Removing heatsinks and Xeon CPUs without damage

I have a Supermicro X7DAE motherboard with two dual-core Xeons (model 5080)
and I need to relocate everything to another chassis with better cooling.
The problem is that I believe that removing the active fans/heatsinks on the
CPUs will also pull out the CPUs themeselves because of the adhesive nature
of the standard thermal paste that comes with the CPUs. I am worried that
this will damage either the CPUs or the motherboard. Is there a way to
remove the heatsinks without extracting the CPUs at the same time? I
thought of running the machine hot and then quickly removing them while the
paste is still soft. With other machines I have removed the heatsinks and
the CPUs in one go and then used a hair dryer to separate them but I am
hoping there is a another, safer way.

--
And loving it,

qu0ll
______________________________________________

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qu0ll wrote:

> I have a Supermicro X7DAE motherboard with two dual-core Xeons (model
> 5080) and I need to relocate everything to another chassis with better
> cooling. The problem is that I believe that removing the active
> fans/heatsinks on the CPUs will also pull out the CPUs themeselves because
> of the adhesive nature
> of the standard thermal paste that comes with the CPUs. I am worried that
> this will damage either the CPUs or the motherboard. Is there a way to
> remove the heatsinks without extracting the CPUs at the same time? I
> thought of running the machine hot and then quickly removing them while
> the
> paste is still soft. With other machines I have removed the heatsinks and
> the CPUs in one go and then used a hair dryer to separate them but I am
> hoping there is a another, safer way.
>
run the machine for awhile to warm it up, then shut it down, twist the heat
sink slightly back and forth as you pull up on it.

qu0ll wrote:
> I have a Supermicro X7DAE motherboard with two dual-core Xeons (model 5080)
> and I need to relocate everything to another chassis with better cooling.
> The problem is that I believe that removing the active fans/heatsinks on the
> CPUs will also pull out the CPUs themeselves because of the adhesive nature
> of the standard thermal paste that comes with the CPUs. I am worried that
> this will damage either the CPUs or the motherboard.

I don't consider that very likely. The CPUs are mechanically locked in
place by the socket mechanism. After unscrewing the heatsinks, give
them a little twist before pulling up on them and they should come off
just fine. Over the past couple of months I've done a fair amount of
assembling/disassembling of Xeon 50xx/51xx/53xx CPU/HSFs and haven't had
any problems like what you describe.

--
Mike Smith