Does the internal socket on say a USB/Firewire PCI board have any use that is not obvious, at least to me?

I would like to connect this socket to my two front panel usb sockets giving them USB2 functionality, is this possible? Is there a common cable for this purpose, i.e. to join the front panel USB to board cable with the internal PCI board socket?

Thanks in advance.

The internal socket on add-on USB/firewire cards is usually used for two things, the front panel connector or an internal USB/firewire device (such as a harddisk).

The connector for your front panel USB usually is a mainboard connector, and will not fit on the internal USB connector of an addon card. You could try buying a USB cable and then do a bit of soldering.

I don't entirely agree with Firefoxx here. I have a USB/Firewire card, and the additional internal USB ports were implemented as a pin header, so was actually the same as the motherboard connector in my case.

Maybe I was just lucky. Anyway, it's fairly obvious if it's a USB port (like the ones on the back) or simply a pin header (pins sticking up from a bit of plastic on the PCB) when you look at it.

Strange, I've never seen one with an internal pin header before. Usually only a socket, like the one spacebass has.

I had the opposite problem, I had a firewire front panel connector which terminated in a normal firewire plug. My mainboard had an internal pin firewire header. I modded a female pin header and cut the front panel line, and soldered them together. You of course need to know which line goes where.