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My wireless keyboard's USB connector wire came off, so I'm trying to splice a new connector and wire with the existing wire. The only problem is that Microsoft didn't follow the normal black/white/green/red/shielding color code for USB, and instead decided on black/white/blue/orange/shielding color code.

The wireless keyboard receiver is the "Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop Receiver 2.0a"

What wire colors match what?

I don't want to try random combination since red is normally voltage, and attaching voltage to a data line doesn't seem appealing.

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    Is taking apart the connector end (male - to computer) to see which wires are soldered to what pins not an option?
    – Chris Thompson
    Jan 31, 2010 at 4:35
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    i took it apart and took a photo. is there a way to tell from the photo? in case you can see, the wires are from top to bottom: black blue white orange i47.tinypic.com/33kehic.jpg
    – Duskin
    Jan 31, 2010 at 5:08

1 Answer 1

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Here's the standard USB plug pinout:

alt text

Your picture looks like it's black on GROUND (-), blue on D+, white on D- and orange on POWER (+). This makes sense; black is traditionally used for ground, and white is traditionally paired with a color for a twisted pair of data lines.

I could have that exactly backwards, and your picture doesn't show white and orange positions as clearly as I'd like, but your comment indicates that's the correct order.

Either way, the outside pins are POWER and GROUND, so you should be able to figure out which is which pretty easily. (As black is traditionally GROUND, that's what I'd try first.)

alt text

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