Who has actually broken a motherboard due to a big heatsink?

[Rubycon]

We actually had a system get destroyed - a P4 960 system with a STOCK cooler. It was tossed about from high seas and just about everything in the case was destroyed.

I have the Hitachi 82 GB SATA drive from it that was recovered due to Spinrite6.

The CPU survived. Memory, video card, motherboard were totally destroyed.

Some years ago the guys at Swiftech affixed an MC462 HSF (The big socket A cooler with a 1/2" thick copper slab on it) to a board with a fragile AMD "naked core" 462 CPU and threw it out a window some 20 feet above a sidewalk! The case was destroyed but the motherboard AND CPU survived.

If a heavy HSF is attached correctly, it will survive. The taller ones can be damaged due to leverage and the heatpipes (Tuniq?) are soft copper so they can bend.

The best way to mount is through the motherboard and into the chassis behind the board like many servers do. I'd like to see that rip out. :laugh:

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: Rubycon
Some years ago the guys at Swiftech affixed an MC462 HSF (The big socket A cooler with a 1/2" thick copper slab on it) to a board with a fragile AMD "naked core" 462 CPU and threw it out a window some 20 feet above a sidewalk! The case was destroyed but the motherboard AND CPU survived...

Thank you!

End of discussion!

You can close the thread now...

 

[sbuckler]

Originally posted by: VinDSL
This begs the question, however...

Has anybody had a big HSF sag on a mobo? I think, yes!

That's what they should be worried about!

If you aren't careful, a big HSF will sit at a different angle than the CPU, causing cooling problems, because of poor contact...

My Sythe Infinity would sag if I didn't support it by hooking a bit of wire around the heatsync attached to the top of the case.
It should be perfectly horizontal in the case - it was nothing like that without support, which I agree wouldn't be helping the connection to the cpu.