Old AT cases had special holders for full length ISA cards (LAPC-I, AWE32 etc.) to prevent this. Other than that there is not much you can do except building some own solution...

This is why they should put mid or back plates on modern cards, there are ways one can prevent it them selves even if they do not have the means of the holders. One way is to make a bracket than runs the length of the card that bolts down to the i/o bracket at the end. The other is just a metal rod bolted to the bottom of the case pushing against the card (insulated). The slow droop could be the cause of some failures in modern cards that are vastly more complex than our retro gear.

I have a 8 bit ISA MediaVision Pro AudioSpectrum card (like 3/4 of full length), it's bent that way. Long but not long enough to reach the full-length ISA support slits 🙁

I suppose that 16-bit ISA cards are less prone to that.

This happened to my voodoo5. But only after I installed aftermarket heavy heatsinks. As a "solution" I routed ide cables at the end of the board so they would hold the board up.

Hmm, also i fear that in such scenario that might be a death sentence for a card that uses BGA chips.

The AWE32 is much prone to bending because it is too long and too short at the same time (long enough to warp under its own weight, but too short by a few millimeters to catch the case supports meant for full-length cards). 🤣

And on the subject of long cards, heavy heatsinks and BGA chips, here is how I killed one of my V5s:

(it worked for some time, but eventually gravity took its toll).

luckybob wrote:

This happened to my voodoo5. But only after I installed aftermarket heavy heatsinks. As a "solution" I routed ide cables at the end of the board so they would hold the board up.

This is how I kinda solved my problem with my "GF7600 AGP passive cooled but with large casefan mounted on it" card, it was very heavy and I tried to use extra cables to kinda pull it upwards a bit (might have been a molex plug, I don't remember)

My Voodoo2 (has no heatsinks) is still straight, same for my GF FX (same rough size) and dual-GPU Radeon (but this card has metal plates on it to hold it straight). In my experience the bigger problem is power cables being heavy enough to pull the card down on one end, not the length of the card itself. Using the "sled" things can fix this, as can backplates to make the card more rigid (a lot of more modern graphics cards have backplates available or included as part of their cooling). Alternately, if possible, re-work how the wiring is done so it doesn't force the board to sag down.

5u3 - how many slots was that Voodoo? 🤣

obobskivich wrote:

5u3 - how many slots was that Voodoo? 🤣

1 AGP + 2 PCI, which is not that bad if you consider that usually the PCI slot next to AGP shares the same IRQ...

Damn. I think I need to start worrying about my AWE32 then. What do you guys recommend?

5u3 wrote:

obobskivich wrote:

5u3 - how many slots was that Voodoo? 🤣

1 AGP + 2 PCI, which is not that bad if you consider that usually the PCI slot next to AGP shares the same IRQ...

Oh that's not bad at all - my current graphics card is around that size. 🤣

F2bnp: Can you mount some sort of backplate/front-plate on it? Or a "spine" piece? Or does your case support adding a "finger" or "sled" to carry the back-end? Or can you tie it off with zipties or loom?

Alternately, if it could go in a desktop form factor case, it may not be much of a problem. I don't know that for certain, just a guess, since it'd be standing vertical vs horizontal, so all the weight is going "down" into the slot, case I/O shield, etc vs sagging away from the slot/case.

That is why large desktop cases are preferred for systems with big motherboards and long cards.
Many of these old AT cases weigh a ton even without the PSU, but at least you know your long cards (CGA, LAPC-I, AWE32 etc) are safely seated.
And you could mount 4 or 5 of these monsters on each other. CRT monitors up to 21" were just paperweight for them, too.

I can second the annoyance factor with the AWE32. I simply put a little piece of rubber between the hindermost upper corner of the AWE32 card and the bottom of the tower case.

My HD5850 card recently decided to switch to "warp speed 9" as well - I fortunately managed to "wire out" the same corner of the card...

Use desktop chassis without a riser, or, vice-versa, a tower chassis with a riser, so that your cards stand on their edges.

Never noticed this to occure on expansion cards. However, I've seen s478 motherboards that are so bent near CPU socket that they were almost touching the case. They had cheap and ugly CPU coolers, that could not be installed without much force.

I think the older stuff can probably tolerate a fair amount of board flex without any issue, but I suspect the same is not true for newer hardware with the lead-free solder, which is pretty brittle.

My XG-DLS has some warping near the top edge due to the CPU brackets, was a bit paranoid at first but I suspect it's been that way since I got it and it runs fine... though I may fabricate a full-size backplate for the entire board and mount the brackets to that instead for insurance. The board would have had this kind of setup by default, but mine came as-is with just the I/O plate.

I used motherboard support stands on my CT3900 which sits at the bottom slot of the case... it makes pretty good support even though it doesn't result in perfect trueness

TheMAN wrote:

I used motherboard support stands on my CT3900 which sits at the bottom slot of the case... it makes pretty good support even th […]
Show full quote

I used motherboard support stands on my CT3900 which sits at the bottom slot of the case... it makes pretty good support even though it doesn't result in perfect trueness

Great idea! I'll keep that in mind 😀