Dell Precision 3660 - Cheap Heatsink assembly

W680 chipset has 6W TDP (as per Intel specification https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/218834/intel-w680-chipset.html ), this you see on a pic is hardly 1.5W (assuming passive cooling and partial heat dissipation into textolite MB material), e.g. having mass sufficient just to absorb occasional temp spikes.

I've replaced mine straight away (with 40x40x30 mm ten aluminum tins), but relevant skills/knowledge are required to do it otherwise there's high risk to crack the edge of the chip while removing (old) and mounting (new) heatsink (because spring provides sufficient pressure to damage it if angle is wrong during replacement procedure).

Obviously it will void warranty (and 3660 are new models, therefore atm are covered) and don't forget to put a layer of thermal paste (at least 0.2mm).

Another options are:
a) adding extra weight/mass of tins over it (although attaching it and ensuring good thermal conductivity might be tricky), just make sure it's fixed properly because if it detaches and falls onto MB or other elements it will very likely shortcut some elements leading to sad results.
b) ensuring better airflow in this area (more active cooling)
+ some other options or combination of those.

I've dropped PCH temp by 15 degrees down to 59 I think (it was seventy something before that, most likely even higher under stress) by replacing it with proper one.

Although it might not be required since it possibly just throttles down.

I guess Dell (or whichever outsource company OEMs their MBs) has decided to avoid risk of additional failures during transportation since vibration (or just higher Gs) of some heavier mass over chip might lead to damaging PCH, mine also has blocked x4 PCIe since PCH is located right next to it (still can mount some shorter boards there, e.g. WiFi/LAN/Nvme adapters) - {my precision is a different model}.

I have concerns regarding this cheap chipset cooler,
in a Poweredge 2950 this cooler was flipped over,
because of bad fixture ... see photo attached.

BUT the Server was still running for a long time (i discovered this at a maintenance task)

The picture shows the Dell PowerEdge 2950 Server with his chipset cooler.
i found the fixture a few inches aways and placed it for a reference picture to the failed solder joint...

Jürgen

Yeah, doesn't look good but not a worst either since it did not shorted anything,
probably just degraded some performance due to thermal throttling,
or at least reduced operating life expectancy.
Those soldering defects are perfect warranty candidates.