You won't believe it, but it's true...

[SolitoN79]

I bought a new, much quieter HSF, and was looking forward to finally enjoying REASONABLE ambient noise from my PC for a change...I figured it would take less than an hour to remove the old heatsink, reapply some paste properly and slap in the new one...No biggie, right? WRONG! Slapping in the new one is where I'm stuck, STUCK! and I can't express the frustration enough...

For two hours, I've been trying to get the heatsink to lock in place...Can you imagine? Two freakin hours...and it just won't lock in! It's a heatsink for a 775 CPU, so instead of a bracket, there's these four plastic locking pins that you apparently just push in one-by-one and voila. But the 'voila' just isn't happening...I can only get two of them, on the same side, to lock at a time; as soon as I try and push the 3rd and 4th in, they either don't engage cause there seems to be huge amounts of resistance, or the 1st two pop out instead. I've tried pushing all four at once, doing it diagonally one at a time, diagonally TWO at a time, pushing really, really hard to the point where I'm afraid my mobo is going to crack, but it just...won't...go....in....

I've studied and checked all the pins, to understand how they work and whether they're ok, and they work (i.e. they lock when not installed in the mobo). The Intel documentation isn't helping...I'm considering removing the mobo from the case and trying again by laying it on a flat surface, but wouldn't that block the pins from engaging? Can someone who's had a similar problem weigh in please? Is there something I'm not aware of? What's the deal here?

 

[Detson]

Yeah, intel's 775 HSF attachment points suck. Those things terrify me. Try getting two pins attached on a diagonal, and then, pressing down gently on the heat-sink itself, insert the last two pins and rotate to secure.

 

[jordanwise]

i had the same problem with this build. I too spent about 2 hours staring at the thing before closing my eyes and forcing the hsf down like its heart had stoppped- using both hads, directly in the middle. heard one hell of a clicking sound (or was it a cracking sound.....) but all is good with my computer, despite the amount of force i used.

Though I am not advising that you should try it like this, as there is probably an easier and safer way

 

[markdixon]

Your problem *could* be trying to attach it with the motherboard mounted to the standoffs - it's too rigid.

I mounted the stock Intel HSF before mounting the mb and did nothing special except listen for 4 distinct "clicks"; when I picked up the mb to look at the underside to double-check that the pins looked seated, there was a distinct bowing of the mb.

It still mounted fine in the case but like I said, this system may require a little bit of flex in mb and if it's screwed down that may be preventing it from doing so.

edit: I missed your question about clearance but I put the gray foam from mb box on top of the box then the mb on top of that; so the box gave a little rigidity for pushing down on mb and the foam gave the clearance for the HSF pins to poke through.

 

[swifty_morgan]

I put mine on corner to corner, ( opposite each other, not going in a clockwise manner. ) You have the one side "pinned" down and it won't allow you to "pull the other side down. You gotta start over, take your time, and believe it or not, use alot of pressure. Really fuct up way intel made this thing isn't it ?

 

[notherdude]

I had SAME EXACT PROBLEM.

In my case the fix was simple:

For these pins to work they must be twisted all the way into locking position BEFORE insertion. Simply turn the black pins all the way counter-clockwise (opposite to the direction of the arrows on top of the black push pins). You do this with the heatsink out of the MOBO, up in the good light where you can see. Once they are set correctly they should simply pop in and stay - in other words no twisting is needed after you set them properly one time. Just line em up and push and they will stay.

You can twist them into locking once they are in but this is too hard to pull off, particularly on a massive sink. So do it before. Trust me on this.

They have this lock\release position feature so that you can get them out when you need to.

I bet this is your problem. It is hard to see the where they are set when using a big sink. If you twist them counter-clockwise they should stop popping back out again. Seriously, look close. This is what did it for me. After two hours of mind blowing frustration I finally figured it out.

They should arrive from the mfg. in this position but for some reason my Scythe Infinity did not.

 

[JMecc]

Notherdude is right; twist them into position - try pushing them to click when not inserted in anything just to make sure everything is right. Twisting into the right position is critical.

Jo

 

[chuckshissle]

Replace it with Artic Cooling Freezer 7, a much easier to install. Or go for the best and get the Ultra 120 Extreme, assuming you have the space to mount this inside you case.

 

[rabidbunny]

i had the same problem with this build. I too spent about 2 hours staring at the thing before closing my eyes and forcing the hsf down like its heart had stoppped- using both hads, directly in the middle. heard one hell of a clicking sound (or was it a cracking sound.....) but all is good with my computer, despite the amount of force i used.

Though I am not advising that you should try it like this, as there is probably an easier and safer way

I had the same thing happen with my build, and it made me say, "um...did I just break something in my first build?!?"..
Luckily, the system was fine. But I do agree with the difficulty attaching the heatsink. It seems like a step backwards from the cooler on my dell's P4 socket 478. An easy retention clip, and a lock-in-place cooler...

 

[SolitoN79]

I'm going with a Big Typhoon VX (Thermaltake); low noise and the affordable price are my main reasons. Speaking of having enough space; this thing is HUGE. It's crazy. LoL, when I was looking at pictures of it, it seemed so small...You should've seen my face when the salesman pulled it out from under the counter...I was like 'this thing's pretty big...I don't know...Does it actually fit in a standard case?!'

 

[SolitoN79]

To All

Thanks for the help people, appreciate it.

I finally got it in (and as a bonus, nothing seems to be overheating); I think the problem was that the mobo was too rigid and didn't have enough 'flex' like markdixon mentioned. I pulled out the mobo while you guys were typing up your replies to see if anything was blocking the HS; didn't notice anything in particular, but when I tried it again, the HSF locked in without a hiccup. Smooth as silk. LoL, just had to tear the whole case apart

And I agree with notherdude's advice on turning the locking pins into the 'locked' position BEFORE pushing down -- makes it way easier.

This new setup is pretty freaky at 1st, but once you know how to mount it, it's really much easier than previous types of mounting systems...Given what I've just tried, my advice for easy installation would be to either loosen the mobo from the standoffs (if you're just swapping HSFs) OR install the HSF on the mobo before putting it in the case (if you just bought a new mobo).

Well, it's much quieter now -- finding a silent PSU is my next goal. BTW, anybody see ThermalTake's 'Sonic Tower' heatsink? I found it pretty cool cause there's no fan at all, just four really tall 'fin towers' connected to heat piping. Completely silent -- unfortunately it's no good for more powerful processors (Core 2 and the like, not even Pentium Ds).

 

[little_scrapper]

I figured it would take less than an hour to remove the old heatsink, reapply some paste properly and slap in the new one...

It should NOT take more then 15-20 minutes to completely remove your mobo, switch out HS and replace mobo and reconnect all wires. Period. I just redid my heatsink and it took about 15 minutes flat.

Remove vid card and soundblaster. pull wires. remove 6 screws. pull board. took about 2 minutes.

Remove heatsink, clean paste, reapply paste, reapply HS. took less then 10 minutes.

replace mobo, replace six screws, replace vidoe card and sound card, attach cables. took maybe 3-4 minutes.

 

[engrpiman]

while the Intel heatsink sucks the installing any after market cooler works easy.

also make sure the pins are rotated in the correct way. because if not they will not stay in place