Analyze it, in one position it can move, in another it is fixed. In the position it can move up and down is the position you should insert them into the board, than when you insert all four lock them in. Keep holding the metal heat sink with your hand pushing down onto the board.

Pushpins are not that hard to install.. I think you need te learn how to deal with it. But if you dont know how it works, you are reacting negative.

Dont forget to install them cross wise like installing an new cilinder head. Because the pressure on both sides will remain the same.

Stojke wrote:

Analyze it, in one position it can move, in another it is fixed. In the position it can move up and down is the position you should insert them into the board, than when you insert all four lock them in. Keep holding the metal heat sink with your hand pushing down onto the board.

Thanks. I'm not sure how I'll hold it down without bending the fins though. To give you an idea, here's what it looks like:

I found it annoying on LGA775 (always seemed to push out) but works fine on LGA1150.

Remove the power supply and hold the metal plate on the bottom with your fingers. Lock them in diagonally for best result (1 -> 4 , 2 -> 3).
1 2
3 4

I love that cooler! Got three in total in my machines 😊

I'm a fan of the push pins.

You don't need to really "hold it down". The pins need to be aligned with the holes on the motherboard. Then push one pin in, until it make a click sound. Then to the diagonally opposite pin. Then the rest. To remove, you take a screwdriver and rotate each pin, then pull them out. Rotate them back, and you are ready to go again.

Tip: If you have tall memory, you can just remove the fan, and re-insert it a bit higher up. Mine come with a clip on fan, not the metal things as in the image you posted.

I removed the pushpins on my heatsink and replaced them with nuts and bolts

There is a bit of a learning curve involved with regard to getting a perfect technique with these pushpins.

Like others have described, you have to undersrand first how it works.

Look on the top of each push pin, there's an arrow. When the pushpin is twisted in one direction, it will snap down and lock once it's pushed down. That's the direction they all have to be in when you're mounting it in. But first twist it in the other direction and pull the top all the way up, so that the black plastic pin is not inside the white clips on the bottom which actually grab the hole on the underside of the motherboard.

Now it's important to 'squeeze' the white plastic clips together if they have become worn and have come apart too far. If that happens, then when you go to mount it, one side of the clip will go in the hole and the other side can get squeezed between the heatsink and the motherboard and snap off. If you snap off a part of the clip, then you need to replace the whole mechanism. I have come accross heatsink assemblies that were installed improperly like this and had broken clips, and the customer was wondering why their computer was so slow (The CPU was throttling because of the poor contact)...

It's superior to a mounting bracket because you don't have to remove the entire motherboard to replace it.

I've always personally been a fan of "proper" heatsink mounting, something like the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus that I use on my main rig, as opposed to pushpin heatsinks. I don't see myself parting ways with that cooler anytime soon, and, when the time comes to replace it, my case (Rosewill Challenger) has a nice easy access section behind the motherboard that allows for easy cooler removal - you don't have to take the motherboard out of the case!

Also, has anybody here experienced this problem with pushpin heatsinks?

so rip out the pushpins and go to a hardware store and get the hardware to make a real attachment?

I too hate the LGA775 pushpins. The other day I was testing some 775 stuff and when I removed the heatsink from an Asrock board I haven't used in years two of the pins just fell off, rendering it useless. Trying to take the pushpin mechanism apart without breaking anything is also a huge pain and not worth the hassle IMO.

As for the board bending, to me it's PGA478 the one that takes the cake. The mobo warpage caused by those heatsink assemblies was unreal.

I managed to get that heatsink installed without damaging it or the CPU. I seriously thought I was doing it the wrong way, but I managed to sort of figure it out. It doesn't hold as snugly as I'd like it to, but it works. Truth be told, I'm tempted to transfer it over to my new AMD box, since the stock cooler on that thing is an absolute POS despite being a breeze to install. Or, if I can pick up a replacement 120mm fan, maybe I'll just use my Hyper 212.

Pushpins are OK for default coolers (especially 115x, since they are much lighter than 775 and 1366). I can't trust it on tower HSFs. I'd stick with the trusty bolts and nuts + backplane every time.