Yeah, one of the four spring-screws is broken. Not my fault, but the threaded part is stuck in the mobo.

What do? :/

Not good, but not necessarily catastrophic. You'll likely get worse contact (and thus worse thermal transfer), but you probably wouldn't damage anything. You say this is an i5 processor, so it'll downclock if temperatures get out of control.

That said, you should definitely try to get it out if you expect to get it back to a normal thermal profile. And clean off your processor! If you're sticking things on that old paste, nothing is going to conduct heat very well (you probably already knew this, but just in case..).

How would I even go about doing that? The stuck part is threaded into the hole. :/

[edit] I plan on cleaning everything and applying the Arctic Silver I had saved for Bad Wolf. I'll just buy more of it when I buy Bad Wolf's parts.

Drilling it out would probably be the best way. Just be careful that your bit doesn't slip and go skidding across the board. Engraving doodles into your motherboard, especially around the CPU socket, is a great way to end up with a pretty doorstop.

I'm not sure I have a small enough drill bit for that and I doubt my motor screwdriver's bits/heads would fit into the power drill...

Also.. how exactly does one even drill it out? To google?

Just what it sounds like.. drill a hole through whatever's stuck in the hole you want to keep. You can then hopefully pick out the remnants without damaging the threads of the hole. Best to start with a very small bit and work up to something close to the size of the hole you're drilling out of.

I'd have to buy a set of really small bits then....

Ugh....


Maybe I should just leave it alone and relegate Gehirn to secondary computer and move everything to Bad Wolf.... >_<

In my experience, you can usually remove the heatsink mounting hardware (ie, that filled threaded hole) without damaging the motherboard, which would allow you to pop it in a vise and need to worry a lot less about damaging your motherboard. Is that possible? Is it soldered in or something?

That hole is right in the motherboard.

In the three other corners I can see that the socket is a separate metal piece of hardware from the motherboard itself.

Um.... what are you talking about?

The motherboard is a fiberglass board. The sockets that the screws on the heatsink are not fiberglass, they are metal. Therefore, you could pop one of them out, either by force, careful prodding, or desoldering, in order to drill out the sheared screw more safely.

I'm not going to try that. My dad knows a guy who can help, though. Hopefully will be sending Gehirn off to get fixed this upcoming Thursday. Coincidentally, Bad Wolf's new parts will probably be arriving by then.

You're not going to do which, try to drill out the broken screw? Or try to drill it out more safely by removing the mounting component from the motherboard?

Yes. Gehirn is in said guy's hands right now anyway.

Ah. Well, good luck, hope his repair isn't too costly.

The repair will cost $20 probably. Knowing the guy, he'll refuse payment (he's a friend of my dad's). Knowing my family, we'll insist on a crisp $20.

Very good, then it sounds like you're in good hands. I look forward to hearing what comes of it.