…other than the logical factors of dust and the damage it can cause to components.
t. Got a orange pi zero 3 running caseless for almost an year.
It’s probably fine, but you can accidentally short it when moving it around by touching it or resting it up on something conductive, even if you’re careful dust might short it as well, but this is much rarer.
As a general rule I would try to avoid it, but would not be my first concern.
For a Pi? Probably not.
For a desktop PC? In most cases the board needs the case to manage proper airflow for cooling. Running bare could make it overheat.
Most cases have ridiculous nonsense for cooling though. Laptops usually have considerable thermal engineering, but kinda set the threshold of real hardware requirements.
I was just given an old “gaming rig” someone didn’t want that had water cooling, 9 fans, a cobweb of LED wiring, and the most obese ABS panels attached to the sheet metal case… The thing works fine even when overclocked with no fans except the one built into the power supply and GPU. Only the one in the GPU cycles on enough to be audible… This guy had a freaking harrier jet taking off in the room beside him for a decade.
No, it will be fine. It doesn’t need a case.
I wouldn’t worry about it unless you have animals around. Mostly to protect from fur
