ATX motherboards with missing i/o shield...what to do...

[eccerr0r]

If you get a bare motherboard with no I/o shield, what do you do with it?
Use without shield?
Find a shield?
Trash board?

Wish there were more standardized i/o shields but this is annoying...

[Topcat]

Re: ATX motherboards with missing i/o shield...what to do...

Make one from a blank if you can't find one. https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...0&postcount=43

Search the board model on ebay, many times they'll be there unless it's a really obscure board.

Running without one is a pet-peeve of mine for some reason...makes a build look cheesy & incomplete.

[eccerr0r]

Re: ATX motherboards with missing i/o shield...what to do...

wow the blanks are not cheap....neither are the plates. ugh... wonder how bad custom plastic ones from 3d printing will work?

[diif]

Re: ATX motherboards with missing i/o shield...what to do...

It depends where you get them from. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001333341322.html

[eccerr0r]

Re: ATX motherboards with missing i/o shield...what to do...

Do you guys make a lot of custom plates? must be time consuming...

[diif]

Re: ATX motherboards with missing i/o shield...what to do...

No, in the past I've just modified one that is close, nowadays I'd give a blank to a mate that runs a cnc laser where he works if it mattered.

[brethin]

Re: ATX motherboards with missing i/o shield...what to do...

Don't use one, they are just cosmetics.

[eccerr0r]

Re: ATX motherboards with missing i/o shield...what to do...

for those who have dealt with a lot of these boards, are the PS/2 ports at the exact same location regardless of board, short of the V1 boards where the two ports are on the board, and all others are stacked?

[momaka]

Re: ATX motherboards with missing i/o shield...what to do...

If you get a bare motherboard with no I/o shield, what do you do with it?
Use without shield?
Find a shield?
Trash board?

Option #3 made me LOL .... but seriously, who'd do that?

I'm more of a option #1 guy - sometimes I'll skip it, even if I already have the shield for the board. It depends on who the PC is for and where it will be used. If the PC will see a lot of cable connections/disconnections on the back (be it audio or video), then I prefer to have an IO shield to prevent accidental shorting of pins/ports - particularly with 3.5 mm audio jacks (so in that case, I will buy or make one.) On the other hand, if I have a "hot" motherboard stuffed in a case with not-so-optimal cooling, I may forgo the IO shield to get more open airflow - especially with air from the CPU heatsink going through the CPU VRM area and directly exhausted between the ports rather than having to curve up and into the case exhaust fan (if there is one) and PSU exhaust fan (if PSU is on top.)
So in short, the IO shield is a bit of a function-over-form for me... just like most of my PC builds anyways. (though a lot of times, they have neither function nor form )

Wish there were more standardized i/o shields but this is annoying...

In the late 90's and early 2000's, IO shields were pretty standard: two stacked PS/2 ports on top, two stacked USB ports, a row of two serial ports with a parallel port on top, and a row of three 3.5 mm audio jacks with a game/MIDI port on top. Then in the mid 2000's, the stack of 2x USB's usually got shifted below the stack of parallel + serial ports stack... and often LAN was added above the USBs and/or one of the serial ports was replaced in favor of a VGA port... meanwhile the audio jacks became vertically stacked, and game/MIDI port was dropped. At least, these two were the most common variations of back then.

wow the blanks are not cheap....neither are the plates. ugh... wonder how bad custom plastic ones from 3d printing will work?

Or just use clear plastic from food packaging and carefully cut away holes for the ports ... though I find most plastic food packaging to be too flimsy for this. A better alternative is thin sheet metal (plus, it will block EMI/RFI, it being conductive and all ). Don't worry about how it would clamp onto the case - you don't actually need to do that. If your cutouts line up well with the motherboard ports, simply the motherboard pushing it against the case will keep it in place... or if the board has VGA, serial, or parallel ports, add holes and use the hex nuts on those ports to secure the IO shield onto the board this way (kind of like how some Dell motherboards come with their own non-removable shields attached to the motherboard.)

for those who have dealt with a lot of these boards, are the PS/2 ports at the exact same location regardless of board, short of the V1 boards where the two ports are on the board, and all others are stacked?

For the most part, yes, PS/2 ports are usually on the top and stacked together.
Known exceptions (off top of my head) are mid-2000's AsRock (PS/2 ports side by side on the board in a single row) and Dell motherboards... again, ironically from the mid 2000's (Pentium 4 era.)

[eccerr0r]

Re: ATX motherboards with missing i/o shield...what to do...

Well they are stacked but are they at the same X/Y displacement and spacing between the two...

I've had a bunch of the old ATX V1 boards where the two PS/2 ports are on the board so they're side by side. These are apparently all standardized but it's a lot simpler when the board only has the two PS/2, two RS-232 DE-9's, and one parallel DB-25... USB nowhere to be found...

[eccerr0r]

Re: ATX motherboards with missing i/o shield...what to do...

Ghetto? Not Ghetto?
Has elements of both in it, specifically the solder iron hack because of measurement errors...

[petehall347]

Re: ATX motherboards with missing i/o shield...what to do...

i use to throw lots of those away when i was breaking computers to weigh in the parts .. criminal i know but the money was pretty good .

[Topcat]

Re: ATX motherboards with missing i/o shield...what to do...

Ghetto? Not Ghetto?
Has elements of both in it, specifically the solder iron hack because of measurement errors...

Looks pretty good to me!