I’m building a dual socket AMD SP5 Epyc workstation for AI applications. I’m using the Gigabyte MZ73-LM0 motherboard with the Silverstone XE04-SP5 CPU heatsinks. The build was going swimmingly until I tried to install the heatsinks and now I’m stuck… And I am crossing my fingers and toes that I haven’t bent my CPU pins!
Short story is that the heat sink has six diagonal screws necessary to attach it to the CPU socket. The instructions are very clear that you need to fully screw in one screw before moving to the next. I’m able to get screws one and two all the way in with the appropriate torque, but the remaining screws just seem to rotate in place and aren’t " grabbing onto " anything. This is the case for both CPU heatsinks, they are behaving exactly the same.
Any advice on what might be going wrong here? Would love any thoughts or recommendations!
The text in the manual (including typesetting errors…):
5.Tighten the two diagonal heat sink mounting screws, i.e. the #1 and #2 screws (Figure 4) completely tighten screws one-at-a-time Then do the same with the remaining four diagonal heat sink mounting screws.
6.Follow the diagonal installation pattern on all six heat sink mounting screws to ensure that the bottom of the heat sink is properly seated on the CPU and to prevent the heat sink from tilting.
My guess is that “one-at-a-time” is a translation/writing error and what they really mean is that one should go back and forth and tighten them equally, two at a time, diagonally. Why else mention “#1 and #2 first, follow diagonal pattern to prevent the heat sink from tilting”, rather than just say tighten #1 first, then #2, etc?
Extremely low quality manual - the use of “kgf-cm” nonsense units for torque alone would have made me chose some other heat sink.
Here’s a video from AMD on how to do it (both the CPU itself and the heat sink):
Spoiler: They go back and forth a bit on the heat sink: “you wanna do these corner to corner rather than tighten one all the way down, otherwise you’ll never get them all down”.
I think you are onto something. The four outer screws are raised on a platform compared to the first two screws and probably lock on using a different mechanism.
Does it seem reasonable that I should keep trying different stuff until I can get all six screws to be tight? Or am I at risk of bending my pins?
I haven’t tried the mounting system, but would normally presume all six screws should generally be tightened until the retaining springs are pretty much compressed, or until torq’d to the torq limit
Silverstone is one of the better ones but even they expect people to toss the manual and go straight to youtube for an install video. The only useful part of a manual in the last decade is the pics, and even sometimes they are wrong.
I don’t know if there are better ones out there, but if I was shopping around for a cooler that manual would make me at least look around for some alternative. Perhaps Zedicus is right and all manuals are trash?
Ive never owned anything you mention here so take this for what its worth.
Can you screw all of the screws in a turn or two before beginning to torque them down following thwir procedure?
Units I used to work on had a heap of fasteners securing the face.
Guarenteed if you torqued any of them down before installing all of them, you either wouldnt be able to get all of the fasteners in or the last one wouldnt seat properly if it did go in.
It happens because the torque transfers to the unsecured face twisting the assembly a little.
I would start with 1, till it bites, then 2 till it bites, then diagonal until engaged, then tighten fully in the same order
I would not be worried about having to push against springs
But if the spring is fully compressed, and still no bite, I would look at the chip itself, and ensure it is seated right, the plastic carrier correctly slotted, and the metal retainer all the way down.
But if 1 and 2 do both fully screw, the rest really should too
Wonderful news. Brought it into a local shop and they were somehow able to get the screws to thread. Perhaps my torqued screwdriver wasn’t doing the job for some reason. Looks like the CPU pins are not bent, thank goodness!
Thanks to everyone for your help, I appreciate it so much!
Okay, disappointing update. Looks like one of my RAM channels on the motherboard isn’t working (DIMM_P0_H0). I swapped the RAM sticks around and it continues to show up as empty. All other RAM channels work and the system seems to work fine otherwise.
Now, I’m trying to figure out whether it’s…
A RAM issue
A CPU issue
A MOBO issue.
Appears to not be a RAM issue, since when I swap the sticks around, it’s always DIMM_P0_H0 that shows up as empty. So now I need to figure out whether it’s a motherboard issue or a CPU issue.
Any advice on how to diagnose the issue? I’d like to avoid swapping the CPUs and figuring it out that way, since I had such a hard time setting it up in the first place.
