WHAT A NIGHTMARE!

[CooLWoLF]

So, I need to rant.

I just got a new Xigmatek Dark Knight to lower my temps so I can overclock my cpu higher. So I'm all hyped up and ready at the thought of pushing my voltage and multiplier up more now that I have a high quality hsf....

You should know, this computer I had a small computer company I found on the net build for me. Usually, I put together my own build, but this time I just did not have room in the schedule to devote to the cause. Why am I telling you this......?

THEY GLUED THE CPU TO THE STOCK HSF!!!!

Think about that for a second. I was horrified. I knew something was weird when I let off the retention clip and when I tried to lift off the stock fan it wasn't budging. Then I put a little more pressure into the lift and the whole cpu/hsf combo pulled out! I stared in disbelief for a good 30 seconds. I didn't know what to do. I then tried to pry off the cpu and it was no go. It seemed like they used some sort of epoxy. I really don't know what it was. So now I'm trying to figure out what to do. On top of this, I notice about 10 pins or so are now bent from when I pulled out the cpu/hsf. I tried to again pry it off with a little pressure but it was not working. I called up the wife and start using every curse word I can think of. She tried to console me, but I was livid. I told her I was going to try some other way of removing the cpu and hung up. I got the idea that a razor blade might work. I got a blade and started slowly sliding it under the cpu as carefully as possible. It took about 15 minutes, but I got all the way through and it popped off. I then grabbed the alcohol and cleaned off as much of the glue as I could. Now I had to begin fixing the bent pins. I eventually got them all as straight as I could and placed it back in the motherboard. I was praying it was still functional.....

I installed the new Dark Knight and noticed it was bigger than I thought it would be once inside the case. I had to remove the side fan and mount it in another place inside the case; no big deal. I also had to move my ram modules to the outer dimms. I pretty much expected to have to do that from the get go. This thing is big. I then crossed my fingers.

It actually fired up! I could not believe it. I seriously thought I would be making another purchase from Newegg this week; this time a new cpu. (Would have been a good excuse to buy a Phenom II, hehe)

Whats the moral of the story: Never underestimate the possibility that the person building your computer is an idiot. GLUE? SERIOUSLY?!?

 

[Wayoffbase]

That'll teach ya not to buy pre-builds. I'm happy for you it worked out in the end, the gods of computer building have been merciful this time

 

[Dekasav]

Now, this may be unnecessary, but I usually run the computer through full-load for awhile, before I remove the HSF. Makes it come right off, everytime (though, I admit, I've never done it any other way.)

 

[The_Blood_Raven]

There is no glue... ALL thermal paste becomes very adhesive unless it is warm, never replace the cooler on a cold machine.

 

[AKM880]

^ That happened on my Dell, I learned my lesson never to remove the HSF when its cold.

 

[Dekasav]

Though.... if you charge for warranty service, using glue/epoxy would be a good way to have lots of return CPUs.

 

[CooLWoLF]

There is no glue... ALL thermal paste becomes very adhesive unless it is warm, never replace the cooler on a cold machine.

It was glue. The system was running all day when I turned it off to install the new hsf. It was very warm when I tried removing it.

 

[The_Blood_Raven]

If you waited 10 minutes then you waited too long, stock thermal paste becomes adhesive very quickly and can become tricky. I've had to deal with this a lot. What I sometimes do is unhook the heatsink and then press it into its original position with one hand and turn on the PC for a good 10-20 seconds and then turn it off. The heatsink will come right off. It is an easy problem to have and we have posts about this a lot.

Hell a few months ago it happened to me with a customer's computer. I figured that I would take that moment to go get something I forgot in my car (can't remember what it was now) and when I came back the customer had ripped the heatsink out with the processor stuck to it. Luckily no pins were missing or broken and it popped off easily by prying it off with a screwdriver against the corner lip (its strongest there).

 

[4Ryan6]

It was glue. The system was running all day when I turned it off to install the new hsf. It was very warm when I tried removing it.

Well lucky for you it was not thermal epoxy adhesive, because if it was, you would not have gotten it off.

I was going to reuse a heatsink that I had thermal epoxied to an older M/B N/B chipset, using the 2 part Artic Silver Thermal Adhesive, the heatsink was good the M/B was toast, I was curious as to just how strong the thermal adhesive actually was so I set out to pry the heatsink off.

It took the N/B chipset with it like a dentist pulling teeth, to make a long story short I had to beltsand the chipset and thermal adhesive off the heatsink base.

The chipset came off fairly quick under the beltsanders relentless sanding, but the thermal adhesive took a considerable amount of time to remove from the heatsink.

I was absolutely astonished at the bonding and strength of that product, if you ever use thermal adhesive, you better be sure you understand the word permanent.

 

[TechnologyCoordinator]

Wow. If it was thermal paste you would at least be able to muscle it off.

WTF. That is just plain weird.

 

[CooLWoLF]

Yeah, I was VERY surprised at how strong this stuff was. A comment above mentioned I might have waited 10 minutes: I literally turned the machine off and went to town. No wait time. I'm about to start pushing my cpu. Right now its at 2.7ghz @ 1.38volt ,Prime stable. Temps are awesome so far: 23-40 C in a very warm room, no a/c in here. And it only hit 40 C when I was running Prime. I am praying to hit 3 ghz with more volts.

 

[Hellboy]

This is not the first time ive seen this..

Almost as useless as using rubber bands...

The worst attempt i have ever seen is some one cutting wires and leaving them bare to short out in a movement of a machine..

Some one placing paper manuals inside of the machine case and if it caught fire it would have destroyed the house.

Maybe we should have the worlds dummest customer thread and the worlds dummest pc engineer / builder forum.

 

[Shadow703793]

Well lucky for you it was not thermal epoxy adhesive, because if it was, you would not have gotten it off.

That is more or less true. It depends on how the epoxy was mixed. For example 1:1 is the usual ratio and the one that gives the most strength. However, if it's mixed in a different ratio (esp. if used less hardener) the bond can easily be broken (with alcohol,acetone,etc).

For those that doubt an epoxy like Arctic Adhesive can't be removed see: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/249474-29-arctic-silver-adhesive

 

[megamanx00]

Alot of online places sell CPU and motherboard combos for cheap with the heatsink glued on them. They actually use to do this over at Newegg even under their Motherboard / CPU / VGA Combo Deals, but they stopped that a while ago. Seems the thinking is that it won't move during shipping, and since it's usually like getting the CPU for free they'd rather you buy the individual parts if you want to upgrade latter.

 

[redgarl]

It was glue. The system was running all day when I turned it off to install the new hsf. It was very warm when I tried removing it.

I believe you, I was reading a while ago on the internet of such thermal paste. Here the site...

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/134

Here the quote

There are also thermal epoxies, these are basically the same thing as regular grease, but are actually used to permanently attach the heatsink. They are not recommended for most cases, but in some they are of course. One main example for a use of an epoxy is, attaching heatsinks to video memory. Most of the time you use thermal pads that don't perform very well, so an alternative is thermal epoxy. But the disadvantage is, that most of the time you will not get the heatsinks off once they are put on.

Some peoples here seems to be completely misinformed.