I have a motherboard with cooling fins on the MOSFETs heatpiped to the Northbridge. The cooling fins butt up against the IO area like they're supposed to be protruding outside to aid cooling. When the IO shield is in place, however, the area of the fins is blanked off by metal, making the fins kinda useless. My question is whether the IO shield is actually necessary? Does it, as the name implies, "shield" anything? Is it an electrical grounding thing? I've been running my rig for about 4 months now without the shield, but am starting to worry that this might not be the best thing to do...
Same here, using a special case (from a server) with my p6T deluxe, and no IO shield for me, as it doesn't fit. These shield have at least a use for improving airflow I think ,after that I don't know about EMI.
Do you notice any intererence on your TV or Radio etc? I wonder how that Antec Skeleton open case, deals with the EMI?
It stops the connectors wiggling a little when you plug stuff in, but my HTPC doesn't have one because I lost the shield .
For my own pcs I can't be bothered with the io shields, in builds for others I put them in though for the sake of a clean machine and for labeling the audio connectors.
It's not necessary, but if you are using the stock motherboard cooling and have the stock I/O plate for that board, why are you second-guessing the mobo engineers by leaving it off? You have some better qualifications? Isn't that alone enough reason?
Yeah, this did occur to me, but at the same time, it is still really strange... My speaker cables are the same colour as the output plastic bits so labels aren't that important for me. Besides, my mobo has a daughter card which I since replaced with a discrete card. Otherwise, I agree that would be useful!
it is for EMI reduction, mainly to keep computer noise in the computer.... People run computers in plexiglas cases... and they work fine, so no, the IO shield shouldnt matter that much.
