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I have a Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3L motherboard which is missing the I/O shield panel.

While I'm not sure that I actually need the I/O shield, a part of me is still wondering how I might go about hacking together some sort of a "good enough" substitute for one. Just to try to help keep the dust out of case, I suppose.

Granted, I apparently could just go on eBay and buy one for around $20. (Here's a link to an example at the time I wrote this.)

However, my mind balks at paying that much for a wafer thin piece of metal with holes in it.

Anyone have any other suggestions?

3 Answers 3

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When I was rebuilding a PC from leftovers I used a piece of cellulose taken from the packaging of a monitor (screen protector), just the right thickness and, being transparent, easy to mark up and cut to the right size. It was held in place with Pritt (a weak glue). Being none conductive it wouldn't short anything out if it fell out of place and it kept the airflow going through the PC from front to back. I never saw any symptoms that could be attributed to electrical noise.

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  • This seems to be along a line that is worth investigating. However, I'm not sure where I'd find a piece of transparent material that is both thick enough to make a proper replacement shield yet still easy to mark up & cut to match the template for the I/O shield. Jun 30, 2011 at 12:30
  • Ask around, someone may have bought something that was packed in clear plastic
    – Tog
    Jun 30, 2011 at 17:39
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Thats a fairly standard I/O shield - i'd recommend finding an old box no one wants, and yanking one from it.

Other than dust, running a system sans IO shield is fairly harmless, i've done it before, and never had much issues (other than dust)

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It should be possible to CAD or SketchUp a design. The cutouts themselves are all standard shapes and dimensions, so they could be standard, infinitely reuseable components. The variables are simply the overall dimensions of the shield, and exact positioning of cutouts on it.

So you could print trial versions on heavy paper, carefully cut out the cutouts and overall outline, then try it on for size. Fine-tune that and then print the final on label stock to stick on sheet metal, or even on card stock as a really cheap and somewhat flimsy, yet adequate solution.

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