Can a motherboard be screwed to plastic without being grounded via mounting screws?

[DRece]

Do the newer M/B allow you to just ground a motherboard by the power connector alone? This question popped up when thinking of doing several modding ideas. I was told that you always had to ground a M/B by its mounting screws and I wanted to see if its still true.

[Xato]

As seen in this diagram... i hope its accurate..
http://www.systemcooling.com/images/reviews/PSU/CleverPower_400/image12.gif
It would appear that there is no grounding cable for the mobo on the ATX power cable. But it may not be needed... i assume you're talking about mounting on an acrylic case or with acrylic mounts...
Someone here should have an acrylic case and be able to tell you.

[X child]

I have my mobo mounted to a piece of Lexan with no ill effects, been up and running for over a year now.

[Malatory]

It should be able to with out any Ill effects, Or the Plexi / Acrylic cases would have problems.

When mounting a Mobo to a typical metal case. you want to make sure you dont ground the Mobo to the case. It cases lots of strange problems.

[Frakk]

It would appear that there is no grounding cable for the mobo on the ATX power cable.

what have you been smoking? all the black cables on the power connector are ground. on the diagram it says COM which stands for Common (ground). you can go ahead and install the mobo on a plastic tray, it will not do any harm. do you think they would sell acrylic cases if it would fry the mobo? probably not :D

[Xato]

Lol, well there you go... i'm not a sparky how the hell should i know what that diagram means... lol... for some odd reason i thought it meant communications... lol :D

[MisterChief]

what have you been smoking? all the black cables on the power connector are ground. on the diagram it says COM which stands for Common (ground). you can go ahead and install the mobo on a plastic tray, it will not do any harm. do you think they would sell acrylic cases if it would fry the mobo? probably not :D

Hehehe, this is why companies have that little "do not open" label :D

[Frakk]

they have the labels for kids like Xato. the psu really needs to communicate with the mobo :D anyways i stand by my last post, go ahead and install the mobo on plastic :D

[Rachel]

If the plastic gets staticy then no way.

[Xato]

hahaha, shove it up your ass frakk :D lol j/j man...
i just got back from school when i wrote that first post... thats a pretty good excuse for not paying attention to important details if u ask me.

[toast07]

If the plastic gets staticy then no way.
can plastic carry static electricity?...isn't it a resistor of electricity?

[Frakk]

plastic isnt a good conductor therefore it wont carry electricity. however it can get a static just like anything else. i wouldnt worry about it too much since all components are (should be) grounded properly. and also if the plastic is touching some grounded metal like the psu, the static charge will not build up.

[Guttenaffe]

As seen in this diagram... i hope its accurate..
http://www.systemcooling.com/images/reviews/PSU/CleverPower_400/image12.gif
It would appear that there is no grounding cable for the mobo on the ATX power cable. But it may not be needed... i assume you're talking about mounting on an acrylic case or with acrylic mounts...
Someone here should have an acrylic case and be able to tell you.

There are lots of grounds there.
they are called "COM" for common, which means the same thing as ground.
edit: just noticed frakk said this

To answer the question there is no circuitry grounding though screws on a motherboard.

If you did this you can get what they called ground fault loops. Which is only a problem when you have lots of grounds, and somehow one ground gets to be a higher potential than another ground so you get a small eddy current between these two points. This is real BAD. The screws are grounded but to their own ground and though the case ground which is connected to the ground wire coming to your PSU from the wall. This is to eliminate static (high voltage, low current) discharge between the case and the motherboard.

It will not hurt the board to be on plastic. Though most Plexiglas plastics used should have an "anti-static" coating on them.

[Javelin3o4]

Here is my clear PC its a C3 case from clearcomputercase.com I bought it like 2 years ago cost me like 200 bucks at the time. I like it better than the other ones ive seen cause the other cases have those ugly brass fitting to hold everything together, this one is all glued together.

http://members.aol.com/verifieduser/clearpc4.jpg
http://members.aol.com/verifieduser/clearpc5.jpg

[inspiredbyasphalt]

nice case. can you do something with the optical drives to make them a little more clear? so it flows through with the rest of the case?

[Javelin3o4]

not sure on what i could really do to make them invisible, other then try to fab up a clean acrylic face plate. that pic is kinda old now i have a black sony dvdr and 2 black removable hdd racks.