Question about the do's and don'ts of installing heat spreaders on New DDR4 Ram Sticks

[corinthos]

I have purchased some DDR4 DIMMs that did not come with heat spreaders. There is a large decorative sticker stuck on one side over all of the memory chips, covering most of the circuit board. It has some graphics on it and branding information and looks like a simple (albeit) big sticker.

For aesthetics, color matching / maintaining a certain theme for my system internals, I'd like to put black heat spreaders on the DIMMs. They are simple, plain glossy black heat spreaders secured by 2 silver clips.

Can I safely install them OVER the DIMMs as-is, with the larger sticker left in place? Since it's OK to use the sticks with the stickers left on them, I'm wondering if there's any safety issue with simply putting the heat spreaders over them? If I remove the large graphical logo sticker, will that void the warranty on the RAM? What about keeping the big sticker on the RAM but then installing the heat spreader over it? Will that void the warranty or cause any issues?

 

[UsandThem]

I have purchased some DDR4 DIMMs that did not come with heat spreaders. There is a large decorative sticker stuck on one side over all of the memory chips, covering most of the circuit board. It has some graphics on it and branding information and looks like a simple (albeit) big sticker.

For aesthetics, color matching / maintaining a certain theme for my system internals, I'd like to put black heat spreaders on the DIMMs. They are simple, plain glossy black heat spreaders secured by 2 silver clips.

Can I safely install them OVER the DIMMs as-is, with the larger sticker left in place? Since it's OK to use the sticks with the stickers left on them, I'm wondering if there's any safety issue with simply putting the heat spreaders over them? If I remove the large graphical logo sticker, will that void the warranty on the RAM? What about keeping the big sticker on the RAM but then installing the heat spreader over it? Will that void the warranty or cause any issues?

You can leave the sticker on, it won't cause any issues. DDR4 doesn't run that hot, but I do understand some people like the looks of heat-spreaders. If you remove or damage that sticker however, most RAM companies will void your warranty. So your call on that. Maybe run them for a month or so to make sure you will not need to return/RMA them before putting on the spreaders. Luckily RAM and CPUs are usually the longest lasting components, and have a very low defective rate compared to other items.