AMD heatsink way too tight

Edsson · May 19, 2014

I'm building my Pc and today I placed my AMD fx8350's stock heatsink and it was really difficult to place the latches I mean REALLY DIFFICULT like "oh my gosh it was way too tight" like seriously tight, no kidding even when the security lever was not turned yet it was tight as f**k and when I finally turned the lever I was pretty sure my Mobo was gonna break ¿is it normal for this exact CPU cooler to be this tight? I mean seriously I had to go berserk to place the latches.
My specs:
Cpu :AMD fx8350 4.0Ghz
Mobo :Sabertooth 990fx r2
Gpu :AMD R9 270X
Psu :Thermaltake smart 650w sp 650p
HDD:Toshiba 1TB HDKP 7200 Rev/min
Ram: 8GB DDR3 1333Mhz crucial

swifty_morgan · May 19, 2014

not normal. are you sure the cpu was seated properly?

before you set the heat sink on, was the lever mechanism "free floating? sometimes they "jam" up and need to be jostled around to free them.

Edsson · May 19, 2014

First I thought it was jammed but after 20 minutes of playing with it I realized it was not jammed and don't think it's a defective item since I've been Googling it and some others with the same CPU have this problem

damric · May 19, 2014

They can be pretty tight. Normal though. A few recent ones I put together were freaking tight, so I know what you mean. It's like, "am I going to break it?". Go ahead and close the latch. It's fine.

Edsson · May 19, 2014

Should I release the lever? It was tight without it, I'm just worried I'll damage my CPU

damric · May 19, 2014

Edsson :

Yes it's fine. BUT, once the lever is released, give the heatsink a slight twist so that in case the thermal interface grease is hardened, it doesn't act like glue and rip the CPU off the board with it (if you do rip it off, then we need to talk about how to straighten out those bent CPU pins).

Edsson · May 19, 2014

Thanks damric I hope you are right but I don't understand why the warning I'm not planning on dis mounting my CPU or I'm I not getting something right?

damric · May 19, 2014

You are taking it off or putting it on?

swifty_morgan · May 19, 2014

if you have it on and it's working.............................

Edsson · May 19, 2014

It's already mounted I just stopped building it cuz I was worried it was not normal to be this tight

damric · May 19, 2014

You are good, mate. No worries. Latch down that ah heck. It takes a bit of brawns sometimes when the design team get's the idea that things needed to be a little tighter, and they go for broke.

Being tight is actually a good thing (better thermal transfer). And the CPU die itself is protected by the heat spreader.

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AMD heatsink way too tight

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