Fixing a broken heatsink

apolyonn

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Jun 30, 2009
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18,510
I have a Dell Inspiron 1000 which gets to about 80 celsius easily. I opened it up to give it a quick clean, and the heatsink snapped off (I think it's the VGA or Northbridge equivalent heatsink; it's definitely not the CPU cooler). Is there any way to keep it secured onto the motherboard? My first thought was tacky glue but at 80 c I imagine it would melt D:

Also, is 80 c high and can anyone suggest ways of keeping it cooler? I'm using one of those laptop cooling pads with the little fan at the moment.
 

frozenlead

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Define 'snapped off' for us - was there a bracket or a screw or anything holding it in place, or was it just stuck there (usually by means of strong double-sided tape)?

80C is high for a CPU temp if that's what the temp was for. You should clean out your heatsinks with compressed air, making sure they're free and clear of dust before taking additional steps.
 

apolyonn

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Jun 30, 2009
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18,510
Slowpoke here. The heatsink had literally just broke off. Incidentally, I had made the discovery when I went to clean out the laptop's guts with a can of air. I learned way back when that this was a very common error with this particular laptop model. It was easily hitting 80C, which was pretty ridiculous; original Starcraft would lag, lol. Eventually, the screen would stop turning on, then the laptop wouldn't turn on. RIP outdated technology.