Are you kidding me!

Well some of you know my unusual luck with electronics, we remember the PS3 and then my DVD drive and then sound etc etc etc.

Well this morning I wake to be told "The PC is dead, heat sink just popped off and landed on the graphics card"
Are you serious? the plastic brace/harness attatched to the mobo that the heat sink clips to, the little hook snapped.
Heat sink jst popped off and dropped onto my HD4890 video card.

Aparently the screen went weird and fuzzy and then PC powered off, I'm hoping that the overheat kicked in and shut it down before my my cpu melted and HOPEFULLY when it landed on the card it didn't fry the whole bloody thing.

God damn it, would you adam and eve it.

Any hints or tips about checks/tests I should think about before reattatching the sink and fireing her up when I get home tonight would be apreciated.

"Tell me why... I don't like Monnndays, tell me why I don't like monnnnndaaaays"

 

That royally sucks. If that had been me, I'd still be in the bathroom.

You got onboard VGA? You might want to use that first, iron out any mobo problems, then gently slide into the video card startup.

Damn - sorry, man.

 

Sorry Ned. I prefer aftermarket cooling, but that said, the stock stuff should work, and should NOT fall off and possibly trash your video card!

Hope it works out for you. :cool

 

Well I guess I'm kinda screwed.

Ok here's the deal.

Asus Vm2 mobo, the part that broke is the base harness on the mobo, removable with 4 screws, heat sink is an aftermarket, the heat sink is fine, it's the harness on the mobo, until the guy at the puter shop mentioned it , it hadn't dawned on me that the plastic harness comes with the mobo, not the heat sink and you don't get them with heat sinks.
Of course they all looked at me like I was asking for Jimmy Hoffa's wristwatch.
So I guess I'm gonna have to get a new mobo which I really...REALLY can't afford right this minute. Not to mention you can't get that board anymore as far as I can tell and I can't format my HDD C drive because there's stuff in the docs for the wifes business.
So I will probably have to buy a new mobo, install it, get another old HDD and install windows on it so I can slave my C drive and get the files, THEN format my C drive and put it all back.

Why?.... because a piece of plastic half the size of a pea... just broke, no rhime or reason, just.... broke.

So I guess I'm stuck on this hellishly slow laptop for a while.... but you know what this means?

I have no PS3 cos that died.... now I have no puter cos... it broke....I'm gameless....

Oh..... My..... God!..

 

Can you connect the old hard drive up to your laptop using an external hard drive enclosure, and copy the needed data onto your laptop? Would save you a little money.

 

eek

Emergency!!!

That completely sucks about the plastic bracket... though I'm confused. Are we talking about the "back plate" that goes underneath the CPU socket, that the screws for the cooler go into and hang on to? Because if we are, I got one with my cooler, the Zalman I bought to replace the treacherous scum water cooler that died and fried my old CPU. I think the stock cooler that came with the new CPU had one as well.

If your motherboard's okay, a new cooler is way cheaper than a new board!

I will now go sacrifice a couple of USB drives in ritualistic prayer for the good fortune and speedy recovery of your video card. The cats send their sincere condolences.

 

If you do install a new mobo, or any other hardware, Windows does offer a "repair" option.

When you do a Windows repair, the data and file structure are left intact, and all you do is re-install the OS. This includes all the proper, required drivers.

What OS are you running?

 

LMAO! Nice :strong

Although you make a point I was just this minute pondering, I was looking through newegg because the part that broke isn't the back plate... but the front plate which I'm sure came with the mobo but I'm also thinking it's removable for a reason and I may be able to find a heat sink that comes with a plate or doesn't need one..... unfortunately AM2 compatable heatsinks are getting fewer and farther between.

But we might be onto something here, I need to find my mobo manual and see if it came with anything else I might still have somewhere.

 

This is my Zalman. Huge f-ing heatsink, and frankly a royal pain to install, but it's silent and creepy efficient. And AM2-compatible. :innocent

 

Hehe I was just looking at those lol
But lookey what I came across....

