Motherboard Mounting Holes Out Of Alignment (I Think I Need To Drill)

I've no idea what you mean by "air displacement theory". If you believe that adjacent fans have no effect on each other then you're misguided.

I can promise you that three gtx280s running right next to each other will run very, very hot indeed.
 
Mpyra said:
I really doubt those fans have enough power to create a vacuum lol.
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Nah no vacuum but the restriction in flow will mean higher temperatures as less air will be drawn through / unit of time.

Plus graphics cards generate heat on both sides of the card, only one of them gets cooled but when stacked on top of each other the heat from the bottom card gets sucked into the cooler of the card above it... which bumps up that cards temperatures.
 
Hotwired said:
Nah no vacuum but the restriction in flow will mean higher temperatures as less air will be drawn through / unit of time.

Plus graphics cards generate heat on both sides of the card, only one of them gets cooled but when stacked on top of each other the heat from the bottom card gets sucked into the cooler of the card above it... which bumps up that cards temperatures.
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True this, but i don't think air restriction is that significant an issue.

A fan has to displace a certain amount of air by the rotation of it's blades, this air has to come externally from the card, unless the air is getting considerably thinner, i don't see how the amount of air the fan is displacing/moving is going to reduce significantly.

I do agree that having the three cards close to each other or in this case touching each other will reduce their cooling efficiency, but i still don't believe it will be by enough to matter.

Considering the possibility that it could be however, what would you recommend as a safeguard against this?

I could probably come up with a way so that there was some degree of space between the cards, only a few millimeters though i suspect.

Besides that... Maybe more powerful case fans?
 
I find it very odd that the case or the motherboard would not have standard ATX holes. Have you used another board in this case?

Is the motherboard sitting correctly on risers (either brass, steel sprung type, or plastic)
Is the motherboard itself aligned correctly with at least some of the holes? Does it fit in the rear I/O slot properly?

And pics of it not fitting, pics of the mounting holes too!
 
Mpyra said:
Galaxy 3 (Google "Galaxy 3 case")

Asus Rampage II Extreme
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Galaxy 3 case
Motherboard type: ATX Form Factor 12" x 10.5 " or smaller

Asus Rampage II Extreme
ATX Form Factor 12 inch x 10.6 inch ( 30.5 cm x 26.9 cm ) * One inch greater than standard ATX form factor

It is an ATX case, but a small and narrow one, I suspect the mobo is a half inch too long from the descriptions and that is pushing it north into the PSU.

Option, cut a slot in the case bottom and let the motherboard sit through :D

Seriously, I would get a slightly larger case and Ebay this one. or put an old mobo in it and fill it full of drives as a NAS.

As it stands it will be noisy and hot as the fans and PSU fight for the air inside. It may not be too reliable either.

regards, andy.
 
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OK, go here.

Choose new case that will be big enough and a reasonable price. If you can set a budget, many people on this forum will happily recommend which cases are good and why.

I bought a cheaper case for my build but it was a false economy - I had to get rid a month after as it wasn't cool enough for my older system (c2d e6750, geforce 8800gts, hdd, sound card etc). I now have a decent case and haven't looked back, it was a great investment as the motherboard format is not likely to change for a long time, and you can build future machines in the same one when you upgrade.

With a bit of patience and posting on this forum, you can get free delivery from OcUK if you're not local to Newcastle-under-lyme.
 
Mpyra said:
A fan has to displace a certain amount of air by the rotation of it's blades, this air has to come externally from the card, unless the air is getting considerably thinner, i don't see how the amount of air the fan is displacing/moving is going to reduce significantly.
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Dude - the centrifugal fans on graphics cards are not positive displacement pumps! In other words the amount of air moved per revolution is not fixed. They will happily spin away flowing bu**er all air if bu**er all air is available to them. But I think your biggest problem in such a cramped case would be the fact that what air they can draw will probably be pretty toasty to start with. You really need decent airflow for effective cooling. And the PSU shoved against a mobo heatsink stressing it doesn't sound particularly good either. Do yourself a favour and get a big enough case!

Liam
 
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having a decent case is one reason that I would never buy a storebought PC, it is the item where people scrimp and save, but shouldn't, I have a Lian Li aluminium case probably 10 years old but has space for eight hard drives, full ATX, four optical drives runs at 32C in the case etc and looks not much larger than an ordinary midi tower. I have built three PC's in it and will probably build three more unless ATX disappears.

andy
 
PhillyDee said:
I find it very odd that the case or the motherboard would not have standard ATX holes. Have you used another board in this case?

