Motherboard Heat Sink Removal

mamyes

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Nov 29, 2012
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Seriously frustrated by this. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

My motherboard is an Asus P8Z68-V it came with two blue heat sinks sitting around the CPU. In trying to add a larger air cooler with heat sink I ran into an issue with the mounting brackets hitting one of the motherboard sinks meaning it can't fit where it should.

The heat sink causing the problem is held in by two black screws/clips with 52 on the top, they have a spring beneath the top and the base of the screw spreads to prevent it coming back through. It doesn't seem to have a thread.

I need to remove these to then remove the heat sink. Any advice on how? They don't unscrew.
 

Ximerous

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Mar 12, 2014
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EDIT: Never mind thought you were trying to remove a already installed heatsink that was stuck. If the cooler doesn't fit on the board, DON'T remove heatsinks on the board.

+1 to what darkbreeze said.
 
Those heatsinks are for the VRMs and Northbridge, you do NOT want to remove them. If the cooler won't fit then it isn't designed for that socket or chipset configuration. What is the model of the cpu cooler? You may have the cooler oriented in the wrong direction as well. Most tower coolers should be installed in such a way that the fan would be mounted on the side closest to the front of the computer, blowing through the heatsink towards the rear exhaust fan. If you're trying to mount it in a horizontal configuration you may have problems with the heat pipes hitting the VRM heatsinks.

If it won't fit in either direction, then you need a different cooler.
 
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derek3ton

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Oct 30, 2015
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You will definitely kill your mobo if you remove those heatsinks as darkbreeze said. Some heatsinks simply will not fit on some mobos, which is why a little research before you press the "buy" button is always a good idea. Return the heatsink "if you can" and get one compatible for your mobo.
 
He's talking about hitting, and removing, these Ximerous:

9pxo4o.jpg
 

Ximerous

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Mar 12, 2014
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Yea I knew that part. I just thought he was removing a heat sink and not installing one. Like he wanted to take off the boards heatsinks, take off the stuck cpu cooler and put the boards heatsinks back on. Misread, I figured if someone got it on he could do it to take it off, my mistake. Thanks though :)