Noctua NH-L9i does not fit perfecly

[non-serviam]

I have brought a Noctua NH-L9i to upgrade the stock passive cooler that my QNAP NAS Server had, after upgrading its CPU. The problem is that I noticed (after putting on the cpu the cooler, without being screwed and without any thermal paste) that the Noctua cooler does not fit perfectly on the cpu, like two completely flat surfaces should fit, even though it does not touch any other component of the motherboard. There is a small movement. Is this normal? Is it the job of the thermal paste to fill this gaps? Or there is some problem with my new noctua cooler?

 

[i7Baby]

What motherboard?

 

[ingtar33]

to upgrade the stock passive cooler that my QNAP NAS Server had

i suspect it's not a matching socket he's trying to fit that to... i remember reading about the gyrations someone had to go through to make a regular heatsink fit on one of those new athlon 5350s...

 

[non-serviam]

It is an Intel 1155 socket. The holes fit perfectly. This is not the problem.

 

[i7Baby]

It's not on properly if you can see a gap between the bottom of the cooler and the top of the cpu. As said, it should be flat against it. What's stopping it?

 

[non-serviam]

That is the problem, there is not anything stopping it.

 

[i7Baby]

If its not closing down on the cpu, then there IS something stopping it. You need to work it out.

Its not due to magnetism.

 

[non-serviam]

As I can see the problem is that the cooler does not touch the base of the motherboard and it appears to be unstable, while it is not... Also the screws are getting in from behind the motherboard, which means that there is a high possibility for the cooler to be screwed uneven..

 

[ingtar33]

are you certain it's a lga1155 motherboard? that seems like an awful lot of horsepower for a passively cooled NAS. typically they would use an atom for something like that.

 

[non-serviam]

They had inside a Celeron and I upgraded to an i7 3770T (lower power than the celeron) with 16GB ram, but I wanted also to upgrade the cooler due to the fact that it is quite hot where I live (I upgraded the back fans also).
I finally managed to screw it as even as possible and now I just wait and see the results. I hope that I did not put too much thermal paste in my desperation. ^_^
Thanks for your help.

 

[ingtar33]

good luck. 😀

keep a close eye on those temps for a while.

 

[non-serviam]

Damn, it is stuck at booting now, and I hope I haven't damaged anything...