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Installation:::...
I
mentioned that you could buy an internal USB cable, but
luckily we had one sent with the kit.
One
thing disappointed me about the supplied leaflet which explains
how to fit the cable, and that is that the diagram is wrong.
Well, not wrong as such, just rotated through 90 degrees
when compared to the actual orientation.
If
you look at the top arrow in the picture below it makes
it look like the header is in the bottom right hand corner
of the board when in actual fact if you look at the lower
arrow you can see that it's on the bottom left. Not a problem
to anyone who has an idea what they're doing but confusing
to a less experienced user I should imagine. It may be that
this is a generic leaflet and that some of the displays
are this way up, but It need changing to stop the "trial
and error" approach to finding the proper pins.
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Display
- Rear
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For
some reason, these USB connectors often get people stressed,
but it helps if you understand how the USB pin-outs are
arranged.
Most
internal USB headers have nine pins and look a little like
this:
The
first thing you should know to help simplify things is that
the pin that's off on its own, no matter which way up the
header is, is not connected to anything and is used as a
key to stop you attaching one-piece connectors the wrong
way around, or the gap is depending how you look at it.
The
next thing that will help demystify things is that this
is a dual USB header, so there are are only four pins per
USB port, each of which is duplicated. So, in a nutshell,
we have only four pins to worry about.
Assuming
the motherboard manufacturer has done things by the book,
the pins should be arranged like this:
So
as you can see we have a pair of +5V pins on the right (sometimes
shown as VCC in your manual), then a pair of D- (Data-),
then D+ (Data +) then finally a pair of ground pins.
Below
are the four connectors from the end of the internal USB
cable.
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Internal
USB Cable Connectors
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So
you could connect the pins like this:
Or
alternatively you could connect them like this:
Either
way works fine just double check in your motherboard manual
that the pins haven't been assigned in a different order.
If so, the same principle remains, just reorder the connectors
to suit.
I've
already mentioned the possible problems fitting the MX with
drive rails, though apart from this, physically installing
the unit is as straightforward as removing and refitting
the four screws in most cases.
Trying
to plug in the floppy power connector (if you need to) is
a right royal pain in the Donkey if you try and do it after
the MX is fastened in place, and you probably will as most
cables won't reach far enough to connect them from the front
before you fit it. A small extension lead would definitely
be a welcome addition here.
This
done you just need to reboot your PC and follow the onscreen
instructions, pointing your PC to the drivers in the "USB
Drivers" folder on the installation CD. Two entries
are created in device manager, a virtual COM port in "Ports"
and an entry in your "USB Controllers".
The
final step is to install LCDC. This is much like installing
any software other than you need to get an activation code
based on the CD key number, then let the software detect
your MX before you go in and set it all up.
This
is made simpler by the "Getting Started" screen
that you can access on the way in, or later on, but make
no mistake, some of the settings are bordering on complicated
and require some thinking about. You can get things running
in basic mode quite easily, but modifying things and creating
new profiles and sequences isn't for those who don't enjoy
some figuring things out.
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Getting
Started
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