Loose northbridge heatsink

[g33j]

Hey all,
I recently bought a gigabyte MA78LM-S2H motherboard for a new system I'm building and though reasonably poor handling of the part, the heatsink on the northbridge became loose (The thermal pad separated). Given the 2 point connection of the heatsink, it now wobbles. My temporary solution was to lather some old compUSA thermal paste on it and hope for the best, but it still wobbles around and I think I'm going to need an adhesive solution... any recommendations on that are much appreciated.

Temp3 in speedfan (which I understand to correspond to the northbridge) typically reads 78+ degrees Celcius at idle and well over 100 after mere seconds of Prime95. I understand this board has high temperatures regardless, but I imagine this is out of the acceptable range. I'm sort of at a loss here...

How do I keep the heatsink in place, and how bad is my heat problem?

Thanks so much for your help (and I hope this is in the right place!)

 

[Proximon]

You need to remove it, clean up both surfaces fully using Isopropyl alcohol and a lint-free item like a coffee filter or two.

You could use thermal adhesive again at that point, or use thermal grease but it would need to be held more firmly to the board with the grease. I would say a very tiny amount of Ceramique type would be best here, doesn't have to be expensive either:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835100009&cm_re=thermal_paste-_-35-100-009-_-Product
Perhaps you could find some screws to hold it GENTLY but more firmly in place.

Thermal adhesive, the faster and simpler solution:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835100013&cm_re=thermal_adhesive-_-35-100-013-_-Product

 

[g33j]

Thanks for your quick post!

I have a certain fear of the words "sticks together forever" so I'll probably go shopping for some nylon screws and washers and use the ceramique. thanks!

 

[anubis44]

I have the same motherboard, and was having issue with it crashing in my HTPC build. After assuming it was the CPU overheating due to inadequate ventilation, I ran CPUID HWMonitor and suddenly realized it was the north bridge! I'm getting readings of 79 degrees at idle, and when I run google earth sightseeing tour a couple of times, the TMPIN2 temp shoots up to 85-90 degrees! I found the crappy plastic pushpins quite loose, so I removed them, cleaned up the NB chip and put a tiny bit of Arctic Silver on it and replaced the heatsink using a couple of screws I carefully tightened up evenly. Even so, I'm still getting TMPIN2 temps of 98 degrees! This seems unacceptable to me. The Gigabyte heatsink is irregularly shaped to prevent any easy fan installation, and even when I manually placed an 80cm fan right above it, I'm still getting over 90 degree temps.

Any suggestions?