MP 1,1-5,1 Opened up Mac Pro 3,1 - found disturbing scene. Help please Apple gurus!

[dMajor]

Hi guys,
My 2008 Mac Pro 3,1 has been acting up recently so I thought I'd open her up and do a bit of a clean etc.
This is what I saw when I took off the side panel:

Now, I'm no computer technician, but I'm pretty sure that black thing is not meant to be just lying there next to the video card!

Here is a close up of this rogue part - Am I right thinking it's a heat diffusing item? "Heat-sink" in the proper parlance?

My hunch is it fell off this thing -

Here are my questions for the enlightened ones:
1.) Am I right thinking that the "Heat Sink" fell off this circled item? Why would that have happened?
2.) Can it be re-attached?
3.) How do I do that, and what is needed?
4.) If it can't be re-attached, is that catastrophic? Should I give up my hardware upgrade plans?

Background on unit: In the last week I decided I would do a bunch of upgrades to try and wring a few last years out of the old girl. First step was to install High Sierra via "dosdude's" instructions and software patches etc. That all went smoothly. After a few days I installed Microsoft Office, and Photoshop & Illustrator. After that machine started to do random Re-starts. Sometimes in a loop. Still ran ok when booted from El Capitan. Did a full 4.5 hour Hardware Test yesterday. Did not report any errors. Opened up this morning, and here we are...

Background on Me: I'm reasonably good with computers and problem solving in general. Done some web development. Done some soldering. Recently rebuilt 2 x mercedes carburetors from written instructions. If anybody wants to offer challenging advice/instructions - I will definitely have a red hot crack at doing them.

Thanks in advance.
Dan

 

[ADDvanced]

I thought this was going to be a post about beans.

 

[dMajor]

Lol - Can you elaborate?

 

[ADDvanced]

Completely unrelated to your problem, sorry I can’t help. But your title choice made me think of this.

 

[dMajor]

Completely unrelated to your problem, sorry I can’t help. But your title choice made me think of this.

This is...beans...

 

[Wowfunhappy]

Yep, that's a heatsink! It's absolutely fixable. You'll need to wipe off the old Thermal paste and reapply some new paste.

I'll let some people who have more Mac-specific hardware experience give more details—but, do not power the computer back on until this is fixed. The CPU will overheat without that heatsink. Really, it should refuse to boot to protect itself, but no need to tempt fate.

 

[dMajor]

Yep, that's a heatsink! It's absolutely fixable. You'll need to wipe off the old Thermal paste and reapply some new paste.

I'll let some people who have more Mac-specific hardware experience give more details—but, do not power the computer back on until this is fixed.

Ok, good start - thanks man.
No power on till fix. Got it.
Anybody care to chime in with more specifics on the use of thermal paste?
Have had no experience with it's use.

 

[glenthompson]

Get some Arctic Silver thermal paste, clean the processor with alcohol, then apply a very small amount of paste. Clip the heat sink back in place.

 

[tsialex]

The heatsink is fixed by two ring locks/loops, one is broken and it is probably short-circuiting somewhere inside the case:

You will need to find it and solder it back to the correct place on the PCB.

 

[dMajor]

The heatsink is fixed by two ring locks, one is broken and it is probably short-circuiting somewhere inside the case:

View attachment 938735

You will need to find it and solder it back to the correct place on the PCB.

I was just coming to that conclusion. Ok going to fish around and see if I can find this thing. Will report back later this arvo. Thanks man.

 

[JTravers]

Give the inside of the Mac Pro a good cleaning while you're at it... all that dust isn't going to help with airflow

 

[OS6-OSX]

"Give the inside of the Mac Pro a good cleaning while you're at it..." Agreed! The interior of your 3,1 should look like this. ?

 

[dMajor]

Give the inside of the Mac Pro a good cleaning while you're at it... all that dust isn't going to help with airflow

How very dare you.
[automerge]1596085844[/automerge]

"Give the inside of the Mac Pro a good cleaning while you're at it..." Agreed! The interior of your 3,1 should look like this. ?
View attachment 938761

Damn! Nice job. I used to have printed instructions on how to get all the housing and drives out for cleaning for my 1,1.
Anyone know where I can download the same thing for a 3,1?