Is the motherboard sitting correctly on risers (either brass, steel sprung type, or plastic)
Is the motherboard itself aligned correctly with at least some of the holes? Does it fit in the rear I/O slot properly?

And pics of it not fitting, pics of the mounting holes too!
Click to expand...

The plate is sitting on risers,they match the already present holes.

I don't have the rear plate for all the I/O's, so i don't know if they would perfectly align the way they are supposed to.

Can't take pics right now.
 
nkata said:
Galaxy 3 case
Motherboard type: ATX Form Factor 12" x 10.5 " or smaller

Asus Rampage II Extreme
ATX Form Factor 12 inch x 10.6 inch ( 30.5 cm x 26.9 cm ) * One inch greater than standard ATX form factor

It is an ATX case, but a small and narrow one, I suspect the mobo is a half inch too long from the descriptions and that is pushing it north into the PSU.

Option, cut a slot in the case bottom and let the motherboard sit through :D

Seriously, I would get a slightly larger case and Ebay this one. or put an old mobo in it and fill it full of drives as a NAS.

As it stands it will be noisy and hot as the fans and PSU fight for the air inside. It may not be too reliable either.

regards, andy.
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The measurements you described indicate a 1/10th inch discrepancy, yet you say an inch.

It's not an inch or1/10th inch, it's about 1.5-2cm and i don't think it's the case that is at fault.

It's both the case and the motherboard, the bottom PCI-e slot on the mobo, does not leave enough room for a GTX, in fact the GTX blocks off a socket which looks a port for an additional DVD drive.

The case could not have been design in anticipation that something would overlap a standard ATX form factor.

I really like this case, it really matches the glossy black furniture in my computer room and the glossy black surface of my tv and spears and the blue leds of my mouse, tv, spears, keyboard.

It's abit OCD, but the case looks slick, I'm going to try and make it work, if i fail, then I'll try and find another case i like.
 
alexhull24 said:
OK, go here.

Choose new case that will be big enough and a reasonable price. If you can set a budget, many people on this forum will happily recommend which cases are good and why.

I bought a cheaper case for my build but it was a false economy - I had to get rid a month after as it wasn't cool enough for my older system (c2d e6750, geforce 8800gts, hdd, sound card etc). I now have a decent case and haven't looked back, it was a great investment as the motherboard format is not likely to change for a long time, and you can build future machines in the same one when you upgrade.

With a bit of patience and posting on this forum, you can get free delivery from OcUK if you're not local to Newcastle-under-lyme.
Click to expand...

It is a nice case it's the mobo's fault, lol.
 
Liampope said:
Dude - the centrifugal fans on graphics cards are not positive displacement pumps! In other words the amount of air moved per revolution is not fixed. They will happily spin away flowing bu**er all air if bu**er all air is available to them. But I think your biggest problem in such a cramped case would be the fact that what air they can draw will probably be pretty toasty to start with. You really need decent airflow for effective cooling. And the PSU shoved against a mobo heatsink stressing it doesn't sound particularly good either. Do yourself a favour and get a big enough case!

Liam
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I don't understand, the fans exist in atmosphere, when air moves in atmosphere, it must pull air into the space it left, thus surely the air moved by a fan remain relatively constant?

The case could get toasty, but a larger case would not effect this significantly only the outflow vs outflow as a percentage of volume would.

I would not really want to have a case with a significantly greater volume and even the little difference a smaller volume would make could be compensated for by slightly better case fans.

I hear you, i really should get another case, but I'm going to just try this out, i don't see any harm in trying.

Your advice is well heeded.
 
JonJ678 said:
This is important. As for the hole, it'll be fine if you get it in the right place and the right diameter, i.e. smaller than the thread but bigger than the shank.

I've got a gigabyte case here where two of the motherboard holes are in the wrong place and I can't fit two hard drives into the two 3.5" bays. Tolerances can be crap in cheap cases.
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Okay, so i have been reading that the screws used to fasten motherboards to their risers are standardised to M3 size.

Looking at the chart on this website (bottom):

http://www.jaknouse.athens.oh.us/hardware.shtml

It states that M3 are 3mm screws and that they have a thread pitch of 0.5mm.

So I'm guessing that means i need to drill 3mm holes?

bigger than the shank i don't think would be a good idea with such a small thread pitch.

I'm tempted to even go smaller than the shank, if i can get a screw that starts with a slightly smaller shank at the tip that would be optimal.

Even without the smaller shank at the tip, i might still be able to force the hole to expand around the shank for an extra tight fit.

