Investigating Reports Of Intel Skylake CPUs Damaged By CPU Coolers

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I just don't understand how this is the first time anyone has had the problem. people have been using intel cpu's with the same socket mounting style since 2008? intel changed something to make it weaker for either performance reasons or money savings reasons, but regardless there is now a problem. seems to me they made the pcb part thinner than old designs and need to go back to the thicker version to fix that. easy.
 
This is not Intel's problem. Same static design and Intel also releases the specs to conform to for 3rd part manufacturing. Contact your heat-sink manufacture if you're going to throw a giant cooler on there then jostle it around...they probably shouldn't be liable as well.
 



Of course this is intels responsibility . They know the kind of coolers enthusiasts have , they know the various brands of cooler available .
To my knowledge they did not publish a specific warning that they had made older coolers obsolete .


 


Intel wont take responsibility and neither will heatsink companies because this is a blame war. what we do know is intel cpu's have had the same mounting for years and never had this issue. nobody ever broke a haswell cpu with a heavy cooler when it was dropped.
 


Yes actually this has happened before. I have seen plenty of high end gaming rigs that were shipped and massive heatsinks broke off or bent the board and damaged the CPU/GPU in the process.

This is just a big deal because people are making it a big deal. As I said it wont affect the majority of people out there.

This is much like the thermal paste between the IHS and CPU instead of a solder which did not affect the majority of people who do not overclock beyond what the thermal paste can handle anyways.
 


This is a good point. If the previous generation of substrate could break under shipping loads then making it even weaker was bound to cause problems .
IMO that makes intel even more culpable
 


You are making it a issue when it is not. That is the problem with the media and people, they make a big deal out of things that are not a big deal and puts every company on edge.

Most gaming OEMs that offered a after market tower cooler have already been having people install them themselves to prevent these kind of issues due to liability. It is better to allow the customer to install it than to risk causing massive damage to the system and having to replace more components.

If the issue presents itself when not shipping then it is probably due to over tightening which should be handled by the heatsink manufacture. My H100i has a certain limit to which it can be tightened but still fits properly on a Intel setup. Being able to tighten it beyond the specified limits of the CPU and socket is a design flaw on the heatsink manufacture problem not Intel because Intel provides these specifications to the manufactures for every socket and CPU. Just because they are not specified to the end user does not mean they do not exist.
 
Fortunately for me I stay away from fat coolers that take up half the volume in the case. But yeah Intel is to blame. If they make it thinner, how would it withstand the same amount of force? It's very simple Physics, and if it's thinner it can't withstand the same amount of force, so Intel obviously just copied over the force specification from Haswell to Skylake.
 

Skylake can withstand its 50lbs static load rating perfectly fine. The problem is dynamic loads during shipping and the only way to prevent damage from oversized coolers during shipping is to not ship systems with oversized coolers installed.

There is no way for Intel, heatsink manufacturers and system assemblers to guarantee that oversized heatsinks won't exceed dynamic load limits during shipping since they have no control over how hard the box will get tossed around. System builders have been advised not to ship computers with pre-installed oversized coolers years ago.
 
I shipped a computer last year with a 4690k under a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO, and the USPS beat the heck out of it and broke all sorts of stuff in there. In the case of the CPU/heatsink, what broke was the bracket that holds the Hyper 212 EVO in place. I wonder if it were a 6600k instead, would the CPU have broken instead, or in addition? Certainly seems like a solid minus, though, that skylake is less durable (even if the load specification they indicate is the same).

I'm guessing that overall it will still be very rare to have a CPU bend or break, but for those who do break their $200-420 CPU, the rage and resentment will be well-justified.

Still, to get to the bottom of it, I'd really like to see someone take a broken/fried Skylake CPU and a broken/fried Haswell CPU and perform a load test on it to see the actual difference in force needed to break it.
 
No doubt people might be enraged, how justified it is would be another matter. It's been common sense for some time not to ship pc's with tower air coolers installed or with heavy gpu's installed (since they can easily jostle and damage the pcie slot). If it's well packed (this is key) and still gets damaged in transit then the shipper is responsible. Not to mention someone shipping an item worth several hundred dollars without insuring it is asking for trouble.

