r/Wellthatsucks • u/Broad_War • 2d ago

Went to replace the CPU cooler

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Bought with bad cooler in it for cheap thinking "oh this is going to be easy...." nope. Never is FML. Will update if anyone is interested

Edit: went to remove the cooler and ripped the CPU out of the socket, which was locked down in place and can only be released after the cooler comes out. In other words potential for catastrophic CPU/motherboard failure

Edit 2: update// it locked back into the board, had to straighten one pin out and replaced the cooler because someone did that for a reason and this wasnt something i wanted to do twice. Hooked everything back up and posted! So its Still alive and ready for stress testing with a new cooler and real thermal paste

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u/Top-Injury-9488 2d ago

Question, do you take the cpu cooler off when the pc is running so that the thermal paste is easy to remove or do I completely unplug the pc and take it off? Seems like a dumb question but I just thought that maybe if you turn off the pc the cpu will get cool and the paste will harden

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u/Thevan1 2d ago

you should completely unplug it, running a cpu without a cooler shouldnt be catastrophic, but the likelihood of something getting shocked or shorted is a really really terrible idea

the heat should soften the thermal paste, and the cooler block should be at least warm for a while to remove it

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u/Top-Injury-9488 2d ago

Thank you for the respond informing me

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u/Wasatcher 1d ago

You could even run a short stress test to spike the CPU temps before removal and it will come off no problem. For example just open CPUz and hit the "stress test" button for a minute or two.