Fixing a broken heatsink

[apolyonn]

I have a Dell Inspiron 1000 which gets to about 80 celsius easily. I opened it up to give it a quick clean, and the heatsink snapped off (I think it's the VGA or Northbridge equivalent heatsink; it's definitely not the CPU cooler). Is there any way to keep it secured onto the motherboard? My first thought was tacky glue but at 80 c I imagine it would melt D:

Also, is 80 c high and can anyone suggest ways of keeping it cooler? I'm using one of those laptop cooling pads with the little fan at the moment.

 

[frozenlead]

Define 'snapped off' for us - was there a bracket or a screw or anything holding it in place, or was it just stuck there (usually by means of strong double-sided tape)?

80C is high for a CPU temp if that's what the temp was for. You should clean out your heatsinks with compressed air, making sure they're free and clear of dust before taking additional steps.

 

[apolyonn]

Slowpoke here. The heatsink had literally just broke off. Incidentally, I had made the discovery when I went to clean out the laptop's guts with a can of air. I learned way back when that this was a very common error with this particular laptop model. It was easily hitting 80C, which was pretty ridiculous; original Starcraft would lag, lol. Eventually, the screen would stop turning on, then the laptop wouldn't turn on. RIP outdated technology.