How to reattach heatsink to motherboard?

[Quasipseudo]

Hey, I have a problem that I'm hoping someone can help with. I'm a computer enthusiast but I'm not terribly experienced with motherboards so excuse any bad terminology.

Basically, my family computer has been running very slowly and spontaneously shutting itself down, so I decided to open it up and blow out the CPU and chassis fan, thinking that overheating was the issue:

Upon opening the case, I found an aluminum heatsink sitting loose on top of the graphics card:

There are two little metal rings that stick down into the motherboard that the spring-loaded clips on the aluminum heat sink fit into. I found one ring still attached to the board, but the other was lying on it's side, yanked from where it should be (it's the black thing on the side of the case in pic #2).

How should I go about reattaching the clip into it's spot?:

I tried just pushing it into the holes, but the spring-loaded hook on the heatsink clip just pops it back out. Is an adhesive necessary? What kind of glue would work?

Anybody have any ideas? I'm not 100% sure what the heatsink is supposed to be on top of, I'm guessing it's the northbridge chip, but as I said before I don't have much experience with motherboards.

Thanks in advance

 

[gurusan]

Wow there's a lot of dust in there!!

Anyway, if it was me I'd not bother with the clip, I'd clean off the northbridge chip and heatsink carefully, and then use some thermal adhesive to reset the heatsink.

 

[Quasipseudo]

Wow there's a lot of dust in there!!

Anyway, if it was me I'd not bother with the clip, I'd clean off the northbridge chip and heatsink carefully, and then use some thermal adhesive to reset the heatsink.

Yeah, it's been closed for about two years, it looks nicer now that I've blown it out

I don't have any thermal adhesive, I hope the electronics shop near my house sells it.

Thanks!

 

[gurusan]

thermal paste with a slight bit of superglue mixed in works actually

 

[Quasipseudo]

Alright, the thermal paste + superglue idea is working, so far... It's a bit precarious since it's hanging onto the side of the motherboard with a little dab of the mix, but so far it's held on well, and touching the sink confirms that it's taking at least some heat away from the chip.

Fan doesn't crank like mad anymore either... But i'm not sure if that's because of the heatsink being replaced or just the lack of dust blocking the fans.

Thanks again :happy:

 

[gurusan]

no prob! glad we could help.

 

[Nitestick]

the little clip appears to solder down to the motherboard pcb, if you're not into electronics then you've probably taken the best solution already

 

[peterhuang913]

I can't believe you use a superglue/TP mixture. lol, but if it works.

 

[Nitestick]

actually that's a good point i wouldn't advise that myself, however it sounds like gurusan has tried it before. the method i've heard previously is to make a square around the edge of the die with super glue.

 

[gurusan]

I haven't tried it myself but have heard it being done on forums enough to assume that it works. And apparently it's working for him.

I've never got a chance to try it myself because I have Arctic Silver Thermal Epoxy for adhesive stuff, and only used it once on my old DFI nf4 ultra-d board.