Is it safe to have the motherboard half stand offs and half unscrewed?

[Callum Clarke]

I took the plunge to ryzen as an upgrade from my Athlon 860k. I got a full size atx motherboard (Asus Prime b350 plus) over my old micro atx (Gigabyte f2a88xm-ds2). Due to the size, the Asus board requires more screws however since I reused my old case there wasn't any motherboard stand offs towards the bottom of the case. Is it safe to run it like this? I mean, the last screw is from where the first pci x16 slot starts and the graphics card is secured nice and tight. Either way i'm currently half way through the upgrade and am doing the rest like storage and case at the end fo the month so will this suffice until then?

 

[mbilal2]

As long as the motherboard doesn't wiggle, you should be fine. I would be more worried about the screws around the sides (especially at the top) of the motherboard. If there's a way you can remove one of the screws from the middle to the bottom, that'll be great.

 

[aquielisunari]

I took the plunge to ryzen as an upgrade from my Athlon 860k. I got a full size atx motherboard (Asus Prime b350 plus) over my old micro atx (Gigabyte f2a88xm-ds2). Due to the size, the Asus board requires more screws however since I reused my old case there wasn't any motherboard stand offs towards the bottom of the case. Is it safe to run it like this? I mean, the last screw is from where the first pci x16 slot starts and the graphics card is secured nice and tight. Either way i'm currently half way through the upgrade and am doing the rest like storage and case at the end fo the month so will this suffice until then?

As long as the motherboard isn't touching the case it'll be fine. The grounding and whatnot is handled by the PSU and your home's wiring.

 

[Antonis117]

It is very common to have damaged motherboards due to short circuits caused by stand offs either located to the wrong holes or not installed at all. When you try to install the motherboard's expansion cards (gpu for example), the pressure to these areas can bend the motherboard and since there is not enough support under the motherboard it can toutch the case, causing a short circuit when powering up. I wouldn't recommend running the pc without installing all of the stand offs in the correct holes.

 

[weberdarren97]

Mbilal2 and Antonis117 both make good points.

I also just looked up pics of ATX and mATX boards bc I honestly forgot where the screw holes are. It's entirely possible that, if every hole was used, there are standoffs in your case that your new board doesn't screw into. This means that the metal standoffs will contact the back of your board. As you could imagine, this is bad. I don't recommend turning on your system until this is resolved.

Just so you know, you can remove the motherboard from the case with the CPU cooler and RAM installed. The CPU cooler can even be used as a handle if you're brave enough.

If you find that there are standoffs that aren't being used because of different screw hole positions, remove those standoffs from their current positions and move them to the bottom of the board for extra support.

 

[Callum Clarke]

I've sorted it now. Just entirely rebuilt my computer leaving nothing but the bare case and changed the standers. Now it is only unsecured at the bottom screw close to the pci expansion bays. I have no cards in there just my gtx 1060 which is further up the board next to one of the mount screws. Also took it as a chance to sort out my really bad cable management.