Alright, so I screwed up.

You'd think after so many heatsink installations you'd learn to pay attention. Well, spose not.

I was putting an ASUS HS/F unit on a Gigabyte GS3 over a C2D E6600. I attached it, thought it went alright, and noticed the heatsink was sitting crooked.

So I try to take the stupid thing off, but only half of the heatsink came off. I mess around with it a little bit, then I realize that theres a spring in my HS box that I hadn't noticed before. Then I notice a second spring I hadn't noticed before, sitting on the floor.

So i'm stuck with a half-installed heatsink that can't be completely screwed in OR completely screwed out. The screw just spins, as if the threads are stripped, but since its brand new and its only been screwed in once I'm guessing its just not catching the threads to begin with.

Any ideas?

EDIT: Hacksaw + Needle Nose Pliers = Dead ****ing Heatsink

yeah man sounds like you need to take some needle plyers and strip the prung from the back side of the mobo, be careful

I ended up ripping apart the plastic on the heatsink and stripping the screws on the bracket until they came out. Whole process took about six hours.

The best part? The motherboard took the beating like a champ. Processor burned out, I can't pinpoint when, but I manhandled that board for six hours, banging and binging it around everywhere. I have a newfound respect for Gigabyte.

yeah, i hear Giga, has good stable boards, even low end ones. I managed to fry 3 different kinds of pci cards in my asus board and its still running like a champ. glad you solved your issue