AB9 Pro Northbridge heatsink removal help!

[mishima]

Hi there,

I have a Noctua NC-U6 on the way and I just need some guidance on removing the stock heatsink on the northbridge of the AB9 Pro. Do I need to remove the entire heatpipe system? Any tips or help would be much appreciated.

[chuckskull]

Those little white pins are what's holding it on. just squeeze the underside and pull the top, should just pop out, do that for all six and you're sorted.

The heatpipe is most likely soldered to both heatsinks so yeah you have to remove the whole lot.

[mishima]

so the whole heatpipe solution has to be removed?

[chuckskull]

Yeah I'd say so.

[Richh]

I've seen it said elsewhere Mishima that it is possible to remove the heatpipe from the PWM heatsink, after which you can re-fit this part of the standard solution. I doubt that the pipe is actually soldered in, so it is likely to be a case of just twisting it out.

As Chuck says, retract the barbs on the pushpins with some pliers and then it's just the TIMs holding the solution onto the board. Carefully persuade it loose, and it should be fairly obvious just from looking how the pipe is secured - and also what the best removal method is.

Alternatively, scroll down here a bit, as I'm sure someone else has asked a similar question recently, and got an answer from someone who's actually done it.

[mishima]

Thanks for the info guys, I will jus have to be really careful when I'm doing this then - I want to be able to restore it to its stock state in the future.

[lfoggy]

This reply is probably too late to be of use but I've just done this on my AB9 pro. The heat pipe is just a push fit into the PWM heatsink with a bit of thermal paste applied.... I just gave it a twist and it came out easlily (I suspect that functionally this arrangement is rubbish and contributes little to northbridge cooling). I removed it to fit a water-cooled northbridge block.

[mishima]

Not too late at all, I haven't yet attempted to fit the new cooler. Thanks for the insight, I now know what I have to do!