Size of screws for motherboard?

[Hurricane Andrew]

OK, so maybe I do have a touch of OCD, but I have a bunch of screws laying around from old hard drives, cases, etc. and was wondering if there were any special type of screw that I needed to use when securing the motherboard to the case, other than ones that will fit. I doubt it matters much, but just wanted to make sure.

 

[boomerang]

As long as the threads on the screw match the thread of the standoffs, you are good to go.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: boomerang
As long as the threads on the screw match the thread of the standoffs, you are good to go.

Exactly.
In my experience, there are two kinds of computer screws - metric and American. The metric have a finer thread, while the others are coarser.
Metric is typically used for motherboards, optical drives, and floppy drives. Hard drives, cases, and power supplies tend to use the American threaded screws.
This is just what I've encountered - there are no standards for this, at least that I know of. If there are any, they aren't adhered to well.
If a screw doesn't seem to fit in right, you're probably using the wrong threading type. Don't force it, or you could snap the head off (cheap, soft steel), and then you're left with the options of leaving the rest of it in the hole, or trying to drill it out.

 

[Hurricane Andrew]

Thanks for the responses. That's kind of what I figured, but wanted to make sure. I'm upgrading from my old PIII-550 to an AMD Athlon 64 3200+ and Chaintech VNF-250 that I'm building. Didn't want to screw it up, if you'll pardon the pun...