Broken CPU Socket on Motherboard...Odd?

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mt_100

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 15, 2006
Messages
342
I am sitting playing a game and I hear a noise inside my computer, like something fell. Five seconds later it shuts down.

Open it up and the CPU heat sink and fan are lying loose. Turns out one of the lugs on the black plastic socket that the heatsink and fan clamp on to broke off.

Has anyone seen this before and can it be repaired?
 
Did the retention bracket come off the motherboard partially or was it the little black nub that the clip attached to that fell off? I suppose it doesn't matter since either way it's probably broken plastic and any glue job wouldn't hold up for long.

Either way you might be able to find another retention bracket, remove the existing one (it just uses pushpins) and put the new one on. But no, I don't think there would be a reliable way of repairing it without replacing the bracket.

This is all assuming of course that the mobo in your sig is accurate. If you could get pictures that would help, or point out on this picture what exactly broke:

oa1zwx.jpg
 
That looks correct. Though it uses screws rather than pushpins, but that shouldn't be an issue though. Just toss your existing bracket and backplate then use that set instead. Plus its only 10 bucks which is a cheaper fix than buying a new heatsink/fan that doesn't use the stock bracket.
 
About $18.00 with shipping which I think is cheap enough.

Thanks for your help.
 
I'm curious, what would be a decent fan that doesn't use the bracket?

I ask because I may be able to pick one up locally and save time for about the same cost.

It can't be too huge in size though.
 
mt_100 said:
I'm curious, what would be a decent fan that doesn't use the bracket?

I ask because I may be able to pick one up locally and save time for about the same cost.

It can't be too huge in size though.
Click to expand...

That's a good question. Most of the cheaper or smaller AM2 sinks are designed to use the stock bracket from what I'm seeing, while the bigger ones come with a bolt-through mounting setup.

The CM Hyper 212+ is probably the most popular budget cooler these days, and can be had for like $25 online I think? Not sure if you can find it locally. But it's a pretty good performing cooler. It's not ridiculously huge, but its a lot bigger than stock since it is a 120mm tower cooler. Your cheapest fix is probably still going to be just shopping around for a bracket at the lowest possible price.
 
You might try a local computer shop and ask if they have any lying around.
 
I had called the local store and they didn't have the bracket so I went down to see if they had a fan that would work.

Funny, no fans for AM2 but stock ones, but low and behold there are the brackets hanging there.

I never trust those pimple heads on the phone.

Thanks for the help, up and running now!
 
all you need is the am3 bracket? i have one i'm not using. you can have for cost of shipping :)
 
Yes this happened to me on my last server. I found a metal bracket with screws on ebay to replace the plastic components, so there are superior upgrades out there you can get.

This was on a P4 quite some time ago. Those plastic push pins for the heatsink only last so long.
 
Your motherboard requires a special bracket. A standard AM2 bracket will not fit. Trust me on this one.
You will have to go to Asrock to order it.
 
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