Drilling holes into a normal card support chassis bracket

Question

My gpu is a Gigabyte GeForce gtx1080 8GB G1 (with 3 fans). It runs fantastically, but it’s heavy to say the least. So to support the 1080 I went to Amazon and bought one of those 3 screw horizontal girder-type brackets to support the entire length of the card.

I got it and went to install it when I realized that there were no screw holes where the bracket of the card mounts to the rear expansion slots.

I’ve tried other options like vertical poles with support clips, zip ties (what a disaster), finally settling on a metal rod from the UpHere graphics card gpu brace, wedging it sideways into the bottom lock tab, wrapping electrical tape around the pole and putting in one of their lift pieces.

But I really want to use my horizontal girder support, except that it needs those 3 screws.

Has anyone drilled screw holes into the rear expansion slots, or used self-tapping machine metal screws to fasten the front of their gpu? Using the rotating PSU case to “sandwich” seems dangerous to me for an expensive card like mine and probably will stop the power supply rotating tray from closing completely.

Any ideas, caveats, or “nuts” comments are welcome. Oh btw, the card is too wide to use the black plastic support that came with my R7 (I originally had a no-name 1070 in it).

Thanks.

Tesla1856 · Answer

I still think the answer is here.

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-Desktops/Aurora-R7-Gigabyte-1080-bracket-not-fitting/m-p/6203301/highlight/true#M6259

I think your best option since there is no PCIe card guide/support near the front of machine (like Aurora R1-R4, and Area-51's)..

OmenRIP · Answer

I’m more worried now than my previous post since the card is sagging 1/4” at the end.

About modifying the plastic spacer that comes with the R7 - it would take significant modifications and re-rubberized since the card is too thick AND too wide.

Maybe I shouldn’t worry, but many of the YouTube videos I’ve been watching for cable dressing shows the folks using some type of support on their GPUs.

Perhaps the guy who used LEGOs has a good idea.

Thanks for responding (again) to my posts.

OmenRIP · Answer

I have something similar on my attachment points. They look like lollipops with holes in them. I can try what he did before leaving my jury-rigged affair. I just put in an 850w Seasonic Focus Plus Platinum Power supply so I’ve been been looking at everything with a sharp eye. Maybe too sharp. The vertical one that I got, the magnet was too large. Thank you again for putting up with me. I forgot to put my previous conversation in Pocket to save for later. Mea culpa 😕

OmenRIP · Answer

Through much trial and error, I think I found a steady, unobtrusive (as you get in an enclosed case) solution. I bought this kit for the magnet/pole idea :

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079HSVSLR/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_bGTaCb1A3KJ1F

The magnet is too large. But I wanted the threaded rod and the clip that the end of the gpu lays on. I stuck the threaded part of the rod into one of the slots made to hold the plastic R7 bottom on. That wedged the rod into the bottom chassis. Then I attached the clip, put it under the card and rotated the rod to the left. As the rod went left, the clip stood up more vertically, wedging the clip to the edge of my card. Now I have a perfectly level card that has no play in it whatsoever. Pictures are worth a thousand words:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wqdflngzfgcy4a7/IMG_0066.JPG?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/itkmkar1yxgxa23/IMG_0068.JPG?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cz3hpt3i0c7aawl/IMG_0070.JPG?dl=0

Mike

PentatonicSteel · Answer

Well done! Glad you got it figured out.

OmenRIP · Answer

Thanks PanatonicSteel! I lost a few brain cells figuring that one out. I really didn’t want to use my Dremmel on that plastic holder since it’s to thin and not deep enough.

But I’m glad that I didn’t show the upper half of the mb by the cooler. It’s the best I can do with no experience in cord management.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ho8wcqo6wj229ko/IMG_0069.JPG?dl=0

So so please don’t laugh 😃

Mike

googleisaman · Answer

Looks good, did you have to cut the rod or does the top half clear the power supply swinging back? How did you secure that rod?

It was my first time with cable management and the main pain was the motherboard cable, just used zip ties to coil it up.

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Drilling holes into a normal card support chassis bracket

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