They are through-hole soldered. You could just get some wire, make a u-shape and solder new hold-down arches.

Depending on if there are traces in between the holes where the arches were soldered in, you could even jus use some bailing type wire through the holes and twist it together on the back of the board. Though I wouldn't really trust that long term.

Interesting, I did this very repair on a motherboard not one week ago =)
Also on P4-era motherboard, well i guess that's the period they used this mounting technique.
Fortunately I found the missing parts rattling around in the case.
And a little tip while you're in there, re-solder the "OK" arches as well as they most likely also have cracked solder.

I think I have some of them in my spare parts bin.
If you're located in Germany you can send me the board with a return label and I would solder them in for you free of charge.

(Other places in the world are fine too but I think the postage will be more than what the board is worth.)

Thanks to this post, I'm going to salvage some of those from a dead motherboard I have (that's going to go to ewaste eventually) just in case I ever run into this.

Alternatively, you could forego the holding mechanism altogether, and just glue the heatsink to the chipset with some thermal epoxy. I mean, you don't have any reason for removing that heatsink in the future so why not. You can make your own "thermal epoxy" by mixing epoxy glue with thermal paste. I've done it many times.
(approximately equal parts of pre-mixed epoxy and thermal paste, use only a very small amount, make sure the top of the chipset and the bottom of the heatsink are squeaky clean before you apply, put a small weight on it and keep untouched for several hours in a warm place)

stamasd wrote on 2022-02-13, 18:01:

Alternatively, you could forego the holding mechanism altogether, and just glue the heatsink to the chipset with some thermal epoxy. I mean, you don't have any reason for removing that heatsink in the future so why not. You can make your own "thermal epoxy" by mixing epoxy glue with thermal paste. I've done it many times.
(approximately equal parts of pre-mixed epoxy and thermal paste, use only a very small amount, make sure the top of the chipset and the bottom of the heatsink are squeaky clean before you apply, put a small weight on it and keep untouched for several hours in a warm place)

Seeing how small the die is I wouldn't do this. Too much of a risk breaking it when accidentally hitting the heatsink.

With some appropriate rubber pads placed under the heatsink around the chip, that wouldn't be a problem.

cyclone3d wrote on 2022-02-13, 14:42:

They are through-hole soldered. You could just get some wire, make a u-shape and solder new hold-down arches.

Depending on if there are traces in between the holes where the arches were soldered in, you could even jus use some bailing type wire through the holes and twist it together on the back of the board. Though I wouldn't really trust that long term.

I considered doing this, but if I do try to fix it myself I will probably choose the Epoxy solution mentioned by another user since I doubt it will work in the case of this specific board.

Doornkaat wrote on 2022-02-13, 16:17:

I think I have some of them in my spare parts bin.
If you're located in Germany you can send me the board with a return label and I would solder them in for you free of charge.

(Other places in the world are fine too but I think the postage will be more than what the board is worth.)

Thank you for the very kind offer. I live in the Netherlands, so depending on your whereabouts it might be close. After I check if the board works well otherwise, I might contact you before trying the epoxy approach.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2022-02-13, 17:01:

Thanks to this post, I'm going to salvage some of those from a dead motherboard I have (that's going to go to ewaste eventually) just in case I ever run into this.

Yeah, seems like a good idea! Mine weren't anywhere to be found, alas.

stamasd wrote on 2022-02-13, 18:01:

Alternatively, you could forego the holding mechanism altogether, and just glue the heatsink to the chipset with some thermal epoxy. I mean, you don't have any reason for removing that heatsink in the future so why not. You can make your own "thermal epoxy" by mixing epoxy glue with thermal paste. I've done it many times.
(approximately equal parts of pre-mixed epoxy and thermal paste, use only a very small amount, make sure the top of the chipset and the bottom of the heatsink are squeaky clean before you apply, put a small weight on it and keep untouched for several hours in a warm place)

Thanks for the instructions, this seems like a good approach if I try to repair it myself.

aegisk wrote on 2022-02-14, 20:45:

Doornkaat wrote on 2022-02-13, 16:17:

I think I have some of them in my spare parts bin.
If you're located in Germany you can send me the board with a return label and I would solder them in for you free of charge.

(Other places in the world are fine too but I think the postage will be more than what the board is worth.)

Thank you for the very kind offer. I live in the Netherlands, so depending on your whereabouts it might be close. After I check if the board works well otherwise, I might contact you before trying the epoxy approach.

You're welcome! I'm in Venlo occasionally but I don't think it'll really be feasible to plan for a handover.
I could of course also send you the parts if you can solder them in yourself.

what about just attaching the heatsink to the chip with some double sized thermal tape. seems like they picked a really stupid way to attach that heatsink when they could have just used the good old push pins though holes method.

Best thing is get brass wires of suitable size that can fit through these solder holes and make new hoops and solder them in. The original intel hoops are also made of brass plated with tin.

Do correctly please that what intel intended.

Cheers,

aaron158 wrote on 2022-02-14, 21:31:

what about just attaching the heatsink to the chip with some double sized thermal tape. seems like they picked a really stupid way to attach that heatsink when they could have just used the good old push pins though holes method.

Thermal tape is trash... And it will fall off unless the board is mounted in a horizontal position. Plus the die is way too small to use thermal tape on with that large of a heatsink.

Thermal epoxy is trash as well.

I spent hours upon hours trying to track down both thermal tape and thermal epoxy that has decent heat transfer. Even contacted one of the big industrial manufacturers and they didn't produce anything that was anywhere close to what even the cheapest thermal paste does.

Many years ago I set my friends up with a Shuttle AK-32A in a poorly ventilated case (an Elan Vital I was given for free). Later on, they told me that it was locking up; they lived a couple of states away, so I had to do my best to diagnose it over the phone. It sounded like a heat issue, so I advised them to leave the case's side cover off, and this seemed to solve the issue. The next time I visited them, I had a look, and it turned out that the northbridge heatsink was held on by thermal tape, but with the poor case cooling and high temps that the room would hit in the summer, the heatsink had slid partway off the northbridge chip. This was easily solved since the board had mounting holes, so I mounted a conventional heatsink with actual thermal paste, and the issue was solved for good.