I'm screwing into a single layer of (not sure what metal) ... with only 0.5 mm of thread which may put enough pressure on the edges to come loose.

Probably better to go for tighter than looser.

What do you think?

Am i understanding all this correctly?
 
At the risk of being sworn at, you clearly don't know what you're doing. Just buy a better case.

Your assumption that air is constant density, independent of fans and flow velocity, is false. What will happen is less air will be blown out the back of each card, so less is drawn in. Lower flow rate through the card means the card will be hotter. Cards will work right next to each other, but they will run very hot, and hot cards don't live as long.

Motherboard risers aren't all M3. If yours are, you would want to drill a 2.4mm (ish) hole and try to use the risers as self tapping screws, or drill a 2.4mm hole and tap it properly.

However they're probably 6-32. At least every case I've owned so far has used 6-32, I'm going on wikipedia's word when I say some use M3. I've no idea what size hole you want to drill for 6-32 to cut into as thankfully I'm never forced to use imperial threads.

The tolerances on where to drill the holes are quite close. No problem doing it by machine, but getting them all in the right place by hand will be difficult. At the very least check whether you're trying to cut into steel or aluminium before you start, drilling 2.5mm in precise locations in 1mm steel sheet by hand will be unpleasant.
 
Small case with one gpu = warm enough. Back before i bought my first large case which was me going from a similar looking case to your, up to a Kandalf = a drop in 13C temps on my cpu at idle and load, and around 15-20C on my GPU. HDD's also dropped by around 5C.

Instead of 2 80mm intake and 2 80mm extractor, the kandalf and 1 120 intake and 1 120 extractor.

I would not want to run cards right next to each other in a small case with due to its limited airflow. I understand about not being able to position cards apart from each other, since they are all dual slot, and theres only one slot in between each PCI-E slot.

TBH I wouldnt want to run triple SLI without water cooling, even just running 2 280s in my current case without water the top one would reach 90 odd, and the air they were pumping out would be hot enough to make my medusa amp too hot to touch, and stop working properly, although this was at an I series LAN.
 
i was going down the cheap case route.. and i was honestly going to get that case. but reading reviews on that case.. it has little - no air flow. i wouldnt put 1 gfx card in it after seeing the reviews.

and your wanting to put 3? well unless your wanting to hack it apart adding the needed vents then ebay it and get one of the decent ones on OCuK. theres a reason they dont stock the galaxy case :D
 
JonJ678 said:
At the risk of being sworn at, you clearly don't know what you're doing. Just buy a better case.

Your assumption that air is constant density, independent of fans and flow velocity, is false. What will happen is less air will be blown out the back of each card, so less is drawn in. Lower flow rate through the card means the card will be hotter. Cards will work right next to each other, but they will run very hot, and hot cards don't live as long.

Motherboard risers aren't all M3. If yours are, you would want to drill a 2.4mm (ish) hole and try to use the risers as self tapping screws, or drill a 2.4mm hole and tap it properly.

However they're probably 6-32. At least every case I've owned so far has used 6-32, I'm going on wikipedia's word when I say some use M3. I've no idea what size hole you want to drill for 6-32 to cut into as thankfully I'm never forced to use imperial threads.

The tolerances on where to drill the holes are quite close. No problem doing it by machine, but getting them all in the right place by hand will be difficult. At the very least check whether you're trying to cut into steel or aluminium before you start, drilling 2.5mm in precise locations in 1mm steel sheet by hand will be unpleasant.
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Okay, i understand your argument in regards to airflow, i'm still going to try, it's no real loss to me to try and i like a challenge.

Now, i'm not actually going to be screwing into the risers, merely the backplate, i need holes in the backpate to actualy screw into, not to allow me to screw into the risers.

Therefore i don't think it matters whether M3 is standard or not, i am not screwing into risers, but am going to create my own holes for M3 screws.

I'm very sure the backplate is aluminium.

I'm going to head down to BnQ in about an hour to get what i need, i'll let everyone know how i get on and i am more then prepared to eat my words.

Wish me luck.
 
I am sorry but I have to say.. marshmallows ready.. those cards are going to cook.. even with good airflow through a large case they would get very toasty..
 
Eh? Are you intending to screw a motherboard directly down onto a metal plate??! Unless mobo/case designs have changed since last time I built a PC, that's not the way it's done! The risers are to space the board off the case plate. Screw the board directly to a plate and all you'll do is bend/stress the board and create a load of nice short circuits. A mate of mine actually did this on his first build many years ago, and no it didn't POST. Luckily there was no damage either.

Or have I misunderstood exactly what you intend to do?
 
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