the issue with the CPU has been solved.

I am glad you got your issue resolved. Most of the dealers here in the US will not take back a CPU if it has been damaged due to overheating or improper heat sink installation, so I hope you were lucky in that respect.

To be honest, 40C isn't all that hot. Most have to get over 70C before actual damage occurs. I never had to use that much force to install an Intel heatsink, though AMD was another story, especially the early model Athlons. They required quite a bit of force to install. I saw one person put a screwdriver through a motherboard when trying to press down on the clip and the screwdriver slipped. On those, if you heard the loud crack that you described, it would have meant that you had cracked the CPU core.

I had a mate with really bad CPU overheating - he had a good sink and it was fitted correctly. We discovered he had DROWNED the CPU in heat-sink-goo instead of a really really thin film - we cleaned it off, put a tiny thin film on and it worked beautifully - prolly not helpful but something good to remember - there IS too much of a good thing : )

yea, the CPU.wasn't damaged. heh the thermal paste was dried up and looked like scorch marks 😉 but ended up just wiping it off and put a new coat on and now it works.

the CPU heatsink which was hanging by 2 pins instead of 4 was very loose but still positioned over the CPU so i think the fan itself was enough to keep it cool during the period it was used when 2 pins came undone.