Look in the manual. The PDF I have, has this on PDF page 26.

F_PANEL (Front Panel Header)

The pins labeled SPKR+ and SPKR- have a spacing
of four pins total. That's intended for a case
speaker. OEM cases have a two pin spacing for
SPKR, in which case, that causes problems when the
world has two different standards for the stupid
things.

Some motherboards, will allow both two and four
pin spacings, the way they're designed, so you're covered
for both instances. The diagram in your user manual,
does not provide evidence of this feature. It only
shows a four pin spacing working. The silk screen
(white lettering) on the motherboard, may give hints
whether it's intended for both.

If the piezo has any polarity markings, please follow
them. Of the two types of piezos, one cares about
polarity and the other doesn't. The one that cares
about polarity, the internal circuit design is
unknown (so I can't guess at whether the piezo oscillator
smokes when it is reversed or not).

*******

There are two kinds of piezo devices. Transducer and
oscillator type.

Transducer, you are driving the capacitive element directly.
This requires a decent amplitude signal to get it working.
(AFAIK, piezos "need voltage" to work.)
The signal in this case would be AC for best results. It
could also work with DC_offset + AC, but like any ordinary
speaker, that affects how far the "cone" can move. The
DC would push the cone to one side, and limit the travel.

The oscillator type, they're driven by a DC source. The
device has an oscillator of its own inside, tuned for
the resonant frequency of the transducer (which gives
a loud sound, with moderate power consumption). Maybe
your smoke detector would be an example of this
type of noise source. The circuit would be designed
to deliver pure AC to the actual piezo element.

The motherboard side, I can find at least two driver
configurations. I could find an open collector circuit
(that's the kind I would do, as an "analog dummy").
I could also find an emitter follower circuit. The
emitter follower was biased from VCC3, driven by
the SPKR pin of the Southbridge, and on the output
side, the collector is connected directly to +5V.
The output voltage would be one diode drop below
the bias voltage, max. And this means, with an output value
of around 2.3V or so (0 to 2.3V signal), the output
on the emitter follower motherboard is not likely
to be enough to power an oscillator (beeper) type
piezo. The output from the emitter follower
might be too low for the job. The oscillator might
want 3.3V or so.

So my answer would be, it's possible you got caught
in the details. If you use a regular magnetic case
speaker, both motherboard circuits would work with that.

The emitter follower circuit is marginally safer,
in that if the SPKR+ or SPKR- wires are pinched
by the bare metal of the computer case (short
circuit), the bias circuit times the Hfe gain
of the transistor, limits current flow. And even
if the transistor is heroic, the transistor can
probably burn without anyone noticing smoke or
anything :-)

PDF page 74 features emitter follower SPKR+ driver.
Max voltage on pin would be VCC3 minus one diode drop.
Min voltage would be zero (when the transistor is off).

http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets...ics/252812.htm

PDF page 32. Analysis is more complicated with a
capacitive piezo of some sort connected, but a guess
is this makes more amplitude available than the previous
circuit. And is more likely to run a beeper of any type.
If you pinch the red SPKR+ wire with this circuit, the
red speaker wire glows red hot (ATX +5V shorted), and
all the vinyl insulation on the wire burns. Spectacular.
(A poster years ago, described such an event, pinching
that wire by accident in the computer case door.)
The design idiots don't waste money on a fuse, or adjust the
circuit to not do this! As a digital designer, this
is more my style :-) Although I would probably
split the load resistance, into two 18 ohm resistors,
and put an 18 ohm in each leg. Then, instead of
a spectacular "wire fire", one 18 ohm resistor goes up
in smoke :-) And the 5V rail hardly notices.

http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets...x/BXDPDG10.PDF

*******

The piezo provided, you could use the part number off
it, to look up the characteristics.

Chances are, it's rated for 5V operation, if it's thrown
into a motherboard box.

You could take three dry cells, giving a 4.5V supply
and try and test it. If it is the transducer type,
connecting the red leg to +4.5V, should make a "tick" or
"click" sound. If it is the oscillator type, connecting
the red lead to +4.5V will make a loud beep. Probably
causing you to throw the batteries in the air :-) If
I was doing this test, I'd probably stick a limiting
resistor in line for the test. But not everyone has
multiple drawers full of resistors, to do this. I have
a fairly complete collection of 1/4 Watt and 1/8 Watt
resistors. So I'm well prepared for these experiments.

If the piezo has one black wire, that's the negative
end. If the piezo has a red wire, that's the positive
one. But they could use other, non-black wire color
for the positive one (like white or orange). But it
would be tradition for the wire to be red. (Red for
"fire" maybe :-) )

If both wires are the same color, there are no
polarity markings, it could be the transducer type,
and be more likely to give some sort of signal.
The oscillator one, with two different color wires,
and a diet for DC on input, could be more picky.

Have fun,
Paul


Oh wow! I didn't expect that all this would be involved.
I bought a Rosewill Galaxy 3 case which now houses a GA-F2A88X-D3H
MOBO. I naturally have a manual for both. The mobo has four pins
designated speaker. The case came with two speaker dongles (my term),
one with two black wires for pins 1 & 4, the other a black wire and a
red wire connected to same pins. Otherwise they look the same. I
tried both in two combos since only pins 1 & 4 had wires. The case
never saw my mobo until I put the mobo in the case. So, the dongle of
course was not made for my mobo.

That said, I think I will just forget I saw the dongles - I don't need
sound to announce boot anyway.

Thanks guys.

