Please help. Did I screw up my computer and/or motherboard ?

[rlemmon]

Please help. Did I screw up my motherboard.

Hi. I was Installing a different monitor on my computer and one of the little bolt that connects it broke off. I decided to take a look inside to see if i could get to it from behind. in order to do so i removed the tower fan and the green plastic case that covers it. now for the problem.. there is a part directly behind the tower fan that looks to be for distributing air flow. It has thin metal grates like the back of an air conditioner. there are 2 rows of what look kind of like bolts , one on each side. ( four down the left & four down the right} the ones on the left are silver and the ones on the right are copper. There is copper tubing running through the part. i decided to remove this part to see if i could get to the busted bolt from the inside. what I didn't relalise is that the bottom of this thing has a small copper. square about 2 by 2 inches that makes direct. icontact to the motherboard. Its was sealed or glued with a grey goop. now   the seal is broken. i put everything back together and it seems to be o.k. but im affraid i have screwed something up. I wouldn't want to overheat'  my motherboard or something. Does anyone know what this part is for and if i should be worried about breaking the seal ?
any help would be greatly appreciated. I have attached a paint drawing of the part.The left is the view you would have if the pc was on its side and you were looking down intto it. The right iss a side veiw of the part. I would have taken a pic but i don't have a digital camera.
Thanks

[DrewKaree]

Please help. Did I screw up my motherboard?

Hi. I was installing a different monitor on my computer and one of the little bolt that connects it broke off. I decided to take a look inside to see if i could get to it from behind. In order to do so i removed the tower fan and the green plastic case that covers it.

Now for the problem.  There is a part directly behind the tower fan that looks to be for distributing air flow. It has thin metal grates like the back of an air conditioner. There are 2 rows of what look kind of like bolts , one on each side (four down the left & four down the right).  The ones on the left are silver and the ones on the right are copper. There is copper tubing running through the part.

I decided to remove this part to see if I could get to the busted bolt from the inside. What I didn't relalize is that the bottom of this thing has a small copper square about 2 by 2 inches that makes direct contact to the motherboard. It was sealed or glued with a grey goop. Now the seal is broken.

I put everything back together and it seems to be o.k. but im afraid I have screwed something up. I wouldn't want to overheat my motherboard or something. Does anyone know what this part is for and if I should be worried about breaking the seal?  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I have attached a paint drawing of the part.  The left is the view you would have if the pc was on its side and you were looking down into it. The right is a side view of the part. I would have taken a pic but I don't have a digital camera.

Thanks

Seriously, this isn't an English composition forum, but for the love of pete, would it KILL you to break up your sentences by dropping in an "Enter" once in a while to help our eyes?  I STILL haven't figured out what the heck you're talking about because it reads so atrociously and (I suspect like many others) simply gave up trying to separate pertinent info from the "ohmygodigottagetthisalloutbeforeitakeabreathandimstartingtorunoutofair" look. 

There's my help.  I've made that pile readable for someone else, and spell check is your BEST FRIEND, rely on your best friend.

[Harry Potter]

What you described sounds like some sort of an air filter or a weird looking heat sink. But without proper photos, there's not much we can do to help you.

[danny_galaga]

drew, you're a hard man, but fair! the square copper thing sounds like a mating surface for some sort o heat sink so you could have probs down the track. in fact im guessing you've taken the fan off the CPU from the size you are talking about. now that drew has tidied up your question someone else will be able to tell you what you've done.

[TMS]

It def sounds like a heat sink. What was underneath it. Is it just circuit board or is there a chip there?

[Crazy Cooter]

Sounds like you pulled the CPU cooler off.

The "goop" is thermal grease.

Normally, you clean it and replace the goop with new stuff whenever you pull it off.

If you bought a computer from bestbuy/dell/wherever, they usually have 3x the amount of thermal grease you really need anyhow.

The idea of thermal grease is to fill the pores in the heatsink and the cpu chip only.

You should be fine.

Too many [enter]'s Drew?

 

I'm out.

Later.

[DrewKaree]

drew, you're a hard man

That's all I ever really expected you to say danny

[rlemmon]

thanks for the help guys. Cooter you were right. It was the cpu cooler. I took it to a comp. repair place and told the guy what I did. He said not to worry about it. Drew are you an English professor ? Maybe you should be. . Just kidding , thanks for the help

[daywane]

I HOPE you did not turn power on with the CPU heat sink off.
If you did your CPU is probably history.
If you did not your OK.
Above , Crazy Cooter  is right. Most store brand PCs have way to much grease.
a drop will do, Spread it and  and wipe off lightly, ( just filling in any scratches )