BleepingComputer.com: Broken Heatsink On Mother Board

Hello all,

My sister recently gave me her computer complaining that it constantly would freeze up on her. Today I opened it to do a little internal cleaning. Upon opening it I noticed the heatsink that would normally mount on top of the AMD was totally off. With further inspection I noticed that one of the clip that was used to hold the heat sink element down has fallen off probably due to excessive heat. Now my question is if there is anyway of repairing this clip to keep the heat sink on the chip. What would I need to do this? Or is this just a done computer?

She has a HP Pavilion a810n computer with a 3300 + AMD 64 Athlon chip. Any help would be much appreciated

No, I wouldn't say your computer is done by any means. All you have to do (if I understood you right and the heatsink is loose on the processor) is buy a new heatsink for this processor or to try and fix the current one. Is the current one fixable or not? If not, you will need to buy a new processor (make sure to apply thermal paste to the processor, some will probably come with the new heatsink.

A new Heatsink for the processor shouldnt cost too much. Heatsink for 939,940,AM2 Processors at Newegg.com.

Do you know what Style Connection your Processor has (939/940/AM2)

Ryan 3000, on Jun 16 2007, 09:33 PM, said:

Buying a new processor has nothing to do with the retainer clip, if that's what you mean. On certain sockets, they do sell replacement retainer bases. Socket 478's were good for breaking. Surprisingly, Ebay has some had to find ones.
Mark

Ryan 3000, on Jun, 08:33 PM, said:

Yes it does look fixable I just need some instruction on how to put the heat sink back on or replace the broken clip to keep the heat sink on.

BlackSpyder, on Jun, 08:40 PM, said:

No, I don't know what style connection I have. What do I look for to find out?

garmanma, on Jun, 09:14 PM, said:

That's exactly what I mean is that one of the retainer base clips has fallen off. I just want to know how do I go about replacing it. Is there a way for me to upload a picture so I can give a visual of what I mean?

$8.00 + shipping at
Frozen cpu
You will have to remove the mobo. this has a back plate . Here is the specs. for your computer: Pavilion specs.
Mark
Scoll down the page, it's the 6th one socket 754
Don't forget to order some thermal compound also

garmanma, on Jun, 03:05 PM, said:

It doesn't look the same as the one that fell off but if it will fixed the problem I'm game to buy it and install it. Dude you've been a great help Thanks again.

atapp21, on Jun 19 2007, 06:31 AM, said:

Double check what socket you have. I'm going by what I found on the computer's spec. sheet
Mark

I would almost have to think if the heatsink had fallen completely off of the processor, and the computer was run for any length of time, then the processor has a very high likelyhood of being damaged by excessive heat.

Gnomad, on Jun, 07:32 PM, said:

Well I don't know about the damage because I haven't fired up the PC but my sister said that it would work fine, the only thing was after a period of time it would begin to freeze up. I think I'm gonna focus on one thing at a time and get the heat sink and if problems continue then look at those problems as they arise.

Replying here many months late but I think this is the same thing that happened to my Mom's computer. She past away a year ago and now only my Dad uses it (mostly for e-mail). He noticed the monitor wouldn't bring up the display anymore a few days ago so called me for help about it. I thought the power supply had failed.
Went over to see it and first thing I saw when I opened the side panel was a small aluminum heatsink sitting on the bottom of the case. A wire runs through the middle and acts as a spring which is supposed to be held onto the mainboard by what looks like circuit jumpers with a hoop on top.
One of those was missing, then found after turning the case over and shaking some.

I was a little surprised to find this message here at bleepingcomputer.com when I searched for anything like this ever happening. Must be a manufacturing defect.

I put super glue onto the clip and pushed it back into the "CLIP2" holes where it had fallen out. Not long afterward I had the heatsink back in place, but before I did that I bent the wire spring to make it have less strain on the clips. No thermal paste available so I just slid the heatsink around on the chip surface hoping the old stuff would be good enough (was enough to be sticky).

Anyway... this wasn't the CPU. I don't know what it was. Any printing on it was covered up by the paste. It's almost in the middle of the board between the CPU (which has a large heatsink and fan attached) and the power supply connector.

I had to disconnect the PSU from the board while unplugged from the wall and reconnect it after plugging the power cord into the wall, otherwise not doing so left the condition of the computer the same as before. Once the power was going in and the mainboard connector (actually two, small and large ones) for the power supply was reconnected I got a green solid light from the back of the PSU and all was okay.

Unfortunately, upon moving the computer back to its place on the desk it happened again, blinking green light and no power up from the front button. So apparently if the power ever goes out this will keep happening, but for now the fix (disconnect/reconnect PSU mainboard wires) is good.

I should add that this computer was always on, never off, because it bothered my parents to need to wake the computer up. Probably very lucky it is okay after not having a heatsink on one of the chips for however long a time it was. Or maybe it just happened recently and that caused a nearly immediate shutdown(?).

Hope this helps anyone with one of these HP's if something goes wrong. Might be a good idea to look inside them anyhow... but then who is going to know to do that without reading things like this message thread here??

garmanma, on Jun 16 2007, 08:14 PM, said:

socket 478 was an intel socket ;) and there is a high chance the CPU could have been damaged by heat, only way to tell though would be to fix the heatsink. You can probably find a new retainer clip for it, but Id be tempted to just purchase a new heatsink if it were me.