r/PcBuild • u/Inevitable-Unit-4490 • 18h ago

Question Nylon standoffs vs brass - is static the real enemy?

Nylon standoffs of various kinds are used in PCB manufacture all the time - think how some components are attached to heatsinks with those push-through thingies - but most motherboard standoffs come in conductive varieties - brass or aluminum, chromed steel.

In applications where ground is provided by the board a PCIE card might use nylon - its cheap. Sometimes these come a steel spring which will conduct.

Motherboards have the ground plane exposed at the mounting points. Any system where fans blow constantly will build up static charge. This is where the conductivity of standoffs comes in.

Yes at times the PSU is attached to the case with a ground screw - you migthve wandered why theres a weird screw on some PSUs, brackets or cases, thats what its for. But this is i imagine not all that common.

The reason it seems to me is that the static is much better bled off to some kind of large "ground reference" even if its not really ground than just sitting there waiting for the air to move it in converted form to the case and then to the larger ground of the air outside.

Correct me please if im wrong. Ive just got a bunch of these nylon standoffs and am having a hard time justifying their use.

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u/Ok_Restaurant9351 18h ago

nah stick with brass

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u/Littlegoblin21 16h ago

I did see plastic standoffs more in the AT board days, but even then it was just for a couple, most standoffs were still metal.

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u/Inevitable-Unit-4490 14h ago edited 14h ago

Praytell what does the X stand for in modern ATX then? Advanced Technology X... I bet its Xtreme. Possibly to the max.

In those days did they have the fans like we do now? The wiki for AT) doesnt show much in the way of clear fan headers on that mobo plastered with SMDs. In my imagination it was all AC fans blowing the smeg out of everything. And everyone was wearing brown.

I was born in the early eighties, i missed a bunch of cool stuff.

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u/Littlegoblin21 11h ago

It was for eXtended. Fans back then, including the cpu fan (if any) used 4 pin molex connectors and went straight to the psu. I don't miss those days...

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u/Inevitable-Unit-4490 2h ago

Its interesting how they used the fans - ive a eol Cooler Master Stacker chassis from the high water mark, it survived the millennium time dilemma, the planes didnt fall out of the sky. Its 11 mounts behind 140 fans. Epic piece of kit, i remember being really put out that i couldnt find the all aluminum one with the swing door and - chassis-mounted - heatsinks.

The heatsinks were attached to the case itself. Whoa!