What was your first experience of installing the Heatsking/CPU cooler like?

[thewelshbrummie]

Not too difficult, (Intel stock cooler on LGA775) though it wasn't until I went to upgrade it that I realised that one of the pins wasn't actually pushing in fully.

 

Thankfully it didn't do any damage & it wouldn't have mattered as I was using a placeholder Pentium CPU until what became the final LGA775 chips launched. Toyed with going the Q6600 route but I'm happy I waited for the Q9650 that I still have.

 

That said neither of the 2 coolers I got after were great to install. I got a Tuniq Tower that was a pain (with a manual fan controller mounted to a PCI bracket rather than a PWM fan) and the Scythe Kama Angle cooler I got to replace it, which required extreme finger gymnastics for installing in the Antec P182 I bought.

 

 

[nether1234]

I learned from my dad since he is also into computers/IT and we did my first couple builds together. So it went really smooth!

[noxtol]

i messed up BAD i didnt mount it correctly ant it fell on to my gpu wrecking it ripped a few tings off

[CentreMetre]

Just did mine the other day so i have fresh memories.

Easier than i thought it might be. I was worried about putting to much 'tension' (for lack of a better term) on one side and not the same on the other. The heatsink i got have the brackets (i think that's what they're called) not be curved, but had a little nub poking out the end.

In LTT's POV PC build tutorial he said the bracket curve should be outwards so i wasn't sure. Luckily it had a little instruction manual so i RTFM. I also put it on the wrong way first, so had to take it off, then realised there's not much room for air to get out the front of the case so had to take it off again. 

I also applies a little too much thermal paste (not a lot, just a little too much) so had to wipe that off anywhere it wasn't supposed to be. Luckily Notctua's thermal paste i got isn't electrically conductive anyway.

 

Actually thats technically my second experience.

 

My first, on the same day, was putting some new thermal paste on my first PC, an Acer prebuilt, and i was very surprised when i took of the heatsink and the thermal paste was still wet, after ~3.75 years. Then put it back on making sure not to put too much 'tension' on one side more than the other,

[Erioch]

I don't remember having any issues.

[tkitch]

Would have been the first cooler I got for my K6-2 300.

 

Shut up, I'll hit you with my cane, you whippersnappers....

[savagemadman]

First ever? I think that would've been a Socket 1 with a 5x86. They were pretty hard to mess up with a ZIF CPU socket, just two standardized low pressure spring clips for the cooler, and single application packets of zinc oxide thermal compound.

 

First one that was actually difficult would've been exposed die AMD Athon XP era and the extremely difficult to install / potentially die cracking Thermaltake Orb coolers that you had to clip down with what mustve been about 40lbs of force applied via a flat blade screwdriver - potentially killing either cracking your CPU and/or motherboard if you did it wrong. Fortunately hardware felt so cheap back then (early-mid 2000s) that it was far less a big deal - I probably did a major upgrade every 6 months or so at that point anyway.

[StarsMars]

On 3/5/2024 at 10:43 AM, koopa990 said:

I remember mine very clearly -- I somehow made mistakes of not doing the 4-corners method, which forced me to send my unfinished build to Best Buy 

 

I just ordered an upgrade CPU. I can hope this second time won't be the same mistake...

Frustrating. I had a BeQuiet pure rock and it's mounting system was finicky. Good little cooler though.

[RevGAM]

I barely remember my first time... oh wait, wrong memory! seriously though, that was in the late 90s. I found this price list website that was dedicated to tech but eventually branched out - forgot the name but I think it's still running - so between learning about all the parts, watching prices waiting for parts and finally assembling it, that was at least 6 months. During that time but after receiving my AMD CPU and Gigabyte mobo, AMD delisted that mobo, so putting the tiny heatsink and fan on it was one of the easiest tasks despite the fact that i had only transitioned to that platform - what was then deemed an IBM PC (vs Apple and Commodore, both of which I'd used; Apple since 1980 and Commodore since 1985, even running a BBS for 5 years) around '96. I found out why AMD delisted it, but had no option to return it, and couldn't afford to buy another, so I figured out the work-around (what a PITA that was!) and got it published in a local PC magazine. I remember that a co-worker asked if I was the guy who wrote that...

 

My worst experience is another story entirely. 

[Dabombinable]

On 3/11/2024 at 8:33 AM, Godlygamer23 said:

For me, it was back in the Phenom II days where I had a Phenom II 840 as my first CPU in my first build, and I tried to install the stock cooler. That lever system is no fun.

Some of the coolers on Socket A are even more frustrating. Have to fix some PCB damage after removing a Titan cooler. Large screwdriver required to press the spring slipped (found that the CPU's laser etching had imprinted on the cooler as well).

[RevGAM]

Ok, so a mounting story...I've been testing an AIO and, when I switched it to tubes down instead of up, I discovered that I had to reorient the block. I'd run numerous tests over the past months since Black Friday and not had any problems with the results, but after turning the block to the right (and even tried the bottom), the temps were high, with the maxes pushing some cores into throttling. I spent 3 hours and finally got it under control again, finished testing the AIO on the side, and then moved the rad to the front....And the temps went crazy again. Prior attempts (weeks/months ago) to test tubes down didn't have any issues. This time, however, although I've managed to get the temps down a bit, they're not where they should be, halting my testing. I guess it's time to dismantle it and fix whatever the problem is. Sigh.

So, I'm done. After trying physical changes, including straightening one of the mounting bolts, nothing changed, and fiddling with the tightness of the bolts didn't help, either. I noticed I must've applied too much pressure since this problem started because some of the blue stand-offs are a bit squashed.

Well, I decided to check out the rating of the paste I was using, which was, as it turned out, the WORST paste on Tom's Hardware's list, being 20+^oC worse than the best! I swabbed it all off and put on Swiftech TM-2, which put my temperatures back to pretty good. I'm going to let Prime 95 run for a few hours and see what happens.

After 5 hours and 10 minutes of running Prime 95's small FFTs on all cores (side panel off), here are the results. Not bad, considering it's a fairly unknown TIM, right?

I ran it briefly with the side on.