Someone please help me copensate for my stupidity - what's a good fan?

[bootykika]

Okay, here's what happened.
I bought a 1.2 ghz athlon and was trying to put on a silver orb fan and to make a long story short, i chipped my chip. I thought i was gonna cry. Newayz, my question is this. Is there a good fan, which is also easy to install? I am not that dexterious, so someone help me before i destroy another CPU

 

[Shmorq]

If you are having problems, you might want to install the HSF with the motherboard out of its case. Makes it easier since you don't have to work around the power supply or walls of the case.

Also, try using a screw driver to get more leverage to get the clip in place.

I've had similar problems as well. Took me many tries to get it in, but fortunately, haven't had anything chip.

 

[Marine]

I don't think your problem really is with the fan, but with the heatsink. Some HS are really bears to get on the socket...GlobalWin for example. The new Intel heatsinks have a levered solution that makes it idiot-proof and the Thermalright SK-6 has a little tab on the bracket that keeps your screwdriver from slipping off and crashing through the traces and PCB on your motherboard. The cooling sites have reviews of the various HSF combinations and how difficult they are to attach.

 

[WarCon]

I built a 1ghz Athlon (no overclocking) system for my nephew (I am pissed because I put a better video card on it and it beats my scores in 3DMark and nothing is overclocked, but anyway) and we installed a Coolermaster EP5-6i11 or something like that and I was really surprised how well it works. It is a fairly heavy heatsink for an all aluminum sink. It is rated for 1.33ghz, but it comes with a really quiet smallish fan. If you put a performance fan on it, that heatsink would be a really nice one I think. And its clip comes with a little bent up U for a screwdriver to fit in and is reasonably easy to put on. One other nice thing is its $16 bucks at Newegg shipped. He doesn't push it with distributed computing or anything but using MBM after he had played games the highest it hit was 36C(On a KT7A). And it idles at 25C. It got warm when we first built it, (I was too lazy to change the thermal pad) but after the pad phase changed it is running cool.

Dang heatsink is almost big enough for two fans..........