Add to Favorites     Make Home Page FrontX CPX Almost everyone who has a removable device gets frustrated plugging and unplugging the device from the back of the computer. It is amazing the number of cables we can get behind a computer, and they always get tangled. I personally have a Kodak DC-280 digital camera (which I used to take the pictures below). If I only had one computer, I could leave the USB cable connected to the computer and I could download the pictures whenever I needed. Bu as most people, I have more than one system, and if I want to download pictures to my laptop, I would have to disconnect the cable and move it to the laptop, or download the pictures on the desktop and then transfer them over. Neither of these are very convenient. This is where FrontX CPX (Computer Port Extension) comes in. The idea is so simple. Move the ports to the front. A lot of new computers have ports on the front of the computer, but for those of us with slightly older computers, a way to get them to the front would be helpful. The FrontX casing fits in a 5 1/4 inch drive bay. The port extensions fit into the casing, and their cables connect to the appropriate device either internally or externally. Installation Here is how it works: This is my case as it was originally. The spare drive bay (under the DVD-ROM and CD-RW drives) actually wasn't spare. I had a hard drive mounted there. I moved it, and so had the empty slot. The various ports are very easy to install. The ports come individually, so you can use whichever combination you'd like. I used all of the ports that were sent, so I just removed the blanks and installed the ports. They just slide into place. The casing installs into an empey 5 1/4" drive bay. Screws are included. I installed the casing, and unwrapped the ties around the cable. I wrapped the cables around the edge of the case, and installed the modified expansion slot blank that comes with the kit. The blank isn't as wide as a normal blank and so the cables can come out the back of the case to connect to the sound card ports (see last picture). My case happened to have some blank spots where a serial port could be connected (depending on the motherboard). I removed the blanks and used these empty spots to feed through the serial port connector and the USB connector. The multimedia ports and cables are pulled through the empty expansion slot and then the slot cover is installed. Testing SOUND Many computer speakers have a headphone jack built into them, so having another headphone jack on the fron the computer isn't a big deal. My speakers howerver don't have a headphone jack, so this was a nice feature that worked fine. I was a little concerned with the possibility of there being a poor sound or that it would be crackly/staticy, but it wasn't. I tested each of the front sound jacks and they all worked fine. USB All of the pictures that are in this review were taken with my Kodak DC-280 digital camera. When the pictures were taken, I plugged the cable into the front USB port and transferred the pictures without any problems. I transferred the pictures to several different locations to continue testing, and there were no hiccups. SERIAL I have an external modem that connects to a 9-pin serial port. When connected to the FrontX serial port extentions, the modem worked flawlessly. GAME PORT I did not test this port. I am not a game player, and so have nothing that I could test the port with. I would confidently assume, however, that the game port would work as well as the other tested ports. Purchase Did you find this review helpful? 10 - Useful 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 - Not Useful The average rating for this review is: The query failed! table_name must be a valid table name that exists in the database specified in mysql_select_db