There’s a mismatch between what the bare board offers and the chassis available. The most obvious is the PCIe slot. Wanting to put it to use pretty much means having to look third-party. Here’s the problem though: the third-party chassis features are a poor match for what the bare board offers.
Most chassis sport a trifecta of USB port types:
USB 2.0 (Type A)
USB 3.0 Gen 1 (Type A)
USB 3.2 Gen 2(x2) (Type C)
These each have different header plugs. The board provides two Type E headers, which could only correspond to two Type C ports. There are hardly any chassis on the market which have two Type E header plugs. (I have not seen a single one.) That means a third-party chassis build will result in USB ports which are connected to nothing on the board and/or untapped USB bandwidth on the board because there is no corresponding second Type C port.
It would make the board more compatible if Framework were to also offer an internal USB hub which connects to the Type E header on one end (at 20 gbps) and breaks it out into the three header types listed above. The second Type E header could then be routed to a PCI bracket.
This is an issue with current boards and chassis to be fair. I’ve had to use a converter to connect the front panel IO on my cases to my last couple of Intel and AMD motherboard headers.
Are these type E connectors not what’s in use for the front panel modules?
They are, but you can only use one of them. The Framework Desktop board exposes two, and no chassis I can find has two.
Most have four USB-A ports, fed from two USB headers. That leads to the second problem: these headers do not exist on the Framework Desktop Board, the chassis will have four extra dead ports.
I had an insane thought to get a Type E header-to-Type C port adapter to stack directly on top of the motherboard, plug an external hub, and then plug in reverse adapters to turn those external ports back into internal ones to be connected to the chassis’s front panel.
The plan falls apart when you realize neither the USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20 gbps) hubs nor reverse adapters exist.
I think this is the USB-IF specs doc on these internal connectors. https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/USB3p1_Front_Panel_CabCon_Implment_Doc_Rev1p1.pdf I do not believe it’s officially called USB Type E. Official naming coming from the USB-IF (USB Implementers Forum group that develops USB port specs). So you can not find “Type E” in their docs. But Type-E seems to be the name commonly used anyway.
It’s a lot easier to see why anyone would even consider a third-party chassis when the disconnects in capabilities are made into a table:
Framework Chassis
Board Capability
Third-party Chassis
(nothing)
PCIe 4.0 × 4 slot
PCIe bracket(s)
USB-C expansion card
USB header (20 gbps)
USB header to USB-C
USB-C expansion card
USB header (20 gbps)
(nothing)
(nothing)
(nothing)
USB header to 2 × USB-A (5 gbps)
(nothing)
(nothing)
USB header to 2 × USB-A (480 mbps)
tl;dr: There is no chassis which matches the board’s capabilities, including Framework’s own!
It’s clever, but still leaves two additional dead ports.
Last resort is probably finding a chassis which lacks the extra USB ports. Can’t have dead ports when they weren’t there to begin with. Then the extra header can be rerouted to a PCIe bracket in the back and that leave nothing unused.
There aren’t many such chassis to choose from though.
Really, it would be best if Framework had provided a slot for a PCIe AIC in their chassis.
Ok, that’s kind of annoying. Odd that Framework didn’t drop in 2 more expansion card slots.
Sorry, I didn’t note how many ports & which are needed. But the point was that I think there are adapters for whatever you need. And internal hubs, if the case just has a greater number of ports.
But this would be just for any additional chassis ports that you can’t plug in directly. Are those additional chassis ports 20 gbps USB-C? And if so, ask yourself if you’re actually going to need to saturate the bandwidth on those ports often enough to even justify the cost of a 20 gbps hub. They aren’t cheap. And presuming you are looking for as feature compete as possible, which seems to be what you desired here, they aren’t so simple or compact either. I do understand the desire to have the maximum available though, I share it.
I’m just planning on modding my front panel. I’m trying to decide if I just cut a slot to match the Expansion Card slots and use the cables pointed out by Djip, or maybe just modify the cable itself, similar to the guy below.
You have to be careful, those adaptors are kinda sketchy and fail to mention you’ll only get one of the 2 ports working with them. the USB3.0 connectors are supposed to have 2 ports each, and Type-E only does one. Unless you see chips on there, this won’t work for both ports.
I’ve had good luck with this (sorry, but the aliexpress stores don’t seem to exist anymore):
2x
Then the extra header can be rerouted to a PCIe bracket in the back and that leave nothing unused.
