Can I glue my soundcard into the motherboard?

[enskpo]

I've got the bare motherboard mounted to the floor inside of my mame cabinet. The sound card keeps coming loose from the vibrations of the 10" subwoofer in a tube that's also inside there. The video card had the same problem but I was able to secure it with zip ties. Tried 10 times with the sound card but zip ties won't work. Can I glue it? I'm willing to make it permanent if necessary. Any other ideas?

[Fursphere]

If you don't want to run a regular case, you can get an open air ATX frame.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09Q3HGNP4?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

[Zebidee]

Make a metal bracket from a piece of scrap metal about 1/2 inch wide, and a bit longer than the card's height. Bend the last 1/2 inch or so 90 degrees on each end, opposite directions. Drill holes in each end. Secure card to one end, and wood to the other end.

If you don't have any suitable scrap, your hardware store will have something.

An even cheaper but neater solution I've done before: make a bracket out of two pieces of those L-shaped metal (slot covers?) bits you pop out from a new PC case, when you put cards in. Most of us will have some lying around in a junk parts box. Just bolt the two together in opposite directions, use two small bolts/nuts. By drilling slots, instead of holes, you can adjust the height as needed.

[Zebidee]

Here is a pic of the bracket described above, made from two case expansion port covers. It secures an ArcadeVGA card.

Card is bolted to the bracket at top. You can just see the "foot", with two screws securing it, below the USB cable. The bracket needs to come out to one side obviously, otherwise it will block your ports. The bolt you see in the middle/high holds the bracket together (not attached to the card itself), there's another one at middle-low, hidden behind various cable heads. It is quite secure, despite that heavy video cable hanging off it, and even when the cab is moved around significantly.





Made that from whatever was in my junk boxes. The bolts are a little long, just what I had at the time (looooong time ago).

This PC was for a cab, and built into a plywood drawer so it just slides out for servicing, can even remove the whole drawer. Also made brackets to secure the power supply and pulled the hard drive cage out of an old PC case to support the HDD drives (not shown).

Pic is around 15 years old! Sorry can't give you a better pic. Sold the cab to a mate, but recently visited and gave it a thorough service and update, Put in new PC, SSDs, games, music etc. and nice new speakers. Was able to use the old video card bracket with new mainboard & card.  It lives again!!

[Mike A]

Put the stuff back in the computer case if it fits in the cab.

That is what it is designed for.

It holds everything in place and it cools the components more efficiently.

And the extra bonus is that you don't have to dick around.

[Zebidee]

Sure, less dicking around is always great, but at least in my case, no normal PC case would fit the space.

So compromise, rather than casual dismissals, was required.

Maybe I could've found some weird custom case for $200 or something, but nobody wants to pay that much for a case when a few bits of crap lying around will do the job even better.

[Warborg]

I wouldn't glue it in...  Potential for things to go sideways like getting glue in the slot which would basically ruin it, and if you need to do any maintenance, upgrades, etc. it will also be a headache.  I would do what others suggested here and either put it in a case or make a bracket.  Just out of curiosity, why not use onboard sound?  It's not like the retro games need a high fidelity...

[Mike A]

So compromise, rather than casual dismissals, was required.

This is why I said, "If it fits".

Derp

[Zebidee]

"If it fits".

May as well use a case if possible. I just assume (foolish me) the OP has no other option. But who knows, and I shouldn't assume.

Recently got some mini-tower ATX cases (smaller tower, ~14" square) for only ~$16-$18 each. Cheap, but the metal is very thin. Does the job and total build is very lightweight, especially when you only use SSDs. Smaller size means it fits in my smaller cabs.