Ram Fins Touching CPU Cooler Heatsink
 

I just installed my Cooler and RAM and noticed that the top of my 4th RAM is just touching the bottom of the CPU Cooler's heatsink. Is there going to be a problem?

In addition, my power cable for the CPU is wrapping around the top of my RAM. Is this safe to do?

Mobo: AsRock Z77 Extreme4
CPU Cooler: CM Hyper Evo 212
RAM: Patriot Viper

Picture of problem

You should be ok as long as there isn't any pressure being put on the ram module. What about mounting the cpu the other way so that the fan is blowing sideways. That should give you better clearance.

That looks like your stick of ram is being stressed....

you should run that cooler the other direction turn it 90*

with that cooler you can slide the cooler-fan up or down by just un-clipping it and moving it. very easy solution.

also i recommend a 2nd cooler with the supplied mounting brackets if you have a 120mm kicking around or in a old unused case.

if your adamant about running it pointing up you can always bend a few fins to make some clearance.

The ram is under no stress. I placed the heat sink first, then the ram next.

Originally I had the heatsink rotated the other way so the fan was pointed to the back of the case. I couldn't get the heatsink bracket in place, so then i rotated the heatsink so the fan points to the bottom of the case.

The bracket is adjustable and i know it should work as ive installed it on other extreme 4's in the past the same heat sink that is.

When i install these heat sinks i remove the fan first so i have more room to work with adjust the mount and go from there. the fan is easily removable by just pulling back the clip and pulling the fan mount off.

also if you have it blowing back it does pull some air over the memory and cools them. only really maters if your running high mhz mem with some volts under them.

^^ Yeah is is mountale the other way as well. It is just a matter of rotating the bracket 90 degrees from its current position and then adjusting it so that it lines up with the bolts. Then you should be able to mount it. The first time I mounted the H212 on aa 1156 system and then an AM3 system it took a little while to wrap my head around which way the bracket had to go.

if there is zero stress on the ram, then I say its good to go. I agree that I would have the cooler rotated 90 deg as well though.

When I put the cooler back on, do I need to reapply the thermal paste? It took me two tries to put the cooler on last night. When I took it off the first time, I noticed that only half of the contact point on the CPU and the Heatsink had the thermal paste on it. Is that ok?

Yes you have to reapply thermal paste if you re-mount, and if only half the heatsink had thermal paste on it, it was a bad mount.