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835119120

I like the price and I'm pretty sure it will do the job, if there's one piece of hardware I'm not up on it's heatsinks etc but just looking at some cooling I saw yours Mimsy, I'm curios how it fits to the back plate though?

 

That was the first thing I pictured when I heard what broke.

NICE FIND!!!


And just looking at that heatsink and piping made me curse just THINKING about installing the retaining clips!!!!


Glad my Obi-Zero case has plenty of room inside. Nine years later, still kickin'...

 

Thanks, it's comical really, $5.99 for the part, $8.99 shipping.

I'm a little annoyed that the local shops told me you can't buy them, these guys are spose to be professionals...., they certainly charge enough.

So I figure I'll order that but I can't help thinking I might be able to find one among the local-ish pc repair guys like me who do it out of their homes.... but for $17 I might as well just buy it lol

 

Wishing you the best of luck and a speedy recovery to your PC.
Hope it wasn't traumatized too much from the experience.

And here I was thinking that I had bad luck, then I see this. Mine isn't so hard to live with now.

 

Mine is a black plastic plate (heavy for being plastic) that you lay snug against the back of the motherboard, right up against the CPU socket. That would be the white part in the thing you found. Then there is a black "frame" looking a lot like the red part in the pictures you linked to, that gets screwed into the back plate, through holes in the motherboard. The CPU sits in the center of that frame, gets thermal paste smeared all over it, and then the heat sink plate goes against that.

You can see them in this picture, the two black things in the top row, frame on the left back plate on the right. The metal things to the left are one Intel socket retainer clip and one AMD clip. The metal piece goes over the "heat sink plate" and gets screwed into the black frame, locking the heat sink down and securing it.

http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/35-118-019-S05?$S640W$

 

lol Aww dude I have horrendous luck with electronics of any kind, I go through a dvd player every year yet I always buy half decent ones, PS3 dead, Xbox dead, Xbox 360 dead , the list goes on and on and this is just since I've been in Canada (5 years) not including my years back home.

Anyway, the "Retention Holder" is on it's way, damn newegg is fast, order processed and ready to ship in under 15 minutes.
Just got to keep my fingers crossed nothing got hurt.

I'm fairly confident since when I unplugged it I hit the power switch to disscharge and everything lit up briefly, I think if the board had gotten fried then not much would have happend....although that doesn't eliminate the other 4000 possible issues that could be cuased by the impact or if my CPU didn't just melt, but upon visual check of all components I see no physical damage or signs of overheating such as burns or the like.

Man if my graphics card is dead I will be gutted, it took me so long to get the spare money together and then it took me 2 weeks to actually find one, had to have it sent from Japan (I think, somewhere in Asia lol) it's my graphical powerhouse, my baby....it's blue :-D

@Mimsy.... Ah, thats kind of the idea I thought, it was just the top plate with the small square part that had me wondering because in all the pics I looked at I couldn't see how the HS is actually held on, thank you for clearing that up

 

It's ALIVE!! :strong

Part came today so when I got home from work I installed it, threw the cpu in and chucked the ol' heat sink on it, then plgged her up and away she went :-D

So far I see no signs of anything out of the ordinary, CPU temp is 2-4C warmer than it used to be, now sitting at 38/40C so no big deal.

I think I was lucky this time and a lesson to be learnt.... be careful.... your heat sink rentention bracket might suddenly break for no apparent reason, be on the look out for this

 

Awesome Ned! Glad you are up and running! :-D

 

Awesome! :highfive

So the video card survived then?

 

<Whew!> Good job. :major

 

Congrats.

 

Looks that way, temps are normal, operations are normal, man I cannot tell you how relieved I am. Thank the lord for Newegg and their uber fast delivery.

The gamer is back :strong .... pitty I have no time to play lol, but at least I can when I want to

 

Your CPU heatsink fell off onto your video card roflmao YOU LOSER Ned!

:-D

 

I hate those push-pin thingies with a vengeance! Give me a screw instead man! This has never happened to me but I can see it.:cry

 

I hate the push pin plastic stuff. Don't like it at all. Refuse to have one in my house. I usually take them out back and smash them with my sledgehammer.

I really have done that, I hate them that much. :cool