Installing heatsink and fan

[Athas]

So I'm working on my first build and I was putting in the Freezer 7 Pro I got but the damn thing was so frustrating to get in that I accidentally bent the bottom few metal sheets on the back side downwards.

This is a huge problem or no?

[Furtwangler]

I would try to put them back, if they are what I'm thinking they are the whole purpose of those is because the more surface area you have the more heat will get dissipated, ie. if you had a bunch of those fins vs a solid block of metal the fins will let off more heat and with a fan enable more cooling to take place.
Having a few of those bent in especially if it like closes the gap will constrict airflow and thus will have a harder time cooling, if you arent OCing you should be fine just watch your temps cus idk how bad it is by your description.

[Isiolia]

Should just be able to bend the fins back to how they were (or close to it). They don't need to be perfect to do their job. If you bent 'em to the point where they'd be blocking airflow or something, then that might matter. Otherwise, you wouldn't be the first, or last, to do something like that.

[Tifrece]

Freezer pro 7 comes with those fins bent downward, unless you're talking about something else I'm not aware of. Just look at a picture online.

*edit* Just look at the back of the box it came in.

[Athas]

Yeah, they were bent, but I bent em further so they were touching. Anyway, bent em back and everything seems to be working ok.

Though my wire management is utter shit.

[Athas]

While you guys are here, anyway I can use my old sound card in an Antec 900. Kinda old and doesn't seem to have a 10 pin connector for AC'97/HDA, so headphone jack wouldn't work if I hooked it up, yeah?

[Tifrece]

Just use the motherboard sound, it covers just about everything, unless for some reason you do audio work, which I highly doubt.

[Athas]

Eh, I just really like the software with it.

[Maguspk]

Before you put it on, take some of the thermal paste off. The thermal paste on the arctic freezer pro really is too much, my CPU runs at like 38 degrees when it's doing nothing and upward of 50-60 when it's doing stuff (Celsius). I am thinking about taking it off sometime and just getting all the thermal paste off and getting a friend to do it right. I'm pretty sure there was so much paste that it created a bubble or something and heat is being trapped next to my CPU.

[Athas]

First thing I did was take off the stuff that was on it and put on some AS5.