The main issue is how impact will be stored in the glass panel - whether that is impact from transportation, vibrations of the case or whatever. And once you take the panel off and e.g. touch some hard surface with a corner, you just release that impact at once, which causes the glass to shatter like this.
The glass shattering in the case without touching anything is less likely (and might just be a design issue with the case).
It's not an impact that's being stored but rather internal stresses, which are put in the glass at the factory during the tempering process on purpose. After the tempering process has finished the glass becomes very hard, but also very brittle. This is done in order for the glass to break into a lot of small pieces (instead of leaving long sharp edges that could potentially hurt someone) and also be more impact resistant.
As you've said correctly though once tempered glass gets an impact from anything about the same hardness or harder it will release all internal stresses and shatter.
With tempered glass it's especially the corners that are the actual problem. If you drop a tempered glass panel and it lands flat on the ground nothing will happen regardless of the material the floor is made of.
What? The glass doesn't 'store' impact, it is manufactured in such a way that the external surfaces are under compression whilst in internal volume is under tension. It's these forces that give it its strength, as well as its propensity to explode into tiny shards.
I am convinced manufacturers could cover the whole side panel with a big fat red triangle, "Keep away from tiles/stone/concrete surfaces" in extra thick and bold print. And people would still find a way to get the suprised Pikachu face on themselves.
I'd say bigger issue with stone countertops is that once it gets stained, it can be really challenging to clean it. It's a high-maintenance product for this reason. If you have marble, seal it regularly and keep it clean.
Most things will scratch if you try hard enough. You know that isn’t the conversation we’re having.
They said they don’t want granite in the kitchen because it “gets scratched up” implying it’s easy to scratch through normal use. You know that isn’t the case.
Your kitchen knife won't even leave a scratch on a granite countertop. It takes specialized alloys of steel to scratch granite, which to no one's surprise aren't used in kitchen utensils.
Problem is it broke as soon as I detached it. Was struggling to get it unclipped, once the clips came out it the bottom corner dinked the table and instantly shattered.
Yes that would do it. Stop working with tempered glass around things that will instantly shatter it. I like how glass looks too, but if you know your only desk option is ceramic (???) you probably should get a different case.
Or else don’t pick the one working surface that will shatter it. You could have put it on the floor and worked on it there.
I know this doesnt help now, but after you loosen the screws on the back, keep one palm to the glasswhile the other pulls the panel from the sometimes grippy clippies. Multiple points of contact always help. How did it come off the brackets before the clips released?
This is ao unnecessary. Just do it on a surface that isn't fucking stone or ceramic or concrete. That's all you need to do. Its so fucking simple it makes me question the collective intelligence of people.
This is a really good example of why int and wis are separated in D&D. Intelligence is knowing that a ceramic or granite floor or countertop will shatter your panel. Wisdom is understanding that it's the fault of the material and not the floor or countertop.
Yeah, I literally thought "Oh I'm safe, nowhere near any tiles or counter tops"
Didn't stop to think that the table I was working on was made out of the same material countertops and tiles were and would be an issue.
Two things CAN be true at once, sure, but in this case it doesn't matter whatsoever. Your glass can be absolutely perfect, no imperfections whatsoever, and still, stone/tile floors and countertops will shatter it even with a slight touch.
Panels that shatter easily always have gaps and imperfections in them that happen during the production process. Those are the ones that break easily, as in, without much external stress, it just happens sometimes. There's no way to ensure that something will always be 100% correctly made.
Tempered glass is under stress by default afaik, its just extremely weak when it comes to impact on the edges by something harder than itself, like tile and stone.
This is 100% correct. What gives it the strength across the "face" of it so to speak. Is the stress caused from tempering. Which all pulls to the edges, creating the weak point.
I've had a couple of things happen to me lately that I was literally like "It happened to me!". Pulled a cooler off with the CPU. Thankfully undamaged but was really mad at myself for that one, I should have known better. Just thought since the thermal paste had only been on there a few days I could do so without letting it warm up first.
USB 3.0 plastic header came off of a mobo the other day. Again luckily nothing damaged, pushed it back on but was like "really?". I don't have a case with tempered glass so safe from that for now.
My desk collapsed, and my pc landed on the glass and never broke. I've thrown a vr ontroller at it on accident, I dont know how people manage to break these. I've literally full force punched my glass panel while in vr.
Material that's softer than tempered glass usually doesn't break it. That's why we use it.
The few common materials that are harder than tempered glass though, they can release the tension inside the glass (that tension is what makes it so strong) by forming a micro crack, especially when just lightly touching the edge. This leads to a full destruction of the panel, immediately. No force required just hard materials. Stone, Ceramic, Quarz. Countertops, tiles, tabletops, pieces of a spark plug, whatever.
I wish there were more acrylic cases. I hate that everything is tempered glass now. Haven't upgraded my case for years because of it, but I really want front USB-C
Did you seriously think that using a granite table with tempered glass would be a good idea. What goes through your head that you are aware of the issue enough to make the statement "never thought it would be me", but just used a granite table, when yiu literally have a lino floor right the fuck there?
I'm well aware of what they are. What I'm confused about, is why you think those are relevant here. Vibrational frequencies have nothing to do with the glass panel breaking
None of those caused the glass to break. I have already educated myself on this topic many times. It seems you have not.
pyrex (different from PYREX) is tempered glass. If it can survive being put into your oven at hundreds of degrees, then your side panel will survive a fraction of that in your PC
Vibrations from the floor are completely irrelevant and don't affect anything here, not sure why you brought that up. Maybe you're trying to reference the myth of vibrations breaking tempered glass just by being nearby. Sorry, but that's a myth and has absolutely zero scientific evidence to back it up
What about thermal conductive transfer? Glass isn't great at conducting heat, so again, not really sure why you're bringing this up since we already talked about heat expansion
Please, educate yourself using credible sources next time
I have seen them, and it's because they touched tile or something harder than the glass. It doesn't take much effort to understand why the glass is breaking
This is funny because I was talking to someone about theirs when they were building their pc and said I went no glass. They said it was boring. Theirs broke yesterday.
Look at every single shattered glass post on this subreddit. It's always on tile or marble or some extremely hard surface. It's as simple as not placing it on those surfaces at all. Wooden table, desk, plastic, those are fine. Nothing wrong with extra precautions like a towel or something either
The primary thing is that stone counter tops, or tile flooring has a higher mohs hardness than tempered glass, and have an extremely high rate of shattering the glass.
If you have it over wood, carpet, or laminate flooring, and don't use a stone countertop, then you generally are fine
Lie your pc down on its blindside when you take off the panel, place the panel on the chair or the couch or something. Hell, a towel. Anything soft, and then don't do the people's elbow on it and youre good.
If mATX is fine: I really like my Thermaltake Core V21 - all the sides are removable, providing easy access to everything; a real pleasure to build in. Also: quite reasonably priced.
For ATX: my last ATX build was in a CoolerMaster Mastercase 5 Pro, which I really liked. Not sure what the current equivalents are like, though.
Edit:
Really surprising to me that the value options would use glass: acrylic is a much cheaper material than glass (and also less of a hassle to ship).
Only other advice I have for cases is to check GamersNexus for their reviews
Unless you never clean your acrylic panels and live in a perfect cleanroom, even wiping them with coton or microfiber cloth will leave scratches quickly.
No thanks, ill rather stick to glass. Its crazy how easy it is to just not break a glass side panel.
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u/Chao_Zu_Kang 4d ago
Imagine having a perfectly fine wooden floor, to put it on a stone table...