Motherboard capacitor touching HS

[Iturea]

Please help! I just got my new HSF in today. Volcano 12 series and the thing is huge!!! With a capital H!!! Anyhow it is barely but slightly touching the side of a capacitor. I am afraid to put power to the board. WILL IT BE OK? The heat sink is copper. The side of the capacitor doesn't appear to be metal. Will it be safe? I DIDN'T REALIZE THIS HSF WAS GOING TO BE SO FREAKIN BIG!!!!!!!!

[daniel brooks]

i dont no much about this kind of stuff but i think it might hurt it i would not do it

[tony_j15]

It shouldnt short out or anything. Biggest problem could come from the HS melting the capacitor. Again, not likely. Look, you can touch a capacitor and it wont shock you right? So why should the HS? you'll be fine.

[John Prophet]

touching is not a problem at all..of course if the heatsink were bending it out of place with a lot of pressure it might not be good, lol....but as far as shorting something out etc..there is nothing to worry about there.

JP

[Iturea]

Thanks so much! I just realized that two capacitors on my board are touching anyway - so if they can touch and be ok then my new HSF touching one shouldn't by theory hurt either. Thanks so much for the replies! :-)

[John Prophet]

yeah,,,there is no current or voltage or anything on the outside of those caps or any other component for the most part....the only thing you really have to worry about touching are the leads and exposed pins and stuff directly on the motherboard...for instance you have the case layed over on its side...with the comp booted up..and you are leaning over the comp with a screwdriver tghtening something and the screw or screwdriver fall down onto the motherboard.....now THAT could be bad, lol...(but even so, usually not)

[Iturea]

Cool deal I am booted up and going good!! THANKS GUYS! ALL MY PREVIOUS POST HAVE ALL BEEN ANSWERED GOOD!! EVERYTHING WORKS AND I AM AT 1.8 GHZ AND VERY HAPPY!! I booted into the Windows XP CD setup with no errors. I couldn't say that before! :-) My power supply even seems to be working good with no errors.

[dafanman]

Iturea
Something for you to think about, what about the vibrations from the fan running with that cap right up against it???

On the gigabyte nforce series of board, those that found their respective hsf's to be a tight fit, modded the hs with a dremmel, and cut out the offending portion.

Personally I would not let it touch at all.

Laterz,
dafanman

[Iturea]

Yeah i will probably have to mod the HSF. Thanks for the advice. :-)

[originel]

i would also recommend dremmelling (look, i made up a new word!) the HS a little. Those caps are just shrouded in a rubbery plastic that i would be afraid would melt. I wouldn't worry about the vibration thing since a capacitor is basically two metal plates or in this case cylinders with an insulator between them. If they melt tho one of the plates might become exposed.

In all likelyhood you would be ok...but better to spend the hour or so to mod the HS than to replace a mobo, cpu, and hsf