Socket-A & Socket-370 Cooler Roundup - November 2000

Installation

If you've read so far, and think the ArctiCooler is too good to be true - think again. When it comes to installation, trouble starts. First of all, the base plate that is in contact with the CPU is round. Therefore it doesn't have full contact with the rubber spacers on AMD CPUs that  prevent wiggeling of the heatsink during installation, in order to avoid any damage to the fragile CPU core. This problem was also present with earlier "Golden Orbs", and we've heard of several users who have damaged their Athlon and Duron CPUs during heatsink installation. AMD includes the ArctiCooler on their list of recommended cooling solutions, but includes a note that "special attention should be taken to reduce risk of damage to processor die during heatsink installation".

We did not damage our test CPU during installation - but we damaged the test motherboard (Abit KT7-RAID) during deinstallation. When we uninstalled the heatsink, the clip crushed the small SMD capacitors right next to the socket and broke them off the board. The capacitors BC92, BC93, BC94 and BC100 were damaged or broken off:

We emailed Agilent and told them about the problem with the KT7, but did not get any reaction at all. It is possible to uninstall the ArctiCooler from the KT7 without damaging the board; if you're brave and want to give it a try, make sure you don't cant the heatsink during deinstallation, and use a small screwdriver to carefully remove the clip from the socket.

As the model number -0001 suggests, the tested cooler is the first socket cooler from Agilent, so we should not overestimate the current problems with the clip. We're sure that Agilent will come up with very exciting and less troublesome products in the future.