How to mount the AB350 Pro4 board

Contrary to what you may believe it's better to use the conductive stand-offs. Note that the mobo holes have these tiny blobs of solder around them. Electronics LOVE good grounding! In fact, many issues arise from BAD grounding. Just make sure your H peg is removed.

On the why's - it couldn't be any simpler - money! They are cheaping out on PCB, copper and other stuff that inflates the BoM. It may seem marginal but imagine a $2 save times 100 000 mobos. That's $200 000 pure cash in the worst case scenario!

I think what I wrote in the previous paragraph is what's fundamentally wrong with most of today's fat tech corps - they are ran by accountants and MBAs, not by engineers. Kudos to AMD in this regards. Most of AMD top brass are engineers through-and-through.


Edited by zlobster - 29 Dec 2017 at 5:17am

Thanks for the thorough answer. One misunderstanding that I've had up until now is that all conducting stand-off had to be used (grounded to the chassis). But that's wrong...right? Anyway, I be using all of them, including B (why not?).

trobins wrote: The AB350 Pro4 MB does not have the usual 9 screw holes as all other ATX boards I've installed. I only see 7 possible locations to place the screws. I'm afraid I'm going to make a mistake mounting it to my case and shorting it out. Does somebody have a diagram of the proper mount points for this board? The manual didn't help, and ASRock support was unwas unwilling to clue me in.

Your board has the standard ATX standoff mounting points, but is not a wide in the horizontal direction, and does not use the two standoffs on the far right side at the top and bottom, as you know. The hole at the very bottom, right corner is not for a standoff, but can be used with a plastic support peg that are available.

This style of board has been used for years, I have had several like that myself, so nothing new or unique. As long as your PC case only has standoffs in the standard ATX locations, you will not be shorting out the board.

The peg in the H position should be a common peg for any commonly sized mother board, including yours. It should match the ATX standard, but should be removable if not. If it is not removable, and does not match your board's standoff layout, that is a mistake by the case manufacture.

Check this: http://www.formfactors.org/developer/specs/atx/atx2_1.pdf and http://www.formfactors.org/developer%5Cspecs%5Catx2_2.PDF

It seems this board doesn't comply with the ATX standards. Go tell on ASRock to the ATX guys.

Anyway, you should use only the available mounting holes. At least they appear to be 'standard'.

Just make sure there are no stand-offs pre-installed on your chassis, as they may do some damage if ASRock didn't drill a hole for some of them.

P.S. the Taichi has all 10 holes, as required by spec.


Edited by zlobster - 28 Dec 2017 at 3:10am