Comment by lazyweb
10 hours ago
Socket 370 and Socket A were very easy to break. You needed a flat head screwdriver to pry off the metal bracket which held the cooler in place. Apply a little too much force (or just repeat the process a few times) and watch the plastic nook break off of the socket, rendering the entire mainboard useless. Zip-ties or super glue might save you, if just for a while. But good luck moving/transporting the computer then.
I always did appreciate the 'nicer' heatsinks that spent the extra bit of cost of materials/machining/etc to provide a proper, safe 'slot' for the screwdriver.
That said, my Socket A system that would move around alot between home/work/school... After the horrors I had seen at work and a particularly unlucky guy at college [0] I made sure that the board I got had the 4 hole setup option (GA-7DXR, awesome board except for the capacitor plague being a thing), and managed to get Alpha Novatech to sell me a discounted (for evaluation) PAL8045 cooler.
For it's era, probably the most durable setup you could have for a Socket A, even though we didn't have Case mounting holes for thermal solutions yet. It also didn't have the torquing risks you would occasionally see on the P4's cam lever setup with cheaper boards.
[0] - Guy tried installing a fancy dragon orb cooler, ground a corner off the CPU, the CPU became a board killer. (I still don't know why he tried another board after seeing the damage...)
Dont forget the fun when screwdriver slipped and gouged delicate CPU data lines near the socket.