Removed the cooling pad from the motherboard's back panel.
Removed the cooling pad from the motherboard's back panel.
In short, your motherboard arrived with a bent back plate. The photo shows a plastic cover over the damaged plate, which I’m not sure is for the heatsink. Since the plate was bent, I couldn’t install the CPU cooler properly, so I had to remove the plastic to bring the board closer. I’m worried this might cause issues. I tried reaching out to Asus, but they said it’s a national holiday in Canada, France, and the US.
It's likely the plastic is there to stop your motherboard from shorting.
The plastic is in place to stop shorts, keep it in. You can find an AM4 backplate on Amazon for about 12 Canadian dollars or at most local tech shops.
The situation you described could lead to instability if only three screws secure the CPU cooler. It may affect proper cooling performance and increase the risk of overheating.