Is the rental car company at fault if you bring them back a dented car and didn't purchase the insurance they offered? A car can be crushed if something hits it hard enough, does that mean it's a liability and not fit for sale? Or that it's up to the owner/user to take care of it and take appropriate measures to prevent damage like parking a car inside a garage during a hail storm.
 
Just thought this might be an interesting read. Shipment of systems with air coolers installed (other than small/stock) isn't new territory and is mentioned by several places.
"Massive, monolithic air coolers – and even some smaller, more affordable ones – are still extremely popular in the marketplace. While system integrators have largely moved away from shipping air coolers in their high performance systems as the weight of a massive air cooler can cause damage to the motherboard in shipping"
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/blog/2015/april/liquid-cooling-vs-air-cooling-which-performs-better

From an article covering a cooler review right here on Tom's Hardware. "Experience tells us that the odds of a big air cooler either breaking a board or coming loose during shipping are far greater than that of a closed-loop-liquid cooler causing damage from leaks."
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/v3-voltair-v3tec120-fc01-tec-cpu-cooler,4165.html

Similar suggestions from 2008.
http://www.overclock.net/t/403525/what-is-safest-way-to-ship-a-computer

Similar issues discussed in 2010.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=58747

From an article in 2012.
"While these kinds of gigantic tower heatsinks have become favourites of overclockers and other high end enthusiasts, they have created their own set of problems. The first is weight. When mounted in a tower configuration the combination of gravity and the weight of the heatsink can stress the motherboard. This is especially an issue for system builders, who have to ship systems with heatsinks already installed. A bit of jostling during shipping and a weighty heatsink can damage the motherboard, especially around where the heatsink mounts."

Read more: http://www.pcauthority.com.au/Feature/297802,system-builder-watercooling-goes-mainstream.aspx#ixzz3tlNOcM42

The point being that damage from use of a larger air cooler during normal conditions, aka on a desk in an office, not being humped up the himalayas or surviving a round of ultimate frisbee, is remote. During shipping yes it's a real possibility and has been for some time. Maybe people are just now realizing this, maybe the slightly thinner skylake cpu's are more easily damaged by larger coolers in shipping but it's definitely not new. Nor should people act like it is. All of the sudden people are realizing something that's been known for years (obviously by the linked sources and dates) and are blaming a cpu that didn't exist until a couple of months ago.

Improper place of blame seems to be the recurring theme. If in fact skylake chips just mysteriously crush or crumple while a tower is sitting on a desk during normal use then I think there's a legitimate complaint. If the argument is "I dropped my pc off the desk and it broke" I think people need to be more careful with their valuables. Most smartphones can't sustain a drop of a couple feet without the screen shattering and they only weigh a few ounces. A 15-20lb pc tower shouldn't be expected to survive that either.
 
Since aftermarket coolers void the warranty and the processors are not technically stated to be compatible with any non-stock coolers, this would not be Intel's fault legally after all but the cooler manufacturers. You saw the Intel rep on the website who explicitly stated that using an aftermarket cooler voids the warranty. That means any damage done by an aftermarket cooler is not Intel's fault at all because the Intel certified-to-work cooler is fine.
 


I would suggest to you that product warranty is not the only issue to be considered .
Most countries have product liability laws that assure the buyer of receiving a product fit for its intended use . In that regard it would be easy to make a case against intel , and prior failures of stronger Hawell [ and older ] chips can only indicate negligence by intel
 


It's intended use would be with a compatible motherboard at RAM speeds no higher than the 1600Mhz DDR3 or 2133Mhz DDR4 with the included Intel fan. Anything outside that, aftermarket cooling, higher frequency RAM, is outside what Intel has as the technical "intended usage". We all know that people's intentions are different from Intel's, but Intel's intentions are what matter here.

As for the 6600K and 6700K not coming with coolers, I guess it's basically a situation of "tough crap". Warranty still voided with any aftermarket cooler. I guess the only way to keep that warranty and run those CPUs within Intel's intentions is to buy an Intel stock cooler from Intel, and then it will cohere to their guidelines.
 
