Installation

Installation begins with Noctua's SecuFirm back plate that lets you select between the target socket type using three sets of mounting holes: A for LGA1366, B for LGA1156/LGA1155, and C for LGA775. We're installing on LGA1366. Drive the four bolts with hexagonal heads through the set of mounting holes, while ensuring they're firmly in. Two of the hexagon's sides should align with the walls of the ridge on the back plate. Flip the back plate and remove the rubber inlay. It needs to be retained for LGA775.


Drive the bolts through the back of the motherboard. Flip the board, and ensure that the bolts are all erect. If any are slanting, chances are you messed up with the mounting hole part. Place the black plastic spacers over each bolt.

Now place the two arc-shaped mounting bars, with the curves facing outwards. As with the back plate, the bolts must be passed through the complementing mounting holes on the mounting bars. Fasten the mounting bars using the thumb screws.


Apply the included thermal compound. Noctua's compound appears to be a gray, silver-based compound that is viscous. It is also surprisingly cohesive and took some effort to break the strand of TIM by pulling the syringe. It drew out