Help me explain to the idiots at Frys

[Shieldwolf]

So I went to Frys today to pickup a wire and clip to hook up to my mobo to start it. Now I was fairly detailed and explained what it was I wanted, but they were no help. I did find a wire that looks like it will do the trick, but I'm a bit lost maybe someone here can tell me. It has the female end which would plug into the mobo and 2 wires measuring an inch of length each. At the other end is a male two pronged adapter.  Now for my question. How should I connect the male side to a happs arcade button. I don't have any way of soldering. Is there somewhere I can go to make the wire myself? Should I try Radio Shack?  

[grafixmonkey]

Hi Shield -

if you could tell what connector your wire is plugging into I could tell you what you need.  If it's the power connector and you just want to turn your pc on and off using a pushbutton, I think I know what kind of connectors you're dealing with.  (it's like a little extension cable right, with the two prong male part looking just like the plug on the motherboard?)  If so, 2-pin or 3-pin fan tails could extend that a little bit.  Or if you need to make the wires a lot longer, you could get a couple of those washer-shaped crimp-on connectors that have a circle of metal and a hole through the middle, and bolt them together instead of soldering.  Or you might be able to fit a Molex plug on the end of that small extension you have.  When the wire gauge gets really small, sometimes soldering is your only option.

p.s. - if this is a one-time hack job, you might be able to solder with a decent quality butane lighter, or a propane torch if you can figure out how not to blast the wire into molten metal, if you just don't have a soldering iron and don't want to get one.

[dirt]

So I went to Frys today to pickup a wire and clip to hook up to my mobo to start it. Now I was fairly detailed and explained what it was I wanted, but they were no help. I did find a wire that looks like it will do the trick, but I'm a bit lost maybe someone here can tell me. It has the female end which would plug into the mobo and 2 wires measuring an inch of length each. At the other end is a male two pronged adapter.  Now for my question. How should I connect the male side to a happs arcade button. I don't have any way of soldering. Is there somewhere I can go to make the wire myself? Should I try Radio Shack?  

i could solder it for you if you want to drive down to Anahiem Hills.


dirt

[crsdawg]

shield,
  if i was you i'd just clip off that male connector and make an extension long enough to reach your happs button. grab some small guage primary or speaker wire, cut it to you needed length then connect it to your m/b cable you just bought. i'd use either crimp caps or butt connectors to connect the two. personally i prefer the crimp caps since you get a nice wire to wire connection. then attatch some .187(i think, i normally solder this connection) female spade connectors on the other end of the extension, which will attatch to the happs button.

[shmokes]

Shield,

The cable you want is the SP/Dif cable that runs from the back of a CD/DVD rom to your soundcard (or motherboard if you have onboard sound).  Not the one with four prongs (or holes really since it's a female end) but the one with two.  This cable will fit perfectly over the Power Switch prongs on the motherboard and will give you a few feet of cable to work with.  You can just cut off one end and use some wire nuts and more wire to add however much length you need to it.  I don't take credit for the idea, though.  I saw it on this board before.