OK for motherboard to be in direct contact with the bottom of the case?

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blade52x

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Is it OK for the bottom of the motherboard to be in direct contact with case? I didn't realize XL-ATX meant the board was actually Longer (I thought it stood for "Extra Large"), and while my board "fits" in my case and lines up with the standoffs, the bottom of it is directly in contact with the case. See the image below:

boardcas.jpg


I don't see any traces at the edge of the board, so I think it should be fine. However if any electrical engineers would like to add some input on whether or not it may be stupid to try to power this on I would appreciate that. Is there any way I could test with a voltmeter whether or not the board is shorted?

This build won't be complete for about another 2 weeks, so I have time to research/find another case. However I'd prefer not to since I'd rather keep the slightly more compact form factor.
 
Did you really stuff an Aorus Xtreme into that situation? Look at it, you're going to lose the top x16 slot and the bottom slot is reduced to single slot only. Do yourself a favor and get a proper case. Read the manual, the slots are limited and you only have so many x16 and x8 slots electrically.

Pro tip, you want a case with at least 8 pci slots...
 
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Did you really stuff an Aorus Xtreme into that situation? Look at it, you're going to lose the top x16 slot and the bottom slot is reduced to single slot only. Do yourself a favor and get a proper case. Read the manual, the slots are limited and you only have so many x16 and x8 slots electrically.

Looks to be an Aorus Xtreme X399 in an NZXT 500 series case. That's a $400 board and the bottom PCIe slot is partly obstructed. Cable routing ports are blocked. That's just a waste and a shame.

He either needs a bigger case or a smaller motherboard. Neither are fulfilling their potential here.
 
Looks to be an Aorus Xtreme X399 in an NZXT 500 series case. That's a $400 board and the bottom PCIe slot is partly obstructed. Cable routing ports are blocked. That's just a waste and a shame.

He either needs a bigger case or a smaller motherboard. Neither are fulfilling their potential here.

Actually that is not x399. I should know.... It's a TRx40 Xtreme making the choice of case even more ludicrous. There are only two x16 slots and losing one is such a huge loss.

https://hardforum.com/threads/build...-raid-render-monster.1990145/#post-1044424588
 
Did you really stuff an Aorus Xtreme into that situation? Look at it, you're going to lose the top x16 slot and the bottom slot is reduced to single slot only. Do yourself a favor and get a proper case. Read the manual, the slots are limited and you only have so many x16 and x8 slots electrically.

Pro tip, you want a case with at least 8 pci slots...

It's a PC-O11 Dynamic which has 8 slots. The issue is the 8th slot is right up against the bottom of the case. I didn't realize that when buying the case, nor did I realize the Xtreme was actually an 8 slot motherboard when I bought it (I assumed it was like my old Asus X99-E WS). I don't want to exchange/return either the case nor board so that's how I ended up here.

I'm limited by height and can't go taller than 18.3'' on the case, and there isn't much available on the market. If I could I'd have the XL version of the case.
 
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It's a PC-O11 Dynamic which has 8 slots. The issue is the 8th slot is right up against the bottom of the case. I didn't realize that when buying the case, nor did I realize the Xtreme was actually an 8 slot motherboard when I bought it (I assumed it was like my old Asus X99-E WS). I don't want to exchange/return either the case nor board so that's how I ended up here.

I'm limited by height and can't go taller than 18.3'' on the case, and there isn't much available on the market. If I could I'd have the XL version of the case.

And you lost a couple precious slots in the process, shrugs.
 
Agreed, with ryan above. Put a couple pieces of electrical tape where it contacts and there should be no issues.
 
++ to the electrical tape and you should be fine.

This is sort of related- way back in the day a friend of mine, on his first build, screwed the motherboard directly to the backplate, no standoffs. Now those things are usually part of the motherboard plate anyways, but back then they came with the case and you had to screw them all in to the right spots for whatever board you had. it was enough to kill the whole system soon as he powered it up.

I’m sure boards are better designed/shielded now than they were ~2 years ago, and you’re talking about one edge vs the entire bottom of the board, so unlikely you’d have a problem. But yeah, electrical tape and you’re good.

as for the bottom slot being limited to single slot - there’s decent workstation GPUs you could fit in there that are single slot (Radeon Pro WX 5100/7100 come to mind).

Although depending on what you were going to put in there it may not really matter anyways. Dual port 10g nic, SAS controller, sound card (if anyone still uses those?), just about anything but a gpu won’t need dual slot, and the bottom of the O11 is ventilated , so you might be able to get a little airflow there even with the slot populated.
 
Even though the motherboard is perpendicular to the bottom of the case, I wouldn't want it to sit flush because some of the internal copper layers that carry power may come out all the way to the edge and could short to the case. Either keep it raised at least 1/8" from the bottom, or put some tough electrically insulating between the board and bottom, like soda pop bottle plastic.
 
What kind of full atx case is that with only 6 PCIe slots. Mine is normal and I have 7.
 
Going to close this because the build works fine. I did use some electrical tape as others suggested just to be safe, but otherwise all good here! And to put this to rest, and I've already said this previously - the case is a Lian Li PC-O11 Dynamic.
 
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