Question Undoing a jammed Intel push-pin?

[mikeymikec]

I saw some issues with an Ivy Bridge era PC build of mine, first the heatsink (IIRC) was a little wobbly so I tried to quickly re-seat it only to find that one push-pin refused to completely disengage so I could take the HSF off the board. I can get to the back of the board where the push-pins go through easily enough and I don't mind sacrificing the HSF if necessary, however does anyone here know any tricks to getting a push-pin to behave itself?

IIRC its knob was refusing to turn completely to the 'ready to remove' position so as a temporary fix I just turned it back to the lock position. However the temps appear to be higher than the Internet expects (about 50C idle, when normally I'd expect Sandy or Haswell i5s to be about 35C idle), so I figure that one corner of the HSF isn't making full contact.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I hate the plastic push pin design. I used needle nose pliers when I ran into that. Squeeze around it while you lift the on the pin until it pops out. A bag of 20 replacement pins is like $7 here in the states.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Removing the 12th-gen push-pin heatsinks is even more of a PITA.

 

[mikeymikec]

I hate the plastic push pin design. I used needle nose pliers when I ran into that. Squeeze around it while you lift the on the pin until it pops out. A bag of 20 replacement pins is like $7 here in the states.

I think you meant 'squeeze around it while lifting the HSF', which I tried but in the end I just lifted and twisted the whole hsf around along with using cable cutters to snip away as much of the other side of the clip as possible. I then installed a Comet Lake era stock HSF on it which has done the trick (~35C idle).

 

[mikeymikec]

Removing the 12th-gen push-pin heatsinks is even more of a PITA.

they've changed the design then?

 

[VirtualLarry]

they've changed the design then?

Yes, changed the top of the pins.