How to fix NH-D15S mounting pressure for NFS?
I noticed a jarring hitch whenever I hit high-speed corners, which felt completely out of place given how smooth the rest of the drive was. Checking the hardware, I found a 0.2mm gap between the NH-D15S base and the CPU IHS in one quadrant, causing a localized hotspot of 95℃ while other cores sat at 60℃. I tried cranking the fans to 100%, but that only dropped the overall temp by 2℃ and didn't stop the throttling—a total waste of time. I ended up stripping the cooler and using a cross-pattern tightening sequence on the brackets with a high-conductivity non-conductive paste. AIDA64 confirmed the delta between cores dropped from 35℃ to a tight 8-12℃, and frame times stabilized at 12-15ms. I actually messed up the first repaste by applying too much, which slowed down heat transfer until I scraped it flat. Now it peaks at 72-78℃. It's stable, but the installation process was a tedious struggle.
