B) Heatsink Fitting on a FC-PGA

1) Choose your heatsink and clip. I decided to use a clip from an old Coolermaster I had lying around. Originally intended for PPGA-370 package it caused the heatsink to tilt on the CuMine die. Essentailly the force from the clip was focused to one side of the silicon, and not at the direct center. There is a way to salvage this heatsink so it will work properly of course. Taking the clip and placing it on the vice I flattened out the center bends with a hammer. Since stainless steel seems to be the predominant material for clips it is very important when bending the metal to only do it in small degrees and only once or twice in a specific area. Stainless steel is relatively brittle and will crack if bent to severely or too often in one particular region.

Looking at the picture above, I took the flatened clip and placed it on the socket overtop of my 500E. Then using a marker I marked out the edges of the silicon on the clip. Those lines tell you where to bend the clip so that it will work with the CuMine. The easiest way I found to bend the clip was by holding the clip on either side of the line with a pair of needle nose pliars. While keeping things steady with one set of pliars the others are used to bend the metal about 10 degrees or so. Then, another slight bend is put where the other mark is and the clip is ready to go.

Putting the clip back overtop the 500E it's now visible a little bit better what was done.The two bends frame out a flat surface that is just the right size for the silicon die, causing the force from the clip to be focused overtop of it. With the force from the clip centered on the Coppermine's die the heatsink sits level on the die and ultimatly helps the processor to shed it heat better.

So there we have two quick tweaks that shouldn't take more then a few seconds to do each. If you have any tweaks you would like to share post them to the BBS.`