Hi there, I just installed a Northwood P4 /socket 478 on a MSI 865PE Neo2. I clipped on the fan that was boxed with the CPU and pushed the two levers down, verbatim by the manual. Now the mobo is slightly bent underneath the socket as if the fan and the socket don't match 100%. I tried both ways but it seems it sits way too tight either way. The machine is running smoothly though (for now), CPU at around 50°C. Is this normal or can it have some adverse effects in the future? I'm thinking of the circuitry underneath. It's bent at an angle of 5 degrees or so. Any hint is appreciated. sol

No idea if the distortion of the board is normal or not but a P4 at 50degC? Is that the idle temp or under load? I'm running a 2.8gHz P4 on a gigabyte board and it idles at 30degC with the stock retail HSF. Has gone as high as 37deg under load. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and you feed him for life.

Seems pretty high to me too, especially when I have an AMD (which typically runs at higher temps than Intel) and I'm not even close to that temp under loads either. Not to mention any warping in the board is not good no matter what. When you're bending the board like that you're running the risk of breaking (or cracking) surface mount components. When all else fails beat the $%!* out of it!!!

on my ASUS A7v8X motherboard and 2000xp cpu, the temperature shown in the ASUS probe program is totally different to that shown by the SANDRA program. The point I am making here is that it is assumed that the temperature reading you state is accurate , but in my expereince how do we really know that?

Cheers mates! It seems like I do have a problem now, but I'm not sure if I RMA the board I won't run into the same problem with the replacement. What I've noticed the heatsink sits quite tightly already without pushing the levers down but I was afraid to turn it on with loose levers. err... shall I? At least the board is not warped this way. The 50C is at idle according to the BIOS. I haven't installed any benchmark testers yet. 20° difference between a 2.8 and 3.2 is quite a bit. Then again I read that Prescotts can run at up to 80C. That's actually why I got a Northwood. Gee, when I posted I was wishing somebody would say 'no problem that's normal with 478 mobos'... wishful thinking ;) sol

Actually, this is very normal. It’s not the motherboard’s fault, it’s because P4 heatsinks are just getting to damn heavy! Some P4 motherboard manufactures put a metal or plastic plate on the back to prevent this, but not all of them do it. A lot of people recommend you use a 3rd party HSF instead because they are usually MUCH lighter than Intel's HSF. Symbios Y!

Nice one symbios! I just read a post on another forum, somebody was having the same issue with an MSI board. He said MSI boards are a bit on the thin side compared to others. As you suggested he got around it by mounting a different heatsink that would actually fit. I'm just wondering who can be made accountable if any of the parts get damaged due to simple mechanical strain. There is no 'inappropriate use' involved either way... cheers sol