[naeby]

The computer belongs to a friend of mine.

It is a Dell Dimension 4800c and the message she is getting is:

"Alert! Chipset heat sink not detected. System Halted."

Can you help me fix this problem?

naeby

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You need to shutdown the computer and open the case for this one. There should be a heatsink, about an inch square, covering at least one of the chips in the chipset. It's made of aluminum. If it's loose, reattach it. Usually held in place by little plastic snaps. You can buy the heatsink kits at coomputer stores.

Hope that helps, if you have any more questions please ask.

[Tyger]

You need to shutdown the computer and open the case for this one. There should be a heatsink, about an inch square, covering at least one of the chips in the chipset. It's made of aluminum. If it's loose, reattach it. Usually held in place by little plastic snaps. You can buy the heatsink kits at coomputer stores.

Hope that helps, if you have any more questions please ask.

[naeby]

Hi! We (my husband and I) opened up the computer. The piece that was loose was at least 2 inches square, and had a metal piece running through it that anchored to two ... anchors on the board of the computer. One of those anchors was missing. We gently tipped the unit upside-down and the missing anchor fell out. The anchors are small, thin U-shaped pieces of metal threaded through a plastic piece. We put it back into the notches it came from, reattached the plastic piece and hooked it to the anchors. After hooking the computer back up we turned it on and it booted up just fine. Then we heard one of the anchors pop off again. I tried a reboot and we got the message about the heat sink again.

We opened it back up and my husband along with the owner of the computer super glued the little anchor back on and put it all back together. After hooking it up again, we only receive the heat sink message. My thoughts are we (they) wrecked it with the glue and now we are SOL. I am checking back with you to see if there's anything we can do now? For the record I DID NOT agree with gluing it. (just trying to clear my name LOL!)

naeby