Big Fred

wrote:

Oh wow! I didn't expect that all this would be involved.
I bought a Rosewill Galaxy 3 case which now houses a GA-F2A88X-D3H
MOBO. I naturally have a manual for both. The mobo has four pins
designated speaker. The case came with two speaker dongles (my term),
one with two black wires for pins 1 & 4, the other a black wire and a
red wire connected to same pins. Otherwise they look the same. I
tried both in two combos since only pins 1 & 4 had wires. The case
never saw my mobo until I put the mobo in the case. So, the dongle of
course was not made for my mobo.

That said, I think I will just forget I saw the dongles - I don't need
sound to announce boot anyway.

Thanks guys.

Big Fred

I'm out of ideas.

Looking at the motherboard picture, I can see the red color under
the four pin SPKR section on the 20 pin F_PANEL header. Make sure
you're on the right pins. I have, on occasion, slipped a header onto
the wrong row of pins :-)

Paul

On Fri, 08 Nov 2013 19:05:48 -0500, Paul wrote:


I'm out of ideas.

Looking at the motherboard picture, I can see the red color under
the four pin SPKR section on the 20 pin F_PANEL header. Make sure
you're on the right pins. I have, on occasion, slipped a header onto
the wrong row of pins :-)

Paul


Hi Paul

I have double checked the pins, and I am pretty sure I have the right
4 pins. Its not that important - it just seemed strange that the
speaker pins did not convey any sound.

Maybe I should search around to see if I can find a pic of what I have
to be sure of the latter.

Big Fred

On Fri, 08 Nov 2013 19:05:48 -0500, Paul wrote:


I'm out of ideas.

Looking at the motherboard picture, I can see the red color under
the four pin SPKR section on the 20 pin F_PANEL header. Make sure
you're on the right pins. I have, on occasion, slipped a header onto
the wrong row of pins :-)

Paul


Voila! This is what i have:

https://www.virtuabotix.com/productp...FQbNOgod5j0Asw

BF

wrote:
On Fri, 08 Nov 2013 19:05:48 -0500, Paul wrote:


I'm out of ideas.

Looking at the motherboard picture, I can see the red color under
the four pin SPKR section on the 20 pin F_PANEL header. Make sure
you're on the right pins. I have, on occasion, slipped a header onto
the wrong row of pins :-)

Paul


Voila! This is what i have:

https://www.virtuabotix.com/productp...FQbNOgod5j0Asw

BF

That one is polarized. If you look at the red markings
on your F_PANEL header, there is a (+) on the inside pin.
And the device pictured on the virtuabotix, has definite
(+) and (-) symbols, as well as red and black wiring.
It's polarized. It should only be connected one way.
I can't say what would happen to it, if it was reversed.

Paul

On Sat, 09 Nov 2013 02:28:42 -0500, Paul wrote:

wrote:
On Fri, 08 Nov 2013 19:05:48 -0500, Paul wrote:


I'm out of ideas.

Looking at the motherboard picture, I can see the red color under
the four pin SPKR section on the 20 pin F_PANEL header. Make sure
you're on the right pins. I have, on occasion, slipped a header onto
the wrong row of pins :-)

Paul


Voila! This is what i have:

https://www.virtuabotix.com/productp...FQbNOgod5j0Asw

BF

That one is polarized. If you look at the red markings
on your F_PANEL header, there is a (+) on the inside pin.
And the device pictured on the virtuabotix, has definite
(+) and (-) symbols, as well as red and black wiring.
It's polarized. It should only be connected one way.
I can't say what would happen to it, if it was reversed.

Paul
I must be dumb, blind, or both. My physical manual plus the pdf of it
(that I downloaded and saved) do not seem to show color, just B & W,
for said pins. Just + and - as you describe. Also, I really do not
see any color coding on the mobo itself for the four pin SPKR section
on the 20 pin F_PANEL header. I assumed red is +, as it usually is,
and the connection is red side to +. Still no sound. Maybe the
little speaker is defective. That would be the simple answer to the
problem, wouldn't it.

Thanks

Big Fred

wrote:
On Sat, 09 Nov 2013 02:28:42 -0500, Paul wrote:

wrote:
On Fri, 08 Nov 2013 19:05:48 -0500, Paul wrote:


I'm out of ideas.

Looking at the motherboard picture, I can see the red color under
the four pin SPKR section on the 20 pin F_PANEL header. Make sure
you're on the right pins. I have, on occasion, slipped a header onto
the wrong row of pins :-)

Paul

Voila! This is what i have:

https://www.virtuabotix.com/productp...FQbNOgod5j0Asw

BF
That one is polarized. If you look at the red markings
on your F_PANEL header, there is a (+) on the inside pin.
And the device pictured on the virtuabotix, has definite
(+) and (-) symbols, as well as red and black wiring.
It's polarized. It should only be connected one way.
I can't say what would happen to it, if it was reversed.

Paul
I must be dumb, blind, or both. My physical manual plus the pdf of it
(that I downloaded and saved) do not seem to show color, just B & W,
for said pins. Just + and - as you describe. Also, I really do not
see any color coding on the mobo itself for the four pin SPKR section
on the 20 pin F_PANEL header. I assumed red is +, as it usually is,
and the connection is red side to +. Still no sound. Maybe the
little speaker is defective. That would be the simple answer to the
problem, wouldn't it.

Thanks

Big Fred


The red coloring, should be painted on the motherboard
near the F_PANEL header.

In the picture here, it's in the lower right hand corner,
just above the "PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot" text. The F_PANEL
header has tiny blobs of green, white, pink, and red coloration
next to the 20 pin F_PANEL pins.

http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/13-128-656-Z03?$S640$

*******

I would test the piezoelectric speaker with a power source,
to satisfy my curiosity.

Testing the motherboard output, you could
try a regular (non-piezo) case speaker as
a test for that end.

Paul