Softmounting the MB?

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McBanjo
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Softmounting the MB?

Post by McBanjo » Mon Sep 04, 2006 8:27 am

I read almost every day here on SPCR about softmounting HDDs and fans yet I haven't seen any posts about softmounting or damper the motherboard. Is it totaly unneeded? Does the MB itself absorb and spread out any vibrations caused by GPU and CPU fans?

I just got curious if anyone has done it

JazzJackRabbit
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Post by JazzJackRabbit » Mon Sep 04, 2006 9:02 am

I don't think you can softmount mobo without designing your own case because motherboard standoffs must be certain height in order for extension cards to work. It would be really really tricky to softmount motherboard.

I think it would be easier to softmount the CPU fan (which is what I did in two of my systems) if you have right CPU cooler.

McBanjo
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Post by McBanjo » Mon Sep 04, 2006 9:31 am

With rubber or silicon rings above and below the MB at the screws it should work failry easy even in bought cases

Besides, since when did "hard work" stop a true SPCR-freak? :-P

I will build a new case but skipped softmounting MB since my GPU is passive and my CPU is softmounted as well so no need. Just got curious if anyone had done it

Gorsnak
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Post by Gorsnak » Mon Sep 04, 2006 10:08 am

I was about to post about how I'd love to softmount my motherboard because of the resonance issues in my wood case, but that I couldn't figure out how to do it since the video card has to be held securely to it. Any wiggling of the motherboard when the videocard is screwed securely to the case has the potential to effectively unseat the graphics card while the computer is on (probably wouldn't, but not a chance I want to take). Moreover, so long as the video card is mounted solidly, vibrations from the motherboard could move through the video card and into the case, compromising the isolation.

Then it occured to me that my motherboard and video card are both mounted to the motherboard tray and expansion card bracket I took from an old case as a single unit, which is screwed into the wood case. The tray/bracket would be quite simple to isolate using soft grommets. w00t!

So, a big thankyou to the OP for asking the question! :)

McBanjo
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Post by McBanjo » Mon Sep 04, 2006 11:51 am

he he no problem. Thanks for sharing the solution :-)
It's always nice to learn new stuff :-)

cloneman
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Post by cloneman » Mon Sep 04, 2006 3:44 pm

I would be more tempted to soft mount the sources of vibration on the motherboard - e.g. the cpu and gpu fans... although I suppose anything is possible, this sounds a little extreme...

McBanjo
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Post by McBanjo » Tue Sep 05, 2006 10:57 am

cloneman wrote:I would be more tempted to soft mount the sources of vibration on the motherboard - e.g. the cpu and gpu fans... although I suppose anything is possible, this sounds a little extreme...
The cpu-fan are mostley rather easy to fix but the gpu isn't and usualy voids warranty.
But yea, it is extreme but it might be usefull in some situations :-)

Gorsnak
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Post by Gorsnak » Tue Sep 05, 2006 2:14 pm

Well, I've already voided my graphics warranty by sticking a zalman vf900 on, but isolating the zalman fan is no small trick. It'd actually be less work to softmount the motherboard tray than it would be to mod the zalman. Now, simple rubber grommets might not be enough to completely eliminate my resonance issue, but it's easy enough to try (plus there's a box of grommets that'd work for this sitting on the hardware shelf at work). If it does work, that gives me a lot more freedom in how I mount stuff.

Of course, my situation is a bit unique - most people don't have a case built from wood, and so don't have the same sort of resonance issues.

Tephras
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Post by Tephras » Tue Sep 05, 2006 2:44 pm

I remember reading about someone who had a problem with minor motherboard vibrations being transmitted to the motherboard tray and amplified by the case into a low frequenzy hum. It was easily solved by placing some stacked pieces of a semi-soft material (I believe it was some kind of gasket material) wedged in between the motherboard and the tray. I don't think any elaborate solutions should be needed.

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