Do tower heatsinks put stress on the motherboard?

[ericloewe]

or just... lay the tower on the side, lol

That's so mid-90s. Almost as bad as a beige case.

 

[Bman123]

why use a heatsink like that on a H61 board that you can't overclock anyways

 

[mikeymikec]

It will torque the MB of course as Ferz mentioned it's just physics. But I don't think there's anything to worry about. People have been using large tower coolers for many years without any apparent ill effects.

Yes, but I think there are a large amount/percentage of people here who just want about 3 years from their current rig, a board acting funny or failing altogether in that period due to a dodgy connection somewhere on the board due to heavy HSF stress might not be noticed because it doesn't show up when visually inspecting the board.

Personally the heaviest HSF I've installed on my own board was a solid copper HSF (750g IIRC) for my Athlon XP which I used in two boards. The first one was a crappy quality ECS board that I just got fed up with its foibles (some of which are well documented) and I used the second one for seven years or more (approximately) before upgrading out of choice rather than through failure.

I expect 7 years or more from my desktop PC rig, and for it to still work properly when I choose to upgrade, but I suspect that I represent a minority on this sort of forum.

 

[Rvenger]

why use a heatsink like that on a H61 board that you can't overclock anyways

This







Here is a pic of my havik 140 which is a relatively large and heavy heatsink.

 

[NickelPlate]

That's so mid-90s. Almost as bad as a beige case.

LOL. The beige desktop has gone the way of harvest gold and avocado green kitchen appliances.

 

[BudgetBuild]

After a half-dozen processor/heatsink swaps my tower heatsink would no longer stay anchored to my LGA775 motherboard. I guess with the combination of wear on the plastic pins and flexing on the motheboard the weight of the heatsink would pull it ever so slightly away from the chip. After after a few hours of use the temperature would start to rise. I finally gave up and went back to the stock heatsink.

 

[NickelPlate]

Yes, but I think there are a large amount/percentage of people here who just want about 3 years from their current rig, a board acting funny or failing altogether in that period due to a dodgy connection somewhere on the board due to heavy HSF stress might not be noticed because it doesn't show up when visually inspecting the board.

Personally the heaviest HSF I've installed on my own board was a solid copper HSF (750g IIRC) for my Athlon XP which I used in two boards. The first one was a crappy quality ECS board that I just got fed up with its foibles (some of which are well documented) and I used the second one for seven years or more (approximately) before upgrading out of choice rather than through failure.

I expect 7 years or more from my desktop PC rig, and for it to still work properly when I choose to upgrade, but I suspect that I represent a minority on this sort of forum.

As long as the motherboard is attached securely and can't flex excessively, then no damage will be done. I'd honestly be more worried about inserting RAM modules some of which you really have to push hard to get to snap in the slots and board flexes alot.

 

[Kuschelweich]

The key is having a good backplate to evenly distribute out the stress. CM was lazy back in around 07' and didn't include a backplate for some of their larger coolers and it would cause the board to bend, they later started including one.

The 212+ isn't really all that large, I have a CM V8 I'm contemplating on using which is quite a bit heavier. The V10 is friggin huge. Back in 01' I installed a Thermaltake dragon orb on my socket A system and I thought that thing was going to break off those little tabs on the socket lol.

 

[xcal237]

you have to understand that mother boards are elastic and they dont crack easily these boards are made with some kind of plasticky substance that allow them to tolerate stress to an extent and as long as you are within the stress limits of the material they are made of failure will most likely never occur unless you apply an outside force that goes above the stress limits of the material that theses mother boards are made of... also, like most the people here, i have been on a CM 212+ for 5+ years now and i havent had any issues