Arctic Freezer 7 Pro

you do not need to remove the motherboard -- there is no support clip.

Be careful with the plastic connectors -- do not force, if you damage them you're screwed.

Play with the connectors until you feel comfortable with the way they work. They should go in with a click, and not that much force.

Make sure the black center pin is fully retracted before trying to fit the connectors into the holes.

I screwed up my first one, and even screwed up it was better than the stock cooler. I replaced it and now have it properly installed, where it works great.

It's not strictly necessary, but highly recommended. The Intel-style 4-pin mounting mechanism is notoriously easy to not-quite-fully install, which then leads to elevated CPU temps. The problem is that it is very difficult to get all 4 pins all the way through the MB holes with the MB in the case, since you can't get a hand behind the MB to support it as you are pressing in the pins. If the MB flexes even a moderate amount, there may not be enough room behind it to get the pins all the way through.
When you do install it, remember to first turn all the black "arrow" tops completely in the direction *opposite* the arrows (the arrows show how to turn for quick release). Use a flashlight to verify that all four pins are completely through their holes.

One more thing, the freezer comes with some sort of thermal compound pre-applied on the base of the cooler. Ive also bought some thermal paste to put on the processor, should i use this also? or will the thermal compound on the cooler be enough? or should i remove the one on the freezer and use the one ive bought instead?

Thanks  

The pre-applied thermal compound will work just fine.

So i shouldn't use the thermal paste i bought at all?

I think the Freezer 7 Pro comes with decent TIM on the bottom. What kind of TIM did you buy? If it is Arctic Silver 5 or similar, it may give slightly better temps by removing the TIM from the base of the HSF and using AS5.

Yes, the Freezer 7 Pro comes with MX1 on it, good stuff. Use that for your initial install.
The reason for having the tube of AS5 (or whatever) handy is that you will almost always end up re-installing the hsf at least once. Every time you remove the hsf (whether to change or reinstall), you need to clean the old compound off both CPU and cooler and apply a dab of fresh compound to the CPU.

Alright, i did that and its working just fine. The paste i bought wasn't too great anyway, "Akasa AK-450", guess itll just work.


Thanks for your time