PSA heat up your thermalpaste before removing an AM4 cooler!

[Noah0302]

My GF was running a Ryzen 2600 for a year until she upgraded to a 3600 and sold her old one to a friend.

To celebrate her new CPU I wanted to gift her an AIO for christmas, well it wasn't in stock so here we are a couple of days later! I wanted to fit her whole white/black/grey build theme so I chose the Corsair H100i Platinum and replaced (in my opinion) pretty bad Fryzen air cooler she wanted when we initially configured her PC.

Now the fuckups begin.

1. Not checking to see if she still has the original CPU backplate that came with the motherboard.

2. Not letting the PC run for some time before trying to remove the cooler.

As soon as the AIO arrived I went ahead and tried to uninstall the aircooler. Removing the screws was easy enough, but the cooler still would not come off easily. Most of the build I've done were Intel based, so I did what I do to an intel platform when the cooler won't come off, I just try it with more force.

BAD IDEA!!!

I forgot that the AM4 socket does not have a system like the intel based ones with the socket holding the CPU in place with 2 metal cutouts. So the only thing that could happen happened; with a lound bang the CPU got ripped out of its socket together with the cooler. So my mind goes to panick mode! How did this happen? Why am I so dumb? Why does my GF have to sit on the couch next to me while I fuck up so bad?

So now I just look at the CPU still sticking to the cooler in horror looking for bent pins. My GF just asked me wtf that sound was. I just told her that I yoinker the cooler out with the CPU still attached. She does not have any experience with hardware so she just asked if that is bad As I explained that I might have damaged her CPU she did not even get that mad at me, which I am really grateful for since that might have made me panick even more than I already did.

After I checked the CPU and the socket for damage and did not find anything, I tried to put the CPU back into its socket as gently as I could. It slid right in, so I turned the PC on and hoped for a signal.

A few seconds later the message: New CPU installed! appeared and something close to a ton of weight fell of my heart.

Now that I knew I haven't killed my GFs CPU or Motherboard I went and unboxed the AIO. When I realized that the AIO is going to need the stock backplate I just though: Great, now I have to go look where she put the boxes of her mainboard and hope we put it in there. After about 3 hours of searching my and her house for it we gave up.

Now I not only almost killed her CPU and mainboard, but I also could not finish installing the AIO. Defeated I ordered a replacement backplate from Amazon and we waited 2 days for it to arrive.

It now being Saturday the backplate arrived and I could finally finish the installation of the AIO. At least that went well without a problem! The temps fell 10C during video rendering and the noise also went down after tweaking the dan curves.

So after the most defeating days I've ever had concerning building PCs, I was finally finished and my GF was happy with her PC

 

tl;dr I ripped my GFs Ryzen 3600 straight out of the motherboards socket and we also had to wait 2 days for a replacement backplate to arrive.

 

I just had to share this story with you guys in this sub, since some of you might take something out of it. That being let the PC run a couple of minutes and heat up the thermal paste so you can actually remove the cooler without the CPU still attached and to keep track of where you put your fucking backplates!

If anyone is interested, here is a before and after of her PC and the pcpartpicker:

https://imgur.com/a/QKke19A

https://de.pcpartpicker.com/user/Noah0302/saved/#view=wGWQqs

[.Apex.]

10 minutes ago, Noah0302 said:

tl;dr I ripped my GFs Ryzen 3600 straight out of the motherboards socket and we also had to wait 2 days for a replacement backplate to arrive.

You can also twist gently back and forth and it will eventually unstick, with AMD CPU's you should never pull straight up. (PGA Socket)

[Cryptonite]

11 minutes ago, Noah0302 said:

 

No need to heat it up, after you unscrewed it, just twist the heatsink so the thermal paste gives without pulling.

[Vejnemojnen]

in my country, the general recommendation: run prime95 for a while, then disassamble as quick as you can. Or, just gently blow with some warm air with a hairdryer, when you want to remove the cooler.

 

 

[TrigrH]

also you can use thermal paste that doesn't cure.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, yaboistar said:

wiggle.

your.

heatsinks.

Thank you for this.

[.Apex.]

1 minute ago, TrigrH said:

also you can use thermal paste that doesn't cure.

It's not about the thermal paste curing, it's more that it's creating a vacuum when it spreads, I've always had it get stuck in liquid form as I was using MX-4.

[DildorTheDecent]

Done this yesterday with my 3950X. I thought it was pretty funny.

 

Didn't get a bang, more like a pop.

[Noah0302]

38 minutes ago, yaboistar said:

wiggle.

your.

heatsinks.

I was more scared to bend the pins this way...

I did once it ripped out, and yeah that worked way better.

Guess I got lucky and learned my lesson!

[Noah0302]

35 minutes ago, TrigrH said:

also you can use thermal paste that doesn't cure.

It was not really dry, but certainly more dry than wet.

I used Noctua NT H1

[Noah0302]

31 minutes ago, DildorTheDecent said:

Done this yesterday with my 3950X. I thought it was pretty funny.

 

Didn't get a bang, more like a pop.

With a 3950X I probably would have just fainted XD

 

How can you stay that calm dude?

[Cryptonite]

9 hours ago, Noah0302 said:

I was more scared to bend the pins this way...

I did once it ripped out, and yeah that worked way better.

Guess I got lucky and learned my lesson!

the pins won't get bent when twisting the cooler while it is in the socket. have you ever heard of the story about the one twig and it snaps super easy then they take a whole bunch of twigs and that shit is strong as hell? pulling basically makes you pull each twig on its own (while not as bad as twisting a SINGLE twig it is still able to break) while twisting the cooler all the pins or twigs support each other.