IIRC you need to pull the middle pin out, once that's done, you pinch the retaining "claws" on the bottom of the PCB and the heatsink should pop out.

These two? Do I need to be pulling these while pinching underneath?

Just pull them out, they spread out the two claws on the other side. No need to squeeze anything together while pulling them. If the won't budge, try to rotate them by 90 degrees and try again.

Okay I got the pins out, thanks. Next problem I assume the 20 year old glue is holding it onto the chip pretty damn well. Have tried heating it up but not budging. Any ideas?

AaronS wrote on 2025-11-11, 21:16:

Okay I got the pins out, thanks. Next problem I assume the 20 year old glue is holding it onto the chip pretty damn well. Have tried heating it up but not budging. Any ideas?

The freezer trick has worked well for me. A few hours in the freezer has always worked to get stubborn fossilized thermal compound to break loose with some gentle pressure.

If it's that dried - prob. not doing good heat transfer either.

Make sure you can see nothing connecting from top to bottom - not familiar with this particular heatsink, but I have run into some over the years with extra/hidden attachment points.

Once you are sure there is nothing, try rotating the sink back and forth slightly and see if it will loosen - you might have to resort to prying it off.
Very easy to break things if you are not careful - I have a very small pry-tool I use in cases like this, and what I sometimes have to do it get it in place and then use an elastic or something to keep pressure on it - and let it sit that way for hours/days .. sometimes continued pressure will eventually get the pieces to "drift" apart.

And always worth trying heat/cold - sometimes a few cycles - thermal stress can also cause things to loosen.

Yeah there's only the heatsink and chip now.

I'll try the freezer thing, I assume this won't damage capacitors or any other components?

And yes it doesn't seem to get very hot, I detached the fan and ran 3Dmark01 and the rear of the chip gets hot to the touch (3ish seconds) but the heatsink only warm, (no thermal sensor to know exactly).

Okay couple hours in the freezer, followed by 20-30 seconds with hairdryer, stuck a credit card in there while twisting.

Horrible stuff you gotta pick off now. Thanks everyone. I wouldn't mind finding some aftermarket cooler but I don't think there's anything too good that doesn't take up multiple slots. I saw startech made a copper one but all long gone by now:
https://www.startech.com/en-gb/computer-parts … UUWCpHrrdc1MrQP

I'll just stick with this one.

Acetone is great to remove this old yellow thermal material

Pino wrote on 2025-11-14, 16:22:

Acetone is great to remove this old yellow thermal material

Great? -Not really. But it is about as good as it will get (though still hard to remove.)
They way I do these, I use my heatgun and heat parts with the leftover thermal compound until too hot to touch but not so hot that it evaporates water (i.e. less than 100C). Then I take a sharp too and manually scrub as much of the material off as possible. And then finally I use small strips of paper towel soaked in acetone and scrub any leftover residue.

AaronS wrote on 2025-11-12, 00:01:

I wouldn't mind finding some aftermarket cooler but I don't think there's anything too good that doesn't take up multiple slots.

Looks like you have a card with 55 mm screw mounting, so there should be a number of stuff that fits and is better than the stock heatsink you have. But if you have the empty slots, why not go with one of those universal cheap generic 2-slot coolers? It would be both more quiet and run much cooler.

AaronS wrote on 2025-11-12, 00:01:

I saw startech made a copper one but all long gone by now:
https://www.startech.com/en-gb/computer-parts … UUWCpHrrdc1MrQP

They still popup on Ebay every once in a while, though I find them a little too overpriced for what they are. More importantly, these are still very very loud coolers if you connect the fan as intended - directly to a 3-pin fan header. Basically, those small fans just scream away at full 12V. So not really a worthy upgrade if you're going to run them without some modding. I personally mod all of mine to run at 7V, which makes the fan pretty quiet, yet still pushes enough air to cool stuff. Of course, that copper cooler can handle a little more TDP than the cheapo stamped aluminum cooler shown on the card in this thread.

I only have 2 PCI slots and its at the bottom (it has a few extra mm in front of the fan, other slot is housing an Audigy soundcard).

Most of the single slot replacement heatsinks I can find on ebay look like they would be worse, and that was the only pure copper heatsink I came across. Not sure there's too many great options unfortunately.

You can get heat sinks where the fan is on a separate part connected with pipes (liquid cooling)

All of these that I've seen are very big, designed to dissipate a LOT of heat - but maybe there are smaller ones available for cases with less heat and space is tight - anyone know?

If you don't want to boil the ocean:

Single slot:
https://aliexpress.com/item/1005006293863620.html

Dual slot:
https://aliexpress.com/item/1005008872443559.html

Used both on cards already.. totally worth their money.
Even the single slot one should be equal or better from the performance, looking at the stock cooler and its "fins".