Removing heat spreaders

Joined
Feb 6, 2019
Messages
30
Has anyone tried removing heat spreaders from modern ram? I'm willing to bet they aren't really needed to keep the ram cool, but would help a lot for cooler compatibility, ignoring those weird super tall sticks that some companies make...

Were they hard to remove? Did you see major temp differences before/after?
 
I had an X99 setup for years that used 2400MHz memory that didn't even come with heat spreaders at all. It worked fine - I'm inclined to agree that they're more for show than anything else.

There are obviously many different designs, though, and some may be easier to remove than others. I would think that most would be simple enough to remove by just prying the sides apart, away from the thermal pads and sliding them off, but some may have actual adhesive holding them on.
 
as long at its not the highest spec'd, higher voltage ram and there is a bit of air flow they'd be fine.
 
I had an X99 setup for years that used 2400MHz memory that didn't even come with heat spreaders at all. It worked fine - I'm inclined to agree that they're more for show than anything else.

There are obviously many different designs, though, and some may be easier to remove than others. I would think that most would be simple enough to remove by just prying the sides apart, away from the thermal pads and sliding them off, but some may have actual adhesive holding them on.

And I guess that's what I'm worried about the most, sticks using adhesive strong enough to actually damage the chips when you try to remove them.

It's increasingly hard to find decent speed sticks without gaudy massive heat spreaders on them that make cooler compatibility tricky. I still prefer having a massive chunk of metal on my CPU when possible.
 
Corsair's LPX series have pretty low profile heat spreaders, and come in a bunch of speeds. I would argue, though, that if your CPU cooler can't clear normally sized ram, you may need a new cooler that does - this isn't exactly a new thing.

If you have to remove the heatsinks, a heat gun may help soften the adhesive.
 
It's fairly easy to rip chips off the circuit board and tear up the copper traces, and reviewers at OCAholics and APHnetowrks managed to do that when they wanted to show readers the chips under the heatsinks. I think the safest thing to do is apply some glue removal solvenI while the heatsink is on bottom so less solvent will touch the circuit board. I don't know what chemical attacks glue but leaves circuit board plastic alone, but I suspect 3M trim remover for car bodies is safer than solvents like acetone and lacquer thinner. Wait a long time before removing the heatsinks, and avoid applying force between the heatsink and circuit board but only between the heatsink and where the chip packages touch it, such as with thin double-edge razors. Apply force evenly to all the chips at the same time because if it's not even, some of the chips will pull up on the circuit board.

Removing the heatsinks will make no difference because their sole purpose is to impress the kind of people who put spoilers on their cars. DDR4 chips just don't get nearly warm enough for heat to matter, and RAM chips are supposed to work perfectly even up to 85 Celcius. I think I had a hard time getting DDR3 chips to go above 50C in a 25C room, even by blanketing the modules with sponge.
 
Back
Top