Simviation Forums

Just thought perhaps we could share our most embarassing hardware stories...

Mine centers all around the MoBo.  When I was building my current PC (my only build) I was having strange errors.  I kept getting random restarts if I simply touched the case the wrong way.  I was even beginning to think the PC didn't like me! Regaurdless of my total inexperience, I kept poking around and fiddling with things, and my CPU thought it would imitate a Cuban cigar, but that's a different story.  I bought a new MoBo, but this refused to work at all.  After a month or two of fiddling, I somehow found out I had left out one vital thing in my installation.  Spacers!

I also specifically remember when first building the PC, looking at these strange little screws with threaded nuts on them.  I thought they were so strange and neat! I screwed them all together and made a little spacer totem pole and reveled in their mystery!

All I can say in my defence, is you would think in two different MoBo manuals, you would get some kind of disclaimer about using spacers.

I use nylon stand-offs. Kind of like short pieces of thick-walled drinking straw. And nylon bolts. The mo-bo sits on the stand-offs, lined up with the mounting holes and obviously the bolts thread through to mounting tray. I don't want anything metal between all those exposed solder joints and pins and the the metal tray/case..

Many years ago I was the Asus motherboard head cook and bottle wash for a hardware site and an official tester for AsusTek. At one time the #1 reason for intermittent problems and no-starts was caused by improper installation of the motherboard mounting stand-offs.

The best way to avoid these issues during a build it to do the following:

1. Remove ANY stand-offs or spacers from the tower mount plate.

2. Carefully place the motherboard on the mount plate, line up the mount holes in the motherboard to the back plate.

3. Using a black or colored sharpie marker, gently mark the back plate through the motherboard mount holes.

4. Remove the motherboard from the tower and what you will see is the EXACT mount holes marked for stand-off installation.

It is important to note that although it is OK to use insulated or plastic stand-offs, you should MAKE SURE that a good ground has been established with at least 2 solid METAL screws and stand-offs which are on opposite ends of the motherboard. This assures the motherboard has a solid ground which is important for EMF damping and other reasons.

I always use metal stand-offs and screws for all the motherboard mounts. The better the ground, the cleaner the electronic environment for the motherboard.

That was a problem for me a long time ago. Normally, you get the needed grounding from the main power connector as the power suppy itself is chassis grounded. You can even get the ground through some optical drives and their power connection common ground wire.

The one problem I did have turned out to be a power suppy that didn't have it's own chassis ground internally.

After that, I'd carefully examine the mo-boards's mounting holes to see which (if any) had the conductor around them acting as more than just reinforcement for mounting purposes. I don't even check any more, as I haven't seen a ring around the mounting hole have any connection to the rest of the conductors on the printed curcuit board, in quite a while...

So far, so good (but now I'm wondering)..

[cough]Thread's about your experiences, not mine![/cough]

Sorry..  It won't happen again..    

I always wondered why it was so important to use spacers. I did with this build i just did, except i had some bad luck with the motherboard.

I heard if you dont include spacers it can short circuit it? Could it also damage any other components?

Just interested.

James

Mine had some weird springy bracket type spacers. Seems to work.

Not only can it short out when all those solder connections are bolted right onto a tray.. Without spacers, your back panel won't line up properly.. including PCI/AGP slots..

Not only can it short out when all those solder connections are bolted right onto a tray.. Without spacers, your back panel won't line up properly.. including PCI/AGP slots..

Aaah but could not using spacers, and an example it does short circuit, is there any chance that any other components (CPU, RAM etc) could be damaged, or is there a built in protection?

Just wondered thats all.

"The importance of Spacers"

James

Absolutely , it can fry RAM, V-cards, even the CPU.

Boards have gotten a lot more durable lately, regarding; shorts, static and reverse polarity.. But when you let 12v+

While troubleshooting my hard drive raid config failure, I went to plug the SATA cable back into My ASUS mother board and snapped off two of the pins!
As soon as I saw what happened I just walked away and did not even look at the machine for 2 day....  

Long story short..............

Had to replace the MOBO!
Even more embarrassing, this happened only 4 months ago and I kept telling myself, "be careful, those pins look delicate!"  :o

Dave

I fried a perfectly good 1ghz athlon chip once by not using any thermal compound.  I thought as the chip wasn't that modern I could get away without using any for a few mins  :(

burnt cpu smells bad

I fried a perfectly good 1ghz athlon chip once by not using any thermal compound.  I thought as the chip wasn't that modern I could get away without using any for a few mins  :(

burnt cpu smells bad

I have some thermal compound to the heatsink/fan, but this was already applied, so i think i should buy some more.

Absolutely , it can fry RAM, V-cards, even the CPU.

Boards have gotten a lot more durable lately, regarding; shorts, static and reverse polarity.. But when you let 12v+  find ground (or even some of the op-amp type of "reverse" positive voltages) things go up in awful smelling smoke  lol ..

I didn't realise that the use of spacers was that important.
Any person new to PC building could easily destroy their whole system!

I did the same as Scorp, i made a totem pole LOL, until i realised what they were before i actually turned my PC on... LOL!

James