[SOLVED] Can I move my MOBO with CPU cooler, NVME & RAM still attached?

[1dlz]

Hi all,

MY NR200 SFFPC case is damaged and I am moving it into the exact same case. I don't want to reapply thermal paste, so I was wondering if I can just remove the MOBO with the CPU cooler and other parts attached and plonk it into the new case?

Cheers

 

[Lutfij]

The NVMe can stay put, the cooler, well that's anotehr story. So long as the parts that are protruding from the motherboard aren't gong to impeded your installation or worse, break off when given some force, then you need to disassemble them, to make sure you don't have to waste money on something that could've easily been avoided.

Novice's shouldn't risk it. Experts make mistakes as well but they try and make sure they aren't ruining perfectly good hardware especially since the pandemic has made things worse...or if you're Linus who wants to ruin things for the sake of "YT content".

My vote, is SSD, leave. Cooler, take it off.

 

[Gam3r01]

Id say it depends on the size of the cooler, if its a small stock cooler its probably fine.
Any sort of tower cooler wouldnt be worth the risk to avoid 2 minutes of changing thermal paste.

 

[ravin_29]

Just a small comment, if it's an AMD CPU (AM3/AM4 socket type) with it's original thermal paste then be very careful while removing the cooler/heatsink. AMD thermal paste becomes hardened glue and the heatsink gets badly stuck to the CPU due to PGA socket type. If you do not wiggle the cooler after unscrewing it you might end up lifting the CPU while stick in socket may be bending the pins and causing irreparable damage. This should not happen on Intel LGA generally.