H50 Killed my DIMM socket - how?

[sortiarius]

Recently i aqquired a new H50 because i had the old one RMA'ed.

 

After getting the H50 back, i installed the backplate // cooler as always (i've been installing the H50 about 10 times before without any troubles).

 

I experienced no troubles during installation. Since i have the 700D chassis i did not even have to remove the motherboard from the chassis, just the backplate.

 

Screws were tigthened 5 turns at a time, and i was very careful not to overtigthen. I also made sure that i worked in a static-free environment (and without any power connected of course).

 

However when booting up the computer my primary DIMM socket did not register any RAM (while the other two sockets were fully operational). I tried switching RAM and realised that it was indeed the socket (and not the RAM itself) that had been damaged. All the other DIMM sockets work just fine.

 

So how did this happen? I've been thinking and thinking. Im almost 100% sure that i did not overtighten screws. Also, i've been looking all over the motherboard (especially around the DIMMS) for micro-cracks - there are NONE. There is nothing physically wrong to be seen.

 

Then i started wondering, could i have installed the backplate in the wrong direction (while im experienced in installing the H50, im not that used to during it on LGA 1366 sockets).

 

Here's a picture of how it was installed:

http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/4026/lga1366.jpg

 

The picture is dark so let me explain: Ive installed it so that the backplate does NOT touch the alluminum cpu-socket, i.e. it only touches the motherboard-backplate. This means that the foamy-sticky pads installed on the backplate touches only gets in contact with the motherboard-backplate, and NOT the alluminum-back-socket.

 

When removing the H50 backplate (and the sticky pads) from the motherboard (after breaking my DIMM) i noticed that the pads had been in direct contact with the soldering of the motherboard backplate. I was wondering if the sticky pad could have short-cutted two solderings thereby rendering my DIMM socket unusable.

 

So my question is, when getting a new Rampage motherboard, should i change the backplate direction so that the sticky-foamy-pads will connect to the alluminium back-part of the LGA1366 socket -or have i installed the backplate correct?

 

If the backplate is situated correctly on the above mentioned picture, what might then have gone wrong during installation (so that i may avoid breaking another motherboards DIMMs)

 

Thanks for your time

[RAM GUY]

The picture of your backplate installation looks fine. The foam pads and plastic backplate would not be conductive so it is unlikely that any shorts or grounding problems could have occurred. When you remove the H50 I would check for bent pins on the CPU/CPU socket, as this would be a more likely cause for a DIMM slot dropping out.