Dell Inspiron 7010 - black washers under CPU fan ?

long_b

Has anyone any idea what position these black washer yokes should be in when replacing the cooler ?

When I tried to replace the heat sink it

make a connection with the CPU

Also attached picture of stupid cooler legs which seem to clip down into mobo

The Continental Op

I'm not 100% sure you need the washers? May be an extra for anti vibration? I have 5 of those fans on a shelf here and not one of them has a washer on it and if I were to use them I wouldn't go looking for a washer. The plastic pins lock on the far side of the motherboard so with or without the washers the heatsink will be the same fit on the CPU. If the washers are soft then they would have to go on the CPU side as they would be of no use on the other side because they wouldn't help hold the plastic clips in place.

Those plastic clips can splay out a bit if you don't fit them carefully so maybe the washer is just to facilitate installation to hold the side of the split sections together?

long_b

Tried putting it on with no washers. Everything seems to click into place but it still remains loose

The Continental Op

Loose in what direction and are you sure its tightened correctly?

I've installed and reinstalled plenty and have more than occasionally messed it up. Often because the split parts of the locks haven't fitted fully.

More often had problems when the motherboard was in the case. With the mobo out its often much easier and easier to see whats going on.

long_b

Now that I think of it all, four washers were partly in the hole (as per picture). More than a coincidence ? So maybe the previous owner needed to make the hole smaller for the push pins to fit snugly ?

The Continental Op

In that case I suspect the previous owner replaced the original heat sink arrangement.

Dell like to screw the heatsink in place. So there is normally a metal bracket shaped a bit like a cross on the other side of the mobo with four tapped pieces that fit through those holes. I have one here but its not for a Dell and the hole size would be the same for both.

A quick google indicates that this may the the original type of heatsink and fan

The Continental Op

Making a few assumptions here. If you check this Dell "optiplex" 7010 "tower" manual you'll see the screw in heat sink and CPU

https://downloads.dell.com/manuals/all-products/esuprt_desktop/esuprt_optiplex_desktop/optiplex-7010_owner%27s%20manual4_en-us.pdf

The Continental Op

You could possibly fix this with 4 suitably sized metal washers on the other side of the mobo. The chances are because there was previously a metal bracket there won't be anything you could short out around the holes. Obviously you need to take the mobo out of the case.

long_b

Thank you so much for your help and advice @The Continental Op

Going by what you said we tried putting the washers back in the way they were and it's working fine now.