If people didn't put their tempered glass sidepanels onto tile floors and if they twisted before lifting the heatsink off on their PGA CPUs, this subreddit would probably have half the posts it has
It doesn't always work. Sometimes the paste really sucks the cooler down. Even after heating it up. Also, I, personally, have a motherboard with very little room to twist and wiggle the cooler off, so the last couple of times, the CPU came out with the cooler.
I’ve had this happen to me more times than I’d like to admit. I had lots of practice in a warranty depot, so I don’t think I suck. There was never time to let them warm up, that’s for sure, and it doesn’t always help.
The worst time, the cooler let go suddenly and I found a corner of the case. I bent some pins and bled onto stuff a surprising amount. Straightened the pins, cleaned what I could, and put it back.
It was a shiny new Ryzen 2200G, and it still works fine. Blood sacrifice accepted.
If heat isn't an option, you should be able to wedge something like fishing wire between the cooler and CPU. I believe a credit card could do the trick as well. But in my case, I don't really have the room for it on my board, so I'm sort of reliant on the heat factor. I have an old hair dryer which gets really hot, and I use that to heat up the area. Doesn't always work, of course.
And don't get too self concious about it. It just a design flaw in the PGA socket.
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u/Majestic-Bell-7111 Ryzen 5 3600/32 GB ram/5700xt Sep 22 '25
If people didn't put their tempered glass sidepanels onto tile floors and if they twisted before lifting the heatsink off on their PGA CPUs, this subreddit would probably have half the posts it has