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Comment by mikeInAlaska | Hacker News Reader

What a beast. It doesn't apply much to my life, but I did notice one thing that would have been nice on several builds in the past. The torque for the heatsink screws is specified in exact lb/feet.

I have made builds in the past where you had to judge, tight enough? I thought it was unsettling. I believe my last couple builds had a more cam-lock feel to the heatsink though where it was tightened to a point where it had an obvious force-threshold stop to it.

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Noctua heatsinks include maximum torque specifications in the instruction manuals, in Nm. I expected this to be standard, but I checked the manuals of popular high-end models from other manufacturers (Cooler Master, DeepCool, Be Quiet, Akasa), and I was unable to find torque specifications.

How can you make use of this info? Like which tool allows you to tighten down to a specific torque?

Torque wrenches let you set a max torque and will spin freely+ no longer tighten after they reach it

Torque screwdriver. You can get digital motor-driven ones, and ones that work like torque wrenches, with a clutch that releases once you exceed the torque setting. Torque screwdrivers have a limited range of supported torques, and computer heatsink fasteners generally need fairly low torque, so be sure to get one that goes low enough.

I just completed a few AMD Threadripper-based builds at work and was pleasantly surprised to see that each CPU actually shipped with its own torque-screwdriver tuned to the specific torque needed to install the chip.

I have a Klein Torque screwdriver. Holy cow have they become expensive in the decade since I bought it.

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