Loose Heatspreaders?

[Nate Rowe]

I recently opened my rig to check a few things out so I thought I would de-dust a bit so I pulled the memory from the slots and blew/wiped out the dust and noticed that while the heat spreaders on a side on a few sticks are not touching the memory. Is this normal? What can I do about it? I thought warranty becomes void if you remove them but I didn't, what happens if they went bad and I go to RMA them? Thanks in advance for any help.

[Tradesman]

Hey Nate, haven't seen you around for awhile, to your question, as I understand it, removing them will in fact void the warranty, but for a more definitive answer you'll have to get it from GSkill or GS Tech....or might try e-mailing ustech@gskill.com.

Appears they are having some server problems and support/etc is lagging due to the problems.

[Nate Rowe]

Hey Tradesman, I definitely remember you. I've been plenty happy with this ram, it's just exceeded anything I could have hoped for. Definitely going to recommend G.Skill to people. Anyway, I figured removing it would void the warranty but that's the problem... I didn't remove it. The one side became partially unstuck. I have no need to RMA or warranty them since they're working great but I'm just curious if this has happened before and if it would affect any future warranty I might need to do.

I don't think I'll e-mail them, I'm sure there's plenty of others that need support more than I do, this is just a question and my parts are working fine

*EDIT*
I looked back on our conversation and I gotta say (if I haven't already) thanks for your help. I always have to do a ton of research before I buy a computer part. I've since learned more about how the F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK operates with my setup and I have 4x2GB at 1066MHz and 5-5-5-12 timings with 2.06 volts. I just love the performance of these

[genetix]

Well, I wouldn't worry too much on little heat spread lose anyway or well speaking of myself wouldn't RMA for that (would probably stick some Arctic Silver 5 in between and good to go, hehehe), but seriously speaking I got here an 'Aerocool fan controller' unit running with 3 heat sensons and I got one stick set here running with out heat spreads and on 2.24v at RAM it's on high presure ~49 degrees(this is even without decent cooling basic 30e case) with heat spreads they are around 32 degrees and this again is with decent cooling Antec 900 blowing air straight through.

So, watching that and thinking these sticks can take clean and easy 60-70 degrees. I'd say you're safe, heh.

[Nate Rowe]

Thanks for the temps genetix. I was a little concerned about those but not too much since they are heatspreaders, not heatsinks and it looks like they use thick thermal tape between the memory and the heatspreaders. Also I made a custom fan bracket that puts 2 fans over all 4 of my sticks so they should be alright for temps I imagine. I'm still a little uneasy about the warranty though.

[genetix]

Thanks for the temps genetix. I was a little concerned about those but not too much since they are heatspreaders, not heatsinks and it looks like they use thick thermal tape between the memory and the heatspreaders. Also I made a custom fan bracket that puts 2 fans over all 4 of my sticks so they should be alright for temps I imagine. I'm still a little uneasy about the warranty though.

You're welcome.

About warranty well I doubt they have any issues on RMA those blocks, if the memory actually ever would error out although probably even with heatspreaders you could get RMA, but as I said was just my opinion, considering we manager to work with 15 years without any kind of heatspreaders doubt we need them too much hardware haven't changed that much.

[Nate Rowe]

I would imagine that with decent airflow in a case, heatspreaders might make them warmer... I highly doubt these sticks will ever fail as well since they're working better than spec for, jeez, about 10 months now without any problems. Like I said, I couldn't have asked for better RAM

[Tradesman]

Glad to hear it! Like Genetix said, the sticks will often outlive all other parts, I've still got some SIMMs hanging around that date back to the old 386/486 era...and I still on occasion find one of those boxes out and about running Win95/98, what we pay today for 4GB (2 sticks) you use to pay for 1MB (yes, Mega-Byte)

[Nate Rowe]

Haha, I remember when I got a 1GB stick of DDR2 667MHz for $90, I always laugh at that. That's the thing I hate and love about computers, it can get so cheap to buy something good but if you bought something good, you hate seeing it get cheap

I did have some Kingston Value Ram that died on me slowly after many months but it probably didn't appreciate me overclocking it That's why this time around I wanted to spend more money to get something that will excel at every task instead of just barely working for the cheapest price. I'm not saying Kingston is bad, it's just their Value Ram line isn't for me.

[Tradesman]

Good approach - the thing about computers is you keep getting more and more for the money, doesn't always seem like it, but after closing on 30 years, it still amazes me