Chosen Solution
I received this bottom motherboard from ifixit today and upon inspection of the board prior to installation I noticed a few things.
The factory surface mount USB port utilizes a support bracket / bridge that is connected to the port as well as the board itself. Why did my “new” board not come with one installed? I have a few spares but did not want to install them if the supplied USB port is somehow more efficiently supported without it. The circled area of the attached pic shows where the support would normally be as well as its solder points.
This may be ignorance due to being fairly new to soldering but where the rear legs of the USB port normally penetrate the board, there is no penetration nor do I see any solder on the pad they would normally attach to. Are the legs simply cut short and soldered to the inside of the board before penetrating through to the back? Please note the circled areas of pic-2 for reference.
Pic-3 illustrates what the factory USB port and support bracket look like.
Thanks for any input!!
@bad_karma that connector is not a Through-the -hole connector but a SMD (surface mount) connector. The contacts are soldered to the traces on top of the board. The part in the back would function as strain relief and is most likely not needed (nice to have so) This would all depend on the original USB port. If you take a look at the solder pads and the holes, those have not seen soldered, so it was deemed as not necessary to install that “support bracket / bridge”. Go ahead and enjoy your “new” controller. If you have issues with it, notify iFixit Customer support at https://help.ifixit.com/collection/130-c… but ultimately I think you’ll be ok.
