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I have a broken USB 3.0 header pin on an Asus Maximus XI Hero motherboard. Can anyone tell me what that particular pin does and if it is something I can potentially live without? enter image description here

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    What does your motherboard manual say it is?
    – Mokubai
    Dec 13, 2019 at 10:22
  • A ground pin. other people say it is the ID pin...
    – Kol12
    Dec 13, 2019 at 10:29
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    Based on the USB 3.0 header, that is the ID pin, you can't live without it
    – Ramhound
    Dec 13, 2019 at 10:31
  • The pin that is broken is pin 10 (ID Pin), from what I understand this pin is used for signalling SS (Superspeed), without this pin it will essentially be in USB 2 mode.
    – CraftyB
    Dec 13, 2019 at 10:31

1 Answer 1

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Your motherboard manual, which you can download from you motherboard support page shows the following on page 1-16

enter image description here

That it is a ground pin.

There are several other ground pins so chances are it will not compromise the signal integrity or shielding, but there is a slight chance that there might be some slight effects.

It shouldn't prevent USB3 from working. It is not a signal pin which is where things would break completely, but it is used to shield signals from each other which is somewhere that USB3 has had some issues in the past.

You might get some interference, but if the wires in the cable or front panel are connected together then chances are it will have no effect at all.


There does seem to be some confusion as to the necessity or use of this pin as per this Electronics Stackexchange post What to do with USB 3.0 ID pin?

Therefore it is possible that HP desktops use this pin as cable detect, although I really see no reason for that.

In cables that I have (from eBay), the pin 10 is FLOATING.

So I guess it is up to your particular board what to do with this pin.

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  • Thank you. What do you mean by interference? What sort of interference? What is the worst that can happen? What components are at risk? How do I know if the wires in the cable or front panel are connected together? What does floating mean?
    – Kol12
    Dec 13, 2019 at 11:21
  • By interference I mean signals interfering with each other. In 99.99% of cases the worst that happens is that one signal is not quite perfect and might cause an occasional error. They almost never cause any damage, and nothing is at risk, but an occasional data error might happen but should hopefully be corrected by the hardware. If you have a multimeter you can use that to check that wires connect together. "Floating" essentially means "intentionally unconnected" but with the implication that we don't know what the other side of the wire might be doing.
    – Mokubai
    Dec 13, 2019 at 11:26
  • Given that Asus mark it as GND I suspect they chose not to use whatever feature the pin was supposed to add, and you will in fact be fine. The worst that will happen is that USB3 does not work per the comments, I sincerely doubt there will be any damage possible and would be surprised if any did. At best it will all just work.
    – Mokubai
    Dec 13, 2019 at 11:28
  • I mean that there is unlikely to be damage to either side, the electronics should be fine, there are still other GND connections and the power pins are fine so it should all be okay. For the multimeter test, I wouldn't go out of my way but I'd be curious what, if anything, it connects to in the cable on your front chassis. Check whether it connects to any of the other earth pins or none of them or nothing in the actual front usb connectors, if you do then you might have to (carefully) use fine pointed probes. If it connects to nothing in the cable (floating) then the broken pin is irrelevant.
    – Mokubai
    Dec 13, 2019 at 14:25
  • This pinout diagram I've found indicates pin 10 is NC. I think the broken is pin 10... Do you know what NC means? I'm guessing not connected? pinoutguide.com/Motherboard/usb_3_header_pinout.shtml
    – Kol12
    Dec 14, 2019 at 6:22

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