PC working without mo-bo stand-offs installed?

[tobias.hanckel]

For over 2 years my PC has had intermittent problems with turning on and off, failing to boot, etc. Upon reading some troubleshooting tips for a recent bout of my PC not turning on (for 5 days now), i discovered to my stupid surprise what motherboard stand-offs were and how important they are to avoid shorting and damaging parts. The thing is, i don't remember installing standoffs before screwing the motherboard on, in fact i just remember screwing it directly to the board knowing absolutely no better.
Regardless, the damn thing has managed to more or less work (with hiccups) for the past (almost) 3 years!
I can't check just yet if i actually have installed the stand-offs so this is more a hypothetical question.
Could my PC still technically work if the planets align and my any metal on my motherboard happens to not make contact with the case? Could this be the source of the countless hours i've spent agonising over why my damn PC won't start when i've followed every trouble shooting method in the book?

FYI the Case is a thermaltake Versa H25 and the motherboard is an ASUS h-81M PLUS.

Also FYI around a year ago i replaced my old shitty eco PSU with a Thermaltake ToughPower 650watt gold efficiency PSU.

Thanks

 

[RememberThe5th]

Well thats an trick question. If the motherboard is a bit away from case then case has slight standoff if not then its totally on case which makes me wonder how it worked.

 

[finitekosmos]

Maybe the motherboard tray is painted/powder-coated, so its mostly insulated? but if you have any expansion cards in there like a GPU, they couldnt be making good contact with the slot connectors if you haven't used stand offs.

Its also important to note that using stand offs is important, but removing ones that aren't required is also important. For example not every motherboard has screw holes placed n exactly the same places. so its possible to install a board with a stand off that's covered by the PCB. This can also cause a short too.

 

[ElectrO_90]

Everything is engineered quite precise in a case.
If you didn't have standoffs installed, you would not be able to install things like Graphic cards, as they wouldn't seat correctly.

Many cases have the standoffs in already, but not all of them, just the common ones.

 

[tobias.hanckel]

Everything is engineered quite precise in a case.
If you didn't have standoffs installed, you would not be able to install things like Graphic cards, as they wouldn't seat correctly.

Many cases have the standoffs in already, but not all of them, just the common ones.

Hmm, i did think about this, as the graphics card and wi-fi adapter and what-not all lines up perfectly so maybe it is ok, maybe the problem is something else. Thanks for the insight anyway, one less possibility, however i will consider that maybe something else is causing a short? Although i'm not sure how everything wouldn't be dead by now.
I guess that leaves me back to square one, i've just assumed it's the motherboard this whole time but i've never gotten around to getting a new one because i can't get LGA 1150 boards where i live anymore and upgrading to 1151 would mean upgrading the memory and CPU along with it.
Anyway thank you again

 

[ElectrO_90]

Yeah, I think we all been there. To upgrade you now need to get rid of everything. I still run a I7-4790k and I won't upgrade until this thing dies a death. I am sure it will be good for the next 2-4 years.