If you're open to a bit of hunting and fiddling, you could try to get one of these:
https://www.delock.com/produkt/61823/merkmale.html
and work out the pinout of the two audio ports + the USB port, then just run three patch cables from the ports on your motherboard and sound card to the inputs on that bracket. If you also want speaker output, then you would just need to buy a 3.5mm audio splitter. This would be the best solution if you ask me, but it relies on finding a fairly obscure and specific peripheral which I can't see any examples of in a cursory ebay search.

Alternatively, you can buy a PCI USB card and use an 'external to internal' USB adaptor cable like this:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/204393234923
This would work for taking the internal USB port (present on most PCI USB cards I've seen) and extending it out to the front. However, despite the adaptors having the full nine pins, only the row of five are wired up, and I've never seen a PCI card with 2 internal ports, so you'd need to have two cards, assuming you've got two ports. You might be able to use a hub, but I'm not sure if it'd work.

Finally - and this is an incredibly dumb solution - you could literally just run an extension cable from the ports on your motherboard, through an empty expansion bay, and then into the ones on the front of the case. You'll have to do that for audio, anyway, though, since your sound cards don't have any internal outputs.

Also, The Awe64 is fully compatible with Windows 9x, so you could just use it on its own if you wanted to. Windows 98 SE even has drivers for it already on the disc, though PhilsComputerLab has a download for an update execuable:
https://www.philscomputerlab.com/drivers-for-awe64-gold.html
But if you want to keep both, then the Awe64 might still pass through its line input even if it's not actually enabled.

i'm fairly sure front USB came a generation later, you were supposed to use a hub before that. on BX boards, if they wanted to offer more than two ports, they'd use an onboard hub and an added bracket for the back. the via chipset does actually offer four ports but it seems gigabyte just didn't bother with that. i doubt using more than two usb devices was common in 2000/2001.

for the audio, easiest and best quality solution is to use an external mixer with headphone out. again, front panel audio was not that common yet and had pretty bad quality with many PC cases even years after that.

alfiehicks wrote on 2025-01-29, 15:15:

If you're open to a bit of hunting and fiddling, you could try to get one of these: https://www.delock.com/produkt/61823/merkmal […]
Show full quote

If you're open to a bit of hunting and fiddling, you could try to get one of these:
https://www.delock.com/produkt/61823/merkmale.html
and work out the pinout of the two audio ports + the USB port, then just run three patch cables from the ports on your motherboard and sound card to the inputs on that bracket. If you also want speaker output, then you would just need to buy a 3.5mm audio splitter. This would be the best solution if you ask me, but it relies on finding a fairly obscure and specific peripheral which I can't see any examples of in a cursory ebay search.

Alternatively, you can buy a PCI USB card and use an 'external to internal' USB adaptor cable like this:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/204393234923
This would work for taking the internal USB port (present on most PCI USB cards I've seen) and extending it out to the front. However, despite the adaptors having the full nine pins, only the row of five are wired up, and I've never seen a PCI card with 2 internal ports, so you'd need to have two cards, assuming you've got two ports. You might be able to use a hub, but I'm not sure if it'd work.

Finally - and this is an incredibly dumb solution - you could literally just run an extension cable from the ports on your motherboard, through an empty expansion bay, and then into the ones on the front of the case. You'll have to do that for audio, anyway, though, since your sound cards don't have any internal outputs.

Also, The Awe64 is fully compatible with Windows 9x, so you could just use it on its own if you wanted to. Windows 98 SE even has drivers for it already on the disc, though PhilsComputerLab has a download for an update execuable:
https://www.philscomputerlab.com/drivers-for-awe64-gold.html
But if you want to keep both, then the Awe64 might still pass through its line input even if it's not actually enabled.

So... yeah, none of these solutions are ideal. I actually have one PCI USB card, it has three USB ports on the outside and one facing inwards. It's pretty small, and assuming I can find another one like it, would actually fit. But then all my PCI slots are filled, and ideally I wanted to keep one or two open to swap other cards in and out. I also now have eight USB ports at the back of the machine, which is a tad ridiculous.

I guess I could put one PCI USB card in there and just use only one of the front ports. It's not like I'm in desperate need of USB ports at the front, it's just nice to be able to plug something in without having to go around back every time.

That first thing, even if I can find that somewhere, how does that work exactly? Would it require soldering?

Would it not be easier, and just as cheap, to buy a hub and use that, if your only concern is that you currently have to get to the back of the system to plug things in? A hub that can handle USB 1 and 2 (I'm assuming it supports 2.0, as the BIOS has a setting to enable/disable legacy support) should be very cheap and easy to find.

You would think the AMR slot would be ideal to add this function internally.

Not USB of course, you'd need an addon card with internal headers, but FPA should be routable over AMR...

debs3759 wrote on 2025-01-29, 17:00:

Would it not be easier, and just as cheap, to buy a hub and use that, if your only concern is that you currently have to get to the back of the system to plug things in? A hub that can handle USB 1 and 2 (I'm assuming it supports 2.0, as the BIOS has a setting to enable/disable legacy support) should be very cheap and easy to find.

Yeah, it would. Honestly, my only gripe with that is that it would look clumsy. But maybe that’s just the easiest solution.

JustRob wrote on 2025-01-29, 16:08:

That first thing, even if I can find that somewhere, how does that work exactly? Would it require soldering?

It wouldn't need soldering, you'd just need a multimeter to check for continuity between the external connections in the USB port and 3.5mm jacks, and the pins on the header on the inside. The audio ports are connected internally via a standard HD Audio connector, which has a standardised pinout that you could look up online. The USB port, it seems, translates to the same pin array as the Firewire port, so you'd definitely need to check for continuity on that one. Once you know which pins are which, though, the pins use a standard dupont pitch, so assuming your case's audio and USB cables terminate in dupont connectors, then you could just plug them straight in, though you might need to change the arrangement of the cables within the dupont connector, which is an easy thing to do.