Abit IT7 Max heatsink fell off

couple of months ago i heard a sound in my case it sounded like something shot into one of my fans but when i looked inside i didnt see anything. few months later i took apart my computer to clean all the dust out and one of the clips on the northbridge i think? heatsink was just hanging. i also found this other U-shaped metal piece in my case i'm not sure what it belongs to. is there a way to attach the heatsink back to my motherboard? right now i just put some arctic silver 3 on and pushed the clip back through the motherboard, but when i look on the back of the motherboard it looks like the clip is not going through all the way compared to the 2nd clip thats on there really good. heres a picture i did in paint if its too confusing ill take some real pictures.

Kind of weird. You may want to use thermal adhesive. That way you get a nice strong bond.

there are three ways imo:

1: make a new mounting system for your heatsink or buy a new one that might be easier to mount
2: use arctic silver thermal adhesive - this stuff really is absolutely amazing, but very much permament.
3: use normal thermal paste on the chip and superglue (crazyglue) on one of the corners - just the right amount will hold it in place but the heatsink can sometimes be broken off if needed, hopefully without damaging the chip. I used to do this on very old graphics cards that didn't have mounting holes like some TNT's and geforce 2's I used to have

i went and got some arctic silver thermal adhesive but i'm not sure if i bought the right kind. there was 3 to choose from and all looked almost the same. one called ceramic something and aluminia something and arctic silver thermal adhesive. the loop ended up coming off again and now it sprung out and flew somewhere. is this stuff safe to use on this chip and heatsink cause i usually only see people using arctic silver thermal adhesive on the ram for video cards. does anyone know if the metal U-shaped piece belongs on the motherboard anywhere? is the loop breaking off a common problem on these abit motherboards? also should i take off the square spongey thing around the heatsink or just put a dab of adhesive on the heatsink and chip?

The U shaped loop is what the clip attaches to (at least I think). I believe they are soldered to the motherboard. If so, then it's not needed if you epoxy the heatsink directly to the northbridge. It is not uncommon for them to come loose. I had it happen to my old IC7. The easiest thing to do is use thermal epoxy to adhere the heatsink to the northbridge chip. Sounds like you already bought some Arctic Silver adhesive. It's the best, but it is slightly conductive compared to the Arctic Ceramic. But, fortunately that won't be a problem on the northbridge. I would remove the foam spacer before attaching the heatsink.

so the U-shaped piece goes on the backside of the motherboar and is soldered onto the black loop? does anyone have a picture of how this looks like?

i tried the thermal adhesive but it didnt hold. someone said not to remove the foam padding because it helps to not crack the tiny NB core.

any other ideas to fix my problem? or will i have to make some kind of new mounting system?

Who can I contact about getting this link back up?
http://www.overclockers.com/tips1180/

It is about fixing the loops for the attachment of the North Bridge heatsink for an ASUS P4C800E motherboard.