My Dell Dimension 9200, I felt, was getting a little too warm. It wasn’t anything particularly dangerous, it’s just I felt it could do with a little more cooling. I occasionally clean it out every few months but the heatsink and its fan are hidden away under heavily screwed down plastic so I can’t get to them and dust was clogging them up. Until a few hours ago, I had never even seen them.

I ordered a new heatsink (Akasa AK-965) and today I attempted to install it. Of course, uninstalling the old one was difficult and there’s always that little niggle that makes you think you’re doing it wrong. I continued, though, and managed to vacuum the incredible amount of dust that had amounted over the 2 years.

I was in the final throes of completion, I only had to place the new heatsink into its place, pop the screws and plug the fan in. Of course, in the final stages, something has to go wrong and for this little endeavour, everything did. First, I found that the heatsink didn’t line up the motherboard’s holes. Secondly, I found that the motherboard didn’t have a connection for the heatsink’s fan (rather, a different connection to what the new heatsink needed). Thirdly, I’d already taken all the old thermal paste off the processor at this point and it looked like I’d need to buy some more. And finally, no matter how hard I tried to be careful, I managed to get thermal paste all over my fingers. Sending back the heatsink will cost £5 – for a £10 product. To finish off, as I’ve had to dismantle half my computer, I’ve now got two screws and I don’t know where they went.

It’s not all bad though: I’ve managed to scrape some of the new thermal paste onto the old heatsink (and temperatures have fallen dramatically), I’ve been able to clean the fan and heatsink and I have a spare heatsink for a computer I hope to be building this autumn.