Northbridge Fan - How hard to Pull?

[Doctor.Bob]

A friend asked me to look at his PC tonight as it was misbehaving.

To cut a long story short I found the northbridge fan has failed. No problemo I thought - I'll just change it for zalman passive cooler I have in my spares box. The only problem is I can't get the heatsink off! I've taken out the lugs that hold it in but I can't pull it off - it will wobble from side to side but it won't come off.

Is it glued? (I've not found one before that is glued (it is a gigabyte btw))

Or is it just the thermal paste & should I pull harder?

[Ozymandias]

You could try the graphics card method. Freeze the motherboard and crack the heatsink off. I must say this is all a bit theoretical as I've never had the courage to rip off the heatsink from a £300 graphics card yet but it is suppose to work.

[Doctor.Bob]

Originally posted by Ozymandias
You could try the graphics card method. Freeze the motherboard and crack the heatsink off. I must say this is all a bit theoretical as I've never had the courage to rip off the heatsink from a £300 graphics card yet but it is suppose to work.

So it is glued then?

I guess I'll have to rig up a fan to hang over the northbridge.

[malfunction]

Originally posted by Doctor.Bob
Should I pull harder?

(Sorry couldn't resist the innuendo)

I find that twisting the sink seems to overpower the dried up paste better than pulling. You're probably tried that but as I got to be lewd I thought I'd reply anyway...

[SilentDeath]

^ i was about to say that. if theres nothing holding it on anymore (if there was something before) then i doubt it would have been epoxyed on, so pull harder/twist should get it off. dont know if u are serious Ozymandias but i thik freezing the card/mobo would kill it - the traces would stretch/shrink with the temp changes and would probably affect the chips worse. also condensation from being frozen might be bad but wouldnt kill it

[Doctor.Bob]

I'm going down to Dermatology first thing tomorrow - they have Liquid nitrogen they use for freezing warts. That'll do the trick - right?

[jon bda]

Originally posted by malfunction
I find that twisting the sink seems to overpower the dried up paste better than pulling.

I'll second that, twist don't pull...if needs be run the system for a while first to get the thermal gloop heated up and soft...

[da_ging]

use a hairdrier ,warm it up a bit and hey presto easy

[skirkham]

i ran the pc for a while then used a flat headed screw driver and a credit card to gently pry off the heatsink

[Doctor.Bob]

So consensus opinion is that it isn't glued?

Bob wanders off to find hairdrier.....


Thanks for all the advive.

[skirkham]

Its more than lightly thermal tape if it moves about slighly its a pain the the ..... to get rid of :/

[mcmad]

hairdryer will do the trick..

mind your fingers, gets damm hot - quickly...