Paul, it sounds like you **may**  have used too many of the
"mounting screws."  Actually, these are not mounting screws,
but grounding screws, and one or two should be plenty.  You
use the funny-shaped plastic stand-offs to do the actual
mounting so that the board is not attached firmly except in
one or two spots.  The reason for all this is to permit the
board to expand and contract without buckling when it
heats up.  If it is firmly attached, it might buckle and break
a trace or pop a chip (if they are not surface mounted).

I am not sure how much of a problem this is these days
with the highly integrated circuitry, so I don't know what
the risk  really is.  (If a motherboard goes bad because
of a broken trace, I suspect that it is very hard to
detect.)

Dean Kukral

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Sprague <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Saturday, November 07, 1998 6:25 AM
Subject: [PCBUILD] Motherboard Grounding


>Hello all,
>The question I am about to ask may seem pretty elementary to some of you
>but I cannot sem to find an answer from any other resource. When mounting
>a motherboard, as you know there are several holes for placing the
>mounting screws. Around each hole is a solder coating. When should the
>little red plastic washers be used and when not. Does the procedure
>differ from AT to ATX? I have an ATX Gigabyte GA5AX512 Mobo which I have
>mounted using the red plastic washers on all screws with no problems.
>Some info on this would be helpful. The manual says nothing about it. I
>have also searched "Upgrading and Repairing PC's" and "Tom's Hardware
>Guide" Web site with no luck. Thanks.
>
>
>Paul Sprague
>___________________________________________________________________
>>

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