Safe Luxury

Is it safe to put styrofoam between motherbaord and the case wall?

I was getting false-contacts due to the mounting of my case. I put the piece of styrofoam that it shipped with between the mobo and the wall. This temporarily fixed the problem... is it safe use this solution long term? It is only about 1/2 cm thick.

Public Comments

1. Nope. Bad idea because of heat. You need rubber washers or grommets. Any hardware store will have them.
2. No. Styrofoam conducts static charges and can potentially discharge into your machine.
3. It should be OK. If irt solves the problem, I don't see a downside to it. ~~ ScienceMikey
4. If you are using the special screws designed for the purpose to mount the motherboard, you don't need styrofoam. These screws maintain a space of almost a centimeter between the board and the wall of the case. Without them, you risk having zillions of conducting contacts with the case. The only electrical contact between the motherboard and the case should be the screws themselves, and the board is designed so that the screws are always contacting ground conductors on the board.
5. No this isnt safe, id say to look for some plastic screw stands or put rubbers washers on the screws the elevate the motherboard from the case. if you leave the styrofoam there ittll melt in the long run, id say cardboard would do a better job or maybe even paper.
6. It's safe as long as the styrofoam does not block any of the air that is supposed to be passing by the motherboard's northbridge, southbridge and the CPU heatsink/fan. In fact styrofoam is a great sound-dampening solution. Pack it correctly and out of the way of air flow and you'll have yourself a more quiet PC!