Hello all, the fan on my AMD Phenom II x4 965 Black Edition abruptly stopped working tonight. I should be able to locate a replacement at Fry's however I'm a little nervous about doing it myself.

Could someone possibly provide or direct me to detailed instructions on how to do this?

Thanks.

It is as simple as taking of the case pannel

removing the power link from the fan

Taking old fan off and putting the new fan on

Putting power link back in

Case pannel on and then turn press to turn on

That's what I would have thought as well however this fan and heatsink seem to be part of one piece. I don't see any obvious way to remove the fan from the heatsink (as opposed to older fans that you could simply unscrew and remove).

Is it not possible on AMD AM3 stock coolers to remove the fan without removing the entire heatsink?

So you might need a new CPU?
I just found the one I put away since I did not use it.
It is not screwed on. It looks like it is clipped on with plastic, might break if taken apart.
4 plastic tabs clipping around the fins. Looks like it might need a flat screw driver to pry it off.
but you might need the same type of fan to replace it with.

still fiddling with this one, it is not easy. Plus, if you do it this way, be careful not to break the heatsink-CPU connection.

I don't need a new CPU but it's looking like it would probably be best if I just replaced the entire heatsink. I don't really feel comfortable with removing the heatsink, I don't want to accidentally damage the CPU. I'll probably just buy another heatsink and see if there's a local computer store that can replace it for me.