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I recently bought a micro atx mother board and have run into a problem. The stock amd CPU heatsink sits so close to the ram that they are actually touching.

I assume that this will cause future problems as the heat from the ram will be added to the cpu heatsink and vice versa.

My short term solution until I get a after market heatsink was to cut an old SATA and put it in between the cpu and ram to act as a buffer so the two aren't directly touching. I did this because I believe that the SATA cable has a high temperature threshold but really have no idea.

Will this solution destroy my computer while I wait for my new heatsink to arrive?

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  • > My short term solution until I get a after market heatsink was to cut an old SATA and put it in between the cpu and ram to act as a buffer so the two aren't directly touching. I don’t understand this line. What do you mean? If they are touching, then how can you put a cable between them? Are you bending something to make enough room for it?
    – Synetech
    Jul 25, 2012 at 21:19
  • i've seen coolers for ram maybe some just make the ram slightly thicker but give good cooling. If you can fit a cable in there then maybe one of those things will do the job. But I haven't used it.. look up ram with heatsink . here are two links img.dxcdn.com/productimages/sku_2582_1.jpg 2.bp.blogspot.com/-Hf3GJGMzT64/TjMPRcOvqVI/AAAAAAAAAHw/…
    – barlop
    Jul 25, 2012 at 23:02

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That "solution" is a poor one. SATA cables are no higher temperature than anything else, so if it doesn't melt, there wasn't a problem in the first place.

Secondly, it almost definitely doesn't matter. Sure, it would be preferable if they weren't touching, but what really matters is that there is adequate cooling. The RAM chips won't throw off enough heat to compete with what the CPU is pushing into that heat sink, so the only possible risk would be heat from the CPU... but if the heatsink is touching something, the outside of the heatsink is what's touching, and the outside shouldn't be overly hot.

Long story short: leave it alone, and if you're worried about it run a program to watch your CPU and RAM temperatures. Adding insulation is not a good idea.

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  • This isn't completely true, the Operating temperature of SATA cables are: -25 to +80 degrees Celsius, and my cpu max temp threshold is 62 degrees C so the computer would shutdown before the SATA cables melt. However I was able to confirm that the ram and heatsink touching isnt a problem. Another risk I didn't think of is shorts but since they CPU and ram have the same ground this isn't a problem either. Source SATA:satacables.com Source Post: overclock.net/t/1055749/ram-touching-cpu-heat-sink
    – Nick
    Jul 26, 2012 at 14:14

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