Identifying a motherboard?

[Magua]

My girlfriend's brother, being the genius he is, pulled apart the family computer and has no idea how to put it back together. I had a look at it, and all the components are in place bar the wiring.

I had a quick look at the mobo and nothing stuck out to identify the make or model. Any tech geeks out there have ways of identifying motherboards so I may look for a manual online?

[Indiana_Jones]

You have a girlfriend?!

:gob:

-Indy

[FJRider]

Ditch her for girlfriend who knows about computers ???

[Conquiztador]

The motherboard is the big un...

[Spuds1234]

There should definatly be something written on the motherboard somewhere to help you identify the board.

As it stands though, you should be able to plug everything into it without to many problems as most of the plugs will only go in one way and in one place.

If you can get the computer to run, you can always run a program like CPU-Z. That will tell you what kinda motherboard you have.

[PirateJafa]

All the plugs will tell you where to put them - square plugs go into square sockets ya bloody spacecadet.

The only harder plugs to identify will be reading the stupidly small print on the mobo to see where the power switch/power LED/HDD activity LED/reset switches plug in.

Once the computer is *running*, just download Everest from thepiratebay.org or similar (it's a freeware site, honest!). Everest will tell you ALL the information you need to know about your computer, and then some more. It is also very good for checking the health of your power supply etc.

[Magua]

The only harder plugs to identify will be reading the stupidly small print on the mobo to see where the power switch/power LED/HDD activity LED/reset switches plug in.


Those are the ones I'm stuck with. _b I'll take a look tonight.

[Gremlin]

Those are the ones I'm stuck with. _b I'll take a look tonight.
there should definitely be marks/codes on the mobo identifying model, normally around the cpu socket. Only reason there wouldn't be would be because they were removed. You could try posting a high res shot top down of the mobo.

As for the front panel, no way to really tell, other than guessing or the manual, as each mobo varies on colour usage, layout etc. only thing you may be able to get (depending on age and model) is which pin is positive and which is negative (normally a black + on the positive, on top of the colour coding)