Arctic Freezer Pro 7 is... crooked.

[Nysir]

I just installed this new cpu cooler today. To my knowledge, I did everything right, but the heatsink and fan portion of the cooler are at a bit of angle, slightly curving toward the RAM slots and away from the rear exhaust fan.

What did I do wrong? I tightened the screws into the slots for them quite a but. I could have kept going, but I don't want to put too much pressure on my CPU and break something. Not to mention each screw is pretty tight to begin with.

Anyone else have this problem with the cooler? My temps are ever so slightly cooler, like by 5 or 6 degrees celcius from the stock cooler. Not as great of a benefit as I'd imagined, so now I'm a little paranoid something's not right.

 

[Burpo]

You didn't say what CPU & motherboard you have, but it may be that the mount is sitting on top of a capacitor or something near the CPU. Investigate with a flashlight or remove the board if you have to, to make sure it's sitting on the CPU heat spreader & not some other component.

 

[Nysir]

Sorry, the motherboard is MSI Z77A-G41 and the CPU is an i7-3770.

The way it mounts makes it impossible for any part of it to rest on a capacitor. I thought maybe I hadn't screwed it in all the way on one side. I opened it up and screwed both ends a ton of times just to make sure and it's still crooked.

Here are a couple of pictures I took: https://i.imgur.com/j6EooWU.jpg http://i.imgur.com/oGTUAVy.jpg.

If you look closely, you can see the mounting bracket is straight with the motherboard, but the heat pipes and heatsink itself are crooked

 

[silicon]

I just installed this new cpu cooler today. To my knowledge, I did everything right, but the heatsink and fan portion of the cooler are at a bit of angle, slightly curving toward the RAM slots and away from the rear exhaust fan.

What did I do wrong? I tightened the screws into the slots for them quite a but. I could have kept going, but I don't want to put too much pressure on my CPU and break something. Not to mention each screw is pretty tight to begin with.

Anyone else have this problem with the cooler? My temps are ever so slightly cooler, like by 5 or 6 degrees celcius from the stock cooler. Not as great of a benefit as I'd imagined, so now I'm a little paranoid something's not right.

you may need to redo the installation if it is crooked. It should be on there straight. is it possible it is touching something? The photo could be a bit clearer.

 

[Nysir]

Unfortunately this camera just isn't great at tight focuses and isn't even mine, so there's not much of an alternative.

I just loosened the screws up all the way and screwed them back, making sure each side was screwed in an equal amount. The bracket is once against straight as it should be, but the heat pipes and heatsink are still crooked.

When I loosened only one side, it straightened out again, but the mounting bracket was no longer straight against the motherboard and was much looser on that side. As far as I can tell, it looks like this cooler is just bent for some reason.

I can handle that if it doesn't affect anything, but after reinstalling it, my CPU frequency is weird. It used to idle at 1600 and max at 3400 Mhz, but now it's at 1599.98 Mhz and 3399 Mhz respectively. It's not a big enough change to make a difference, but considering it has never done this before until I just reinstalled the cooler... well what would be causing the change?