Front panel connector quality rant

[watercooled]

I'm not sure which forum this is best suited to, so feel free to move it if you can think of somewhere better.

Why is it, you spend a fair amount of money on a high-end case, and the front panel connectors turn out to be utter rubbish? In my experience, Antec seem to be bad for this, but it's certainly nothing unique to them.

Examples of issues I've had include;
Poorly fitting jacks, USB connectors which lose connection with the slightest nudge or fail to power bus-powered HDDs, audio jacks which need about 5 tons of force to insert/remove.
Interference, usually thorough a complete lack of attention to shielding/EMI, e.g. buzzing picked up on front panel audio, or very audible echo back to other end of voip conversation, probably some form of crosstalk. And it's reasonable to assume this impacts USB too.

Combined, these issues render the front panel connectors near unusable a lot of the time for obvious reasons. So come on manufacturers, we're spending £80 or so on the case, please spend more than 5p on the quality-dependant electrical parts and give your customers a better experience. IMO this is completely inexcusable regardless of the price of the case - I'd be disappointed enough on a £20 bargain bin case, but it seems to plague 'high-end' cases equally.

[kalniel]

Yeah it seems hit and miss as to whether you get something well thought out or whether they've scraped margins (at every price point).

[Dutchjonsey]

Ive had to mod my colossus, they had the audio sharing the same ground path as usb >< adding an extra wire and a couple of ferrite rings wasnt exactly a huge expense for me, and I'd have paid a pound more if it meant theyd done it themselves. I guess the march of technology has made it less important than it used to be, my old gateway case had much better shielding than any I've since had

[GoNz0]

at least with corsairs fail on the 800d front panel (common ground over usb and audio cause feedback) they sent out a usb 3 updated model, still in it's box as i changed soundcard during.

[Willzzz]

My mates case thinks there are ALWAYS headphones plugged in regardless. So by default it mutes any output to the rear panel.

To get round this he had to have both permanently enabled and has to turn off his speakers when he uses headphones.

[DanceswithUnix]

ISTR I only plaid £30 for my Antec 300, but yes one of the USB front connectors is iffy.

[UseItNow]

at least with corsairs fail on the 800d front panel (common ground over usb and audio cause feedback) they sent out a usb 3 updated model, still in it's box as i changed soundcard during.

Sorry, care to elaborate on that issue? Thanks.

[Heisenberg]

Yes Watercooled, use back audio you annoying git!, your skype calls consist of pew-pew and explosions... in regards to the post, my front audio connectors don't even work anymore, probably due to having a relic of a PC. More recently my old man's computer often disconnects his sound, so he unplugged the headers and stuck to using the rear I/O ports, I don't blame him... get it sorted manufacturers!.

[watercooled]

Bit harsh.

But yeah that's my point - anything going out of the FP headphone socket is picked up by the mic line.

[GoNz0]

Sorry, care to elaborate on that issue? Thanks.

not much to say, you hear interference with the front panel because some numpty forgot the mic/headphone inputs need a shielded earth, instead every ground was connected on the front panel, you hear USB data over the headset and people heard it when i spoke. I scored the earth to separate the mic/headphone connections and all interference was gone.

i never fitted the usb3 panel they shipped to cure the problem as my mobo is usb2.

then i got the asus phoebus with a breakout box so it isn't needed anyway.

[UseItNow]

not much to say, you hear interference with the front panel because some numpty forgot the mic/headphone inputs need a shielded earth, instead every ground was connected on the front panel, you hear USB data over the headset and people heard it when i spoke. I scored the earth to separate the mic/headphone connections and all interference was gone.

i never fitted the usb3 panel they shipped to cure the problem as my mobo is usb2.

then i got the asus phoebus with a breakout box so it isn't needed anyway.

Thanks for the reply, probably never noticed it as I tend to use the rear ports for the sake of keeping the front of the case clean, LOL.

[Agent]

I've generally found the ports on Silverstone cases very good, but have had issues with others.

We've got a bunch of Coolermasters at work and several of the USB ports have knackered with barely any force. The annoying part is that they cause a short when it happens, meaning you can't power the thing on until you've realised this.

[deejayburnout]

I agree with the front port issue.

Have a few cases where the USB ports just fail.

My present Sharkoon case has issue where it doesn't detect the headphone plugged in properly and my PC just goes quiet. Been like that since day 1.

I have had the same issue with the USB port on my wives car headunit as well.

I think that the ports are just not made to be plugged/umplugged all the time.

Either bad design or poor quality. I wonder if you put one of the rear ports under the same workload, would they be the same???

I am more bad design myself. That little plastic bit in the middle of the USB socket always breaks for me. Just asking to snap off.

[badass]

I feel for you.
My Antec P180 had front jacks that couldn't fit my headphones in FFS. IIRC it was £90 without a PSU.
When you can get a low end case with integrated PSU fro less than £30, you'd expect that when paying 3 times the price, the quality would be half decent.

[kmac]

Touch wood, have a number of Lian Li cases and never had an issue with the front ports.

[Bagnaj97]

For those of you having front connector troubles, OCUK sell quite a few replacements in their case accessories section.

I've just replaced the panel in my case (Xigmatek Midgard, made by the same OEM as the Fractal Design Define cases afaik). The connectors all feel decent enough quality, but I think I tripped over my headset cord a few too many times because the jack sense went flaky and it would pop up every time saying something had been connected/disconnected - most annoying when gaming! Normally I wouldn't have bothered, but as it also upgraded the front ports to USB 3 I figured it was worth doing.