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A heat sink bracket is hardware that attaches to the motherboard to hold a heat sink in place and cool the CPU. Different types of heat sinks may use different bracket systems. Heat sinks can be passive or active and may be combined with fans for increased cooling capacity. Heavy heat sinks require a redesigned bracket assembly to prevent damage.
An essential part of a properly installed computer cooling system, a heat sink bracket is the hardware that the heat sink assembly and clip attaches to when a heat sink is installed. The heat sink bracket is usually made of plastic, attached to the motherboard around the computer chip that needs to be cooled. It is designed to allow a heat sink to make contact with the device that needs cooling while holding the heat sink in place. Since heat sinks vary in size and characteristics, different types of heat sinks may use different heat sink bracket systems.
Because they often contain high-end processors that require cooling, nearly all newer computers use a heat sink in some way. A heat sink is a unit used to cool hardware in a computer, usually the computer’s processing unit (CPU). The CPU is located on the motherboard. It is the main computer chip, through which most of the computer’s commands are processed. The heat sink bracket is usually attached to the motherboard with small electronic screws.
While heat sink designs vary, a heat sink often looks like a metal sponge, with many nooks, crannies, and coils designed to draw heat away from delicate computer parts. Near the base where it contacts the CPU, a heat sink will have a clip that connects the heat sink to a bracket on the motherboard. The heat sink brackets and clips are not uniform in their design; some are more difficult to install and remove than others.
A heat sink is a passive cooling unit, which means it removes heat from hardware without the use of a fan. Passive-only cooling systems rely on large conductive heat sinks to draw heat away from the computer hardware. These heatsinks are sometimes so large that they won’t fit in a standard computer case.
Because they’re often heavy beasts, these heat sinks also tend to be too heavy for standard heat sink bracket assemblies. The consequences of installing a heat sink that is too heavy for the heat sink bracket include motherboard failure and damage when the heat sink falls from the bracket onto other hardware. Manufacturers of large heat sinks often include a redesigned heat sink bracket assembly made to hold the heavier heat sink.
Sometimes, heat sinks are combined with fans to increase cooling capacity. When a fan is added to a cooling unit, it becomes an active cooling unit. Fan coolers are noisier than passive cooling, but sometimes they’re just an option for a small computer case where a low-profile heat sink is needed.
