Question Case PCI-E slot screw holes don't line up with GPU's bracket screw holes: Could this be the reason for the issue I'm having?

[Dave3000]

My primary system has a Fractal Design 7 Compact case. I noticed that after I insert my RTX 4090 Founder's Edition GPU into the PCI-E slot, all 3 screw holes of the GPU's bracket don't line up with the PCI-E slot screw holes of the case. It's off by about 1 mm, which makes it impossible to screw in the screws into those screw holes. The only workaround I found was to put pressure towards the front in the back of the case with my left hand while I prevent the case from moving by putting my right knee against the front of the case, then finally I can get the screw holes to lines up with the bracket screw holes of the GPU. However, it concerns me that I may be damaging my GPU with this work around because the back of the case where I put the foward pressure to get the screw holes lined up might be trying to go back to it's natural position while the GPU is installed even though it's now screwed into the case and may be causing this issue that I'm going to mention in the next paragraph.

The issue I'm having, ever since switching to this case for my primary system, was while loading Flight Simulator 2020, it would sometimes exit out to the desktop interface. Additionally, when flying in X-Plane 12, in the Zibo 737, it would just exit out on me back to the desktop interface. This is in Windows 11. No error messages, no warnings, just exits out of those games on a random basis and this didn't happen with this system installed in the old case, which now my secondary system is using. Can that workaround to get my GPU lined up with the screw holes of the case, have anything to do with this? Maybe there is a slight backward tugging to the card as the back of the case is resisting that forced position, trying to get back to it's natural position, possibly slightly shifting the GPU in the process, while I was playing those games?

 

[bba_tcg]

Maybe. Take the screw(s) out to see what happens.

 

[Dave3000]

Maybe. Take the screw(s) out to see what happens.

I unscrewed the GPU from the case and the back of the case reverted back to it's original position from the release of pressure, which also means that the screw holes were once again not lined up with the screw holes the the GPU's bracket. Also I'm not going to use this system while the GPU is not screwed into the case, especially if it's a heavy GPU.

 

[bba_tcg]

I unscrewed the GPU from the case and the back of the case reverted back to it's original position from the release of pressure, which also means that the screw holes were once again not lined up with the screw holes the the GPU's bracket. Also I'm not going to use this system while the GPU is not screwed into the case, especially if it's a heavy GPU.

Lay it on its side and see if it works without doing what it was with it screwed down. If it does, then either get a different case or bend the back of that one in far enough the screws go in without any further contortions.

 

[Dave3000]

That can take days, maybe weeks for the problem to crop up again, and I don't want a bulky case laying horizontally on my bedroom floor that whole time. Besides, when I had this system in my old case which had no alignment issues with this card, I didn't experience this issue. Strange thing is that I tried installing my sound card I had laying around into the motherboard and the screw hole of sound card's bracket lines up perfectly with the PCI-E slot screw hole of the case and the same screw hole as well. Maybe I should swap cases around again between the systems. My secondary system does not have a dedicated GPU and just using the onboard GPU, therefore, I did not experience the alignment screw holes issue since there would be no GPU to install for that system, and didn't even know that case had that defect until I used that case for my primary system which has a dedicated GPU.

 

[Paperdoc]

Your post says, "ever since switching to this case for my primary system". From that I understand that you moved your old system (especially motherboard) from a previous case into this new one. That alerts me to a possible REAL problem.

I suspect (you do not say) that the video card is l too LOW in the new case - that is, to get screws to line up you need to lift the video card's bracket up from the base plate. Right? To me that means the whole mobo should be raised up from the back mounting plate by as much as ¼". Does that sound right?

This sounds like a problem with the installation of the stand-offs under the mobo. See my post of July 14/24 on this other site.

Question - My pc suddenly black screen and PSU keep make on and off sound, what's wrong with my PC?

My pc parts: CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor CPU fan: be quiet! Pure Rock 2 CPU Cooler Motherboard: MSI B650 GAMING PLUS WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard RAM: Corsair Vengeance 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory Storage: Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State...

forums.tomshardware.com

As explained there, stand-offs mis-located or even altogether missing can cause big problems with possible short circuits to Ground (permanent or intermittent) on the bottom of the mobo. This MAY be the cause of the unexpected behaviour of your machine to exit games in progress. And certainly if you did NOT ensure that all stand-offs were installed before mounting the mobo in the new case, that would put the mobo too close to the back mounting plate and result in misalignment of rear holes.

 

[Dave3000]

Your post says, "ever since switching to this case for my primary system". From that I understand that you moved your old system (especially motherboard) from a previous case into this new one. That alerts me to a possible REAL problem.

I suspect (you do not say) that the video card is l too LOW in the new case - that is, to get screws to line up you need to lift the video card's bracket up from the base plate. Right? To me that means the whole mobo should be raised up from the back mounting plate by as much as ¼". Does that sound right?

This sounds like a problem with the installation of the stand-offs under the mobo. See my post of July 14/24 on this other site.

Question - My pc suddenly black screen and PSU keep make on and off sound, what's wrong with my PC?

My pc parts: CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor CPU fan: be quiet! Pure Rock 2 CPU Cooler Motherboard: MSI B650 GAMING PLUS WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard RAM: Corsair Vengeance 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory Storage: Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State...

forums.tomshardware.com

As explained there, stand-offs mis-located or even altogether missing can cause big problems with possible short circuits to Ground (permanent or intermittent) on the bottom of the mobo. This MAY be the cause of the unexpected behaviour of your machine to exit games in progress. And certainly if you did NOT ensure that all stand-offs were installed before mounting the mobo in the new case, that would put the mobo too close to the back mounting plate and result in misalignment of rear holes.

The case came with the stand-offs installed. There is also a permanent center stick-through stand-off to help make sure the motherboard is positioned accurately in the case as I install the motherboard. There is no way to move the motherboard even slightly back or forward because of this permanent stick-through stand-off, but I can rotate the motherboard, and the motherboard seems accurately lined up with the stand-offs. No extra stand-offs installed either. However, when installing the motherboard, there was some play, about 1-2mm in the front part of the motherboard between the underside of the motherboard screw holes and the stand-offs, as I could push the motherboard down a bit from the front edge of the motherboard until it touches the stand-offs, and it didn't touch the stand-offs if I didn't push down on the motherboard in that area. In the middle area and rear area of the motherboard/case, there was no play, meaning the underside of the motherboard screw holes was touching the stand-offs without me having to push the motherboard down into the tray. However, I managed to get the motherboard screwed into all standoffs. Also the motherboard tray looks a little concaved or warped when I look at it through the underside CPU cut-out of the tray, it appears that when looking through the underside CPU cut-out on the motherboard tray, the motherboard is straight but the gap between the motherboard tray and motherboard gets a little larger the closer to the left side of the underside CPU cut-out it gets, but the motherboard is fully screwed into all the stand-offs.

 

[Paperdoc]

So, stand-offs clearly are not the problem. Clearly you understand their use.

What you describe is a bit odd. What about other items near the back of the case? For example, the mobo has a rear panel that sticks out of a hole in the case with a pre-made trim panel around that panel. Does THAT line up with the case opening, or is it mis-aligned, too, as the PCIe slot openings appear to be?

 

[Dave3000]

The rear IO shield of the motherboard is lined up perfectly with the case. I noticed that the bracket of my GPU is leaning forward slightly in relation to the slot panel of the case, leaving a gap between card's bracket and the case that gets slightly larger the higher up the bracket right after I insert the card into the slot. This is before putting the forward pressure in the slot panel area of the case to line up the screw holes of the case with the screw holes of the card's bracket so I can screw the card's bracket into the case.