Unintentionally increased the size of screw holes near the processor during installation of the cooler.
Unintentionally increased the size of screw holes near the processor during installation of the cooler.
Hi everyone, I encountered an issue during my first attempt to install a processor cooler. While fitting the cooler, I slightly misaligned it by over-tightening the screws. The standoffs were positioned correctly, but this caused the left screw holes to widen slightly to the right. I’m using a specific setup: CPU – AMD Ryzen 5 5600 6C/12T, unlocked, 4.4GHz AM4, 65W; Motherboard – MSI MAG B550 TOMAHAWK ATX. I managed to capture photos with a flashlight to check the screw positions, which appear within the marked circle around the holes (presumably the safe area). I think the developers would not have placed anything critical near those holes. I’d appreciate your thoughts on this. Currently, the PC and fans are working, and the GPU and CPU tests show the following results: Unigine benchmark 8859, CPU-Z benchmark 4842 (12 threads multi-threaded). After about two hours of playing Apex Legends via hwmonitor, I checked the temperatures. Mostly everything seems okay. The main concern was whether the CPU temperatures were normal and the motherboard functioning properly. As long as the system boots and runs, it seems fine. Any advice or observations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks ahead!
Ryzen features a flat ILM design, and placing it correctly ensures the screw holes work properly. There aren’t any noticeable changes to the screw holes in the images provided.
You're welcome! I'm not sure what "rectangular ILM" refers to, but it seems to relate to storage configuration. If you need clarification on why the widened hole doesn't affect things, you might want to look into documentation about ILM settings or consult a technical guide. The red hole in the image could be an important detail for understanding the setup.
ILM typically refers to two distinct cooler designs for LGA 2011 Xeon models. The term usually indicates whether the mounting is rectangular, like with Ryzen, or square, such as 115x. It appears the chip has a neat appearance, which is beneficial (likely reducing the risk of defects). Considering the dimensions of the mounting hardware and pre-drilled holes, I wouldn't be too concerned unless it impacts mounting pressure.
The area you highlighted is typical. There are two small grooves on the mounting holes. This wasn’t done by you; it’s the intended design.
I attempted to search for an image of a board without the brackets, but encountered a similar issue. The enlarged sections you’re worried about appear in a Reddit discussion.
I contacted MSI who confirmed the mounting holes have significant tolerance. The holes I mentioned didn’t interfere with any circuits. The enlarged hole seems overly artificial and is intentionally designed (as shown in your image) to fit various cooler mounts. Overall, everything is fine—great news!
I don't see anything wrong, if you're on about the tiny cuts on two of the holes, those are there so the bracket only fit one way, see attachment from a brand-new Asus am4 board. In the even you did do any such damage, as long as the trace on the PCB are fine, you're good, wouldn't even boot otherwise.