Well, if the engineers aren't huffing glue, a missing jumper will usually mean "off". So if you find something not working, check that first. It can be as simple as someone dropping a jumper and not finding it. Also, its a common practice to put jumpers on one leg for some devices. they are easy to knock off and lose.

afaik 80 pin cables will be fine with slower speeds. They mostly just put an extra ground wire between each signal.

ElectroMan wrote:

Does the absence of closed jumpers on J7 and J13 mean that the Serial Port 1 and IDE2 are off?
Should I do anything about J10 (USB2)? Also this one is red (just as voltage ones) - makes it sort of scary to mess with.

You don't mean that there are actual, physical, plastic jumpers on the IDE1/Serial2/LPT/USB2/etc pin headers, do you? I'm not sure I'm understanding this correctly.

SW-SSG wrote:

You don't mean that there are actual, physical, plastic jumpers on the IDE1/Serial2/LPT/USB2/etc pin headers, do you? I'm not sure I'm understanding this correctly.

I have the same question, too.
JPx -> jumper
Jx -> connector

The jumper could also be from your IDE devices or video card or sound card or something else.

luckybob wrote:

afaik 80 pin cables will be fine with slower speeds. They mostly just put an extra ground wire between each signal.

Yep, correct. The only function of those ground wires is to reduce crosstalk between the signal wires, enabling higher data rates. An 80 lead cable - the connector still only got 40 connections - will work fine with older IDE controllers.