 

[KeesMacPro]

Anyone know where I can download the same thing for a 3,1?

http://tim.id.au/laptops/apple/macpro/macpro_early2008.pdf

 

[macguru9999]

Well its not the cpu for a start, thats/they are under the huge heatsink lower down. It would be nice to reattach but it may have been lying there for years ..... set it aside and give everything a big clean with compressed air (not vacuum) . I think its some sort of system integration chip. If you really want to fix it you are going to need to remove the mobo and get something to hold the upper clip under tension, applying thermal paste etc, OR you can just ignore it and carry on , if it fails in the next 10 years you can always upgrade to a 5,1

 

[dMajor]

http://tim.id.au/laptops/apple/macpro/macpro_early2008.pdf

Awww - I love this forum.
Only come here when **** is broke - but it is always so helpful!

 

[dMajor]

Ok - back on deck.
Stripped most stuff out, gave it a decent blow out - but need another can of air to finish job.

I found our little missing hook on top of the upper RAM deck.

I gather the next job is to use some isopropyl alcohol to clean this grey gunk of the back of the heatsink and the chip?

 

[Ludacrisvp]

Correct, you’ll need to clean them both up and apply new thermal compound. You’ll also need to reattach the hook.

 

[dMajor]

Both bits cleaned up nice.
I have some saying to pull motherboard and solder loop bracket back on, and reattach with heatsink hooks.
Others saying heatsink may have fallen off ages ago and not be too bothered re-attaching.
I'm in favour of third approach - not bothering with loop bracket, but reattaching heatsink using thermal epoxy.
Dude talks about it in this thread here, he appears to have had exact same problem as me:

Heat sink detached 2008 Max Pro Logic Board

I opened my 2008 Mac Pro for dust removal and noticed that a large (2 1/2 inches x 1 1/2 inches) black heat sink was laying on the left end of my video card. The heat sink apparently fell off a logic board component located to the left of the four PCI slots. There are two chrome plated spring...

forums.macrumors.com

Here is the stuff suggested:

Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive

www.arcticsilver.com

What say ye, oh wise ones?

 

[tsialex]

Remove the board and solder the loop back, you are half way anyway.

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

I need to check my MP1,1 again. North-bridge seems to be overheated and this same black heat-sink is not very firmly affixed to the mainboard. I could move it a bit by my hand.

@dMajor : Don't you think you need a more powerful GPU for your MP3,1?

Two weeks ago, I obtained a 2nd Gigabyte GTX680 2GB for just 35$, got it flashed (no effect) and it works perfectly in my MP1,1 now. (Still no pre-boot configuration support screen, though)

 

[lukesturr]

In your own words:

Done some soldering.

I agree with @tsialex. You might as well bust out the soldering iron and fix the loop. It's a quick soldering job and it gets your 3,1 back to stock form instead of rigging some thermal epoxy up.

 

[dMajor]

Has anyone had experience hooking these hooks back under these loops before?
Seems a fair bit of force required. Do the hooks just squeeze past the loops and then under and up to fit in place?

 

[dMajor]

In your own words:


I agree with @tsialex. You might as well bust out the soldering iron and fix the loop. It's a quick soldering job and it gets your 3,1 back to stock form instead of rigging some thermal epoxy up.

I'm getting geared up to tackle this on the weekend. My previous soldering experience had all been splicing wires together on cars and such. No PCB stuff. Is there anything I need to know? Special solder? Temperature specifications?
I'm having a surf around the net looking at tutorials etc.

 

[KeesMacPro]

Is there anything I need to know? Special solder? Temperature specifications?

Use solder for electronics, which has a core of resin to make the solder flow well.
Solder for copper waterpipes etc is not adequate for the job.
Dont use liquid for cleaning surfaces (like for copper).
Use a soldering iron with a clean tip (you can sand it/use a file to clean it before plugging it in).
I'd use a soldering iron with a power of ~25-80 Watts.

Once soldering keep the parts absolutely still when the solder flows ,and check after cooling down that the solder is still a bit shiny, not dull.