Is and IO shield necessary?

[jedigoldfish]

Hello everyone. I recently purchased a new/open-box motherboard and realized it did not come with an IO shield. This is a budget build and not interested in investing more if not needed. They are $10 on ebay but aside from the money i prefer not to wait. Can this cause any type of damage by leaving out. I was wondering the pros and cons of doing this. Your help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

[W-L]

3 minutes ago, jedigoldfish said:

Hello everyone. I recently purchased a new/open-box motherboard and realized it did not come with an IO shield. This is a budget build and not interested in investing more if not needed. They are $10 on ebay but aside from the money i prefer not to wait. Can this cause any type of damage by leaving out. I was wondering the pros and cons of doing this. Your help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

You can install it without an IO shield without any issue, but you can try contacting the manufacture to see if they can send you a replacement. 

[done12many2]

4 minutes ago, jedigoldfish said:

Hello everyone. I recently purchased a new/open-box motherboard and realized it did not come with an IO shield. This is a budget build and not interested in investing more if not needed. They are $10 on ebay but aside from the money i prefer not to wait. Can this cause any type of damage by leaving out. I was wondering the pros and cons of doing this. Your help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

 

The only thing it does is block dust of other objects from entering the back of the case.  That an provides labeling for your different I/Os.  That's really about it.

[RAM555789]

From my experience its going to be more of a pain too keep the computer clean, and too install the actual MB. 

[Dabombinable]

No, its not. But its a good idea to have one to help support the ports as some thinner motherboards do flex a lot when anything is plugged into them (mostly newer ones). Reducing dust is more of a secondary function.

[Cryptonite]

23 minutes ago, jedigoldfish said:

Hello everyone. I recently purchased a new/open-box motherboard and realized it did not come with an IO shield. This is a budget build and not interested in investing more if not needed. They are $10 on ebay but aside from the money i prefer not to wait. Can this cause any type of damage by leaving out. I was wondering the pros and cons of doing this. Your help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

my GF is currently running a pc without an IO shield as I didn't have the IO shield of that 775 build and it's still fine, the only real concern is someone putting their fingers in there (small kid maybe) and a little bit of dust.

[Squish4058]

never done it but its not nessesery at all and if anything would improve airflow in some cases

[jedigoldfish]

26 minutes ago, W-L said:

You can install it without an IO shield without any issue, but you can try contacting the manufacture to see if they can send you a replacement. 

I contacted Asus and the gentleman that assisted me only recommended contacting the seller and provided an ebay link to one.

Will my aftermarket cooler blowing in that direction help keep dust out? (deepcool gammaxx 400)

[mariushm]

Besides dust prevention, the role of that io shield is to make good contact between the connectors and the computer case, and basically improve the ESD protection (electro static discharge). When you plug things in back connectors your skin may be statically charged from walking on the carpet (or just from rubbing clothes against your skin) so if you touch contacts with your fingers you may zap them. The exterior of usb connectors and other connectors is usually grounded but it doesn't hurt to have a shield there and increase the chances your fingers will hit the shield first.. and the shield is connected to the metal of the case, which is grounded through the power supply so everyone's happy.

Anyway, it's a minimal risk, and can often be ignored.

 

The io shield also completes a sort of Faraday cage, basically blocks (or reduces) electromagnetic radiation from various components in your computer from affecting unshielded cables (the audio cable of your speakers sometimes, depending on the quality of the speakers), your vga cable... digital cables like hdmi or displayport are less sensitive and usually shielded, and others like usb have some shielding built in... Also blocks EMI from affecting various radio devices (AM radio in the same room etc, if you're really unlucky you could try to tune into an AM station and you'd hear buzzing or whining over the radio station)

 

So if you don't care about all of these, sure, you can install a motherboard with io shield. Just wanted to explain that it's not just something visual, to please you estethically, there's more purposes for the shield besides beautification.

[jedigoldfish]

Thank you all for your responses. It seems spending a little more and being more patient will be better in the long run

[Cbfbrolol]

On 07/09/2016 at 10:47 PM, done12many2 said:

 

The only thing it does is block dust of other objects from entering the back of the case.  That an provides labeling for your different I/Os.  That's really about it.

Mate are your computer specs legit or what?

[done12many2]

2 hours ago, Cbfbrolol said:

Mate are your computer specs legit or what?

 

Legit. 

[Cbfbrolol]

11 hours ago, done12many2 said:

 

Legit. 

Thats insane lmao