Since aftermarket coolers void the warranty and the processors are not technically stated to be compatible with any non-stock coolers, this would not be Intel's fault legally after all but the cooler manufacturers. You saw the Intel rep on the website who explicitly stated that using an aftermarket cooler voids the warranty. That means any damage done by an aftermarket cooler is not Intel's fault at all because the Intel certified-to-work cooler is fine.
Click to expand...
Since aftermarket coolers void the warranty and the processors are not technically stated to be compatible with any non-stock coolers, this would not be Intel's fault legally after all but the cooler manufacturers. You saw the Intel rep on the website who explicitly stated that using an aftermarket cooler voids the warranty. That means any damage done by an aftermarket cooler is not Intel's fault at all because the Intel certified-to-work cooler is fine.
Click to expand...
Since aftermarket coolers void the warranty and the processors are not technically stated to be compatible with any non-stock coolers, this would not be Intel's fault legally after all but the cooler manufacturers. You saw the Intel rep on the website who explicitly stated that using an aftermarket cooler voids the warranty. That means any damage done by an aftermarket cooler is not Intel's fault at all because the Intel certified-to-work cooler is fine.
Click to expand...

You know there is reason why they make aftermarket coolers and why most people use them. Stock coolers suck. They are noisy and the system is hot. If using aftermarket cooler voids warranty (of course any excuse to blame users instead making their CPUS sturdy enough) then you could simply be careful and not break the weak cpu, by not even moving the tower with the heatsink on (as intel says skylake is supposed to withstand same static weight) and if for some reason cpu dies (not from physical damage), you just say you were using a stock cooler when you take it in for warranty.
 


Stop pushing your AMD agenda as this has happened to AMD as well. Could I sue AMD since their included thermal paste on their CPU coolers tends to get stuck to the CPU and is able to pull the CPU out of the socket bending pins?

Either way the intended use of a CPU was never to have a over sized tower heatsink attached to it then have it shipped. Desktop CPUs are meant to be in a stationary position so how can Intel be held liable for something they have no control over?
 

Most people either use the stock HSF or whatever their system vendor puts in, which is either the stock HSF or something possibly worse when they use tray CPUs which come without heatsink.

Aftermarket HSFs are mostly for enthusiasts, enthusiast wannabees and people who messed up their stock HSF or the motherboard's mounting mechanism/holes.

And no, the stock HSF is not specially hot or loud when it is installed properly and the case has half-decent airflow. My i5-3470 barely hits 70C under full load when room temperature is 35C and its fan is not really audible next to my Antec 300-2's three case fans on low speed.
 


I take it you are not one of the great legal minds of the 21st century.
No one can contract out of legal liability and obligation
 
Not sure law is really something to be debated on a tech site. Although most people know that laws and legal obligations change from one locale to another and there's a reason for disclaimers and warranty parameters being set by a company. That doesn't take law school, just common sense. Then again common sense would suggest not to mount a cpu cooler with small fine threaded and low grade screws with a power tool and yet it doesn't stop folks.

Personally I'd like to see more evidence of this 'issue' besides one site's claims regurgitated everywhere, the same 2 or 3 photos that keep surfacing and one other sites issue which they blatantly admit could be user error during the install process. We're not seeing reputable sites such as arstechnica, anandtech, techspot, eurogamer, wccftech, or a whole host of others saying that they ran any individual tests or experiments and resulted in the same. Instead we're seeing a flood of 'reports' which all link back to a single source. A single instance problem doesn't constitute a piece of hardware being plagued with problems.
 

And with many of CoolerMaster's new HSF, you screw wings into the heatsink's aluminum block then start fastening long, fully threaded screws to those wings from behind the motherboard. There is nothing preventing you from tightening the screws until the screws, nuts, threaded holes or other thing fails. The only thing standing between someone ruining their CPU, HSF or motherboard is judgment about how tight should be tight enough. The user has full freedom to get it horribly wrong.
 


What I'm saying is that Intel basically states to use aftermarket coolers at your own risk, so if it is an aftermarket cooler that does the damage, either in or outside of shipping, it's not really Intel's fault. The performance of the coolers have nothing to do with the matter, I can think of many aftermarket coolers which are worse than the stock ones.

@Outlander: Intel's not liable for anything. They explicitly state aftermarket coolers are not officially supported.
 
I am very happy after read the explanation by CRYORIG because I am planning to get the H7 for cooling the Skylake on my next build on near future.
 
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