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How to remove those damn ram clips

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gustav

Member
Joined
Sep 27, 2003
Location
Folding in Illinois
How do i remove those damn clips on the heatspreaders on my ramsticks. I have mushkin pc3500 level 2. Anyway they have the heatspreaders with the metal clips on them, i want to look at the chips and take some pictures, but i cant get the clips off to take off the heatspeader...what can i use to get it off?
 
from freazing them and trying to heating them up i have heard them all... relly tho.. i got no idea what works..

but i think theres risk of pulling the ram right off... dont know.. just warning yea
 
well i slid a razor blade under the gook pad and lifted it up a little bit, i could see winbond and BH but not the last number...i know its almost for sure BH-5, i bought it last december, but i just want to make sure and also take pics....the razor blade worked ok, but it doesnt lift it up enough and i dont trust it, i'd rather remove the clips and the entire heatspreader, take pics and put it back together.
 
I froze my Kingston HyperX and they came off with no problem. Pull up slow after freezing so you don't bend the original spreaders
 
stick the ram in a ziplock bag and leave um in the freezer for 30min. Then take off the spreaders carefully like Podtec said.
 
I'm talking about these clips:

mushkin.jpg


Your saying sticking them in the freezer for 30 minutes will all me to pull those clips off? I'm not worried about the actually heatspreader (the black part, purple on mine) and the goop connected them to the ram chips, that came off fine using the razor blade, but like i said not very much...i just cant grip those clips enough to take them off, and i dont know what tool i should use, if any, to help get them off. :-/
 
Gustav, if you have Mushkin PC3500 Level II, then they are 100% guaranteed BH-5. You don't need to remove the heatspreaders.

Wanna sell 'em? I'm looking for some.
 
mattspalace said:
Gustav, if you have Mushkin PC3500 Level II, then they are 100% guaranteed BH-5. You don't need to remove the heatspreaders.

Wanna sell 'em? I'm looking for some.

I want to take pics though....
 
Ok it has been awile since you posted but maybe you are still interested in getting those clips off. I was wanting to know the same thing eveyone kept saying the freezer idea but I wasn't having the problem with the "goop" as you said I couldn't get those clips off either so here is what I did. Warning This will voide the warranty taking them off in anyway does so be forewarned. This is a jury rigged way of doing it but it worked without scratching or anything.

I took a fat rubberband like you buy at office supply store and cut (2) 1" pieces off then pushed the outside edge of the clip to the inside as much as I could with my finger then I stretched the rubber band piece so it would fit into the small gap that was left when you let go of the rubberband you have now got a little cusion between the clip and the spreader. I did this for teh other side of the clip as well which was extremely hard but I wanted to know what chips my ram was using. After I had the rubberband wedged between both sides of the clip and a spreader I took a flathead precision screwdriver (very small) and gently pryed up on the clip switching sides often. Once you get this started you can put the scredriver through the hole started and just lift it straight off. Repeat these steps for all 4 clips and you should be good to go.
 
yeah slide something under them and then pry them up, they should come off after wiggling around a bit, at least mine did, I have the exact same heatspreaders on my mushkin
 
Actually better yet, take a small Flat tipp screw driver and stick it through the hole where the clip is on top of the heatspreader, then just pry it off.
 
By prying it off without anything between the heatspreader and the screw driver you will definately do visible damage to the spreader itself.
 
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