Using cardboard as an insulator

[ehanger]

The metal back plate on my new coolermaster V8 heat sync touches the back of my case causing my motherboard to short and I was thinking of putting some insulating material in between the back plate and the motherboard. I don't really know any good non conductive materials to put in a computer and was thinking of using some cardboard but am not sure if that would be something you would want a couple millimeters away from a chip that can get 70*C +. If I didn't use cardboard could I use electrical tape or duct tape instead?

 

[WR2]

If the motherboard shorted out you might have other problems to worry about. Have you run the system with back side panel off yet?
Since you already have a clearance issue I can't see cardboard helping that out any. So I'm thinking electrical tape.

 

[ehanger]

OK so if I shorted my motherboard are there any chances that it still works because I have seen other people on the internet that have shorted their motherboard and they got it working again.

 

[WR2]

Can you take the back side panel off your case?

You'll only know by testing.

 

[ehanger]

What would that do?

EDIT: I just finished putting electrical tape on the motherboard tray where the metal parts were contacting and still the same thing... so is there anyway I could still get this to work or is my computer done?

 

[WR2]

I was thinking you could cut out the area of the motherboard tray under the back plate. A rather extreme mod, but the only other options I see are a different CPU cooler or different case.

You might be able to find (if you're lucky) some longer motherboard standoffs that would fit your case. But I think you'd have other problems, like the IO panel and card slots not lining up with the case.

 

[Outlander_04]

The only way the back plate can be shorting out on the case is if its shorting on the back of the mb !

Case mods are not needed .

what you have to do is insatll the backplate on the mb properly

 

[WR2]

The backing plate had insulating tape which should have faced the motherboard.

 

[ehanger]

Yeah the backplate did have insulating tape right near the parts where you screw it which was facing the motherboard but I think I screwed it on too tight and made it contact the rest of the plate which was uncovered metal.

Even if it was installed correctly it should have worked when I covered the motherboard tray with electrical tape.

Is there anyway that the electrical tape I used wasn't enough to insulate the motherboard?

 

[Outlander_04]

Even if it was installed correctly it should have worked when I covered the motherboard tray with electrical tape.

NO!

the short is across circuits on the motherboard

 

[ehanger]

aaahhh...my bad

 

[ehanger]

OK so if I cover the ENTIRE backplate with electrical tape will it not short no matter what, even if I screw it on too tight?

 

[EAZY-E]

I would say it would. Try it?

 

[ehanger]

It didn't work, so the last thing I am going to do is just replace the V8 with the stock cooler and see what happens. If it still doesn't work after that, then I give up and ill have to make $1500 doing odd-jobs around the house

This is probably my first and last time using an aftermarket cooler with a backplate. I guess ill just stick to using the intel stock cooler and doing very small overclocks for my future builds. Meh...no big deal its not like there's a huge difference between 3 and 4GHz in games anyway.

 

[EAZY-E]

1500$! what mobo do you have bro?! Im fairly certain that if it shorted, the rest of your rig is ok, just that your mobo is dead .

As a last ditch attempt you might wanna clear your cmos, i have no idea if that could fix a short but its worth a try .

 

[ehanger]

Well I don't REALLY need to get a new system but I kind of want to start from scratch after this "incident". Is there anyway to get a sort of reimbursement from cooler master because I don't think this is totally my fault as I carefully followed the directions that came with it and screwed the backplate on until nothing wobbled anymore. I don't understand why so few people have had this exact incident before...maybe my case is designed differently???

I haven't tested it without the V8 on using the stock intel cooler and am going to tomorrow morning but I doubt it will change anything. Also about clearing the CMOS I have the ASUS P6T and on the motherboard there is a reset and a power button does the reset button clear the CMOS or this there some sort of jumper pin I have to connect? If the reset button does clear the CMOS I already tried that and it still doesn't work...

 

[ehanger]

OK so your saying that my CPU is probably fine???? I hope your right because I was getting ready to poke a hole through it to make a core i7 necklace

 

[2flow]

Why dont you use a metal hole saw or just use a jigsaw. Cut a hole at that location so that that CPU backplate has nothing to touch.

 

[bill1024]

I would take the MB out of the case,
and run it on a piece of cardboard.
If there is still a problem, put the stock cooler on and try it.

Maybe one of the mounting screws is in the wrong place
and is shorting out the bottom of the mb.

 

[ehanger]

Could I run it caseless on the anti-static bag that came with the motherboard?

 

[RetiredChief]

You could. I would turn the "bag" inside out or leave stanoffs inplace. Many individuals do this with NO problems. The way antistatic bags are constructed is the outside is a high resitance conductive layer to disipate a static charge (generaly megohms) while the inside of the "bag" is insulative so that the charge on the outside is not transfered to the circuit card.

 

[ehanger]

There were punctures in the bag from having the motherboard being placed on it before so I decided to run it directly on the box that it came with. I tried clearing the CMOS with the jumper and ran it without any hardrives or optical drives and I still got the blank screen. The North and South bridge heatsinks felt warm to the touch after I manually shut it down, does that mean anything or can it still be fried? Also I felt the nickel plated block that was directly touching the CPU and it felt slightly warmer than room temperature. I haven't yet tried it with the stock intel heatsink and am going to see if that works or not.

 

[bill1024]

Clear cmos, use 1 stick of ram.
Try stock cooler, maybe try another video card, and/or monitor.
Try it with no mouse, keyboard, drives.
Do you get any beeps, error codes?
Good luck.

 

[ehanger]

FINALLY I got something displayed on the screen, I booted with 1 stick of RAM and it worked!!!!

Why would removing ram modules do anything though?

 

[ehanger]

OK now my motherboard will POST with 1 stick of RAM but not with more... I swapped RAM modules and none appear faulty its just that if I use more than one stick it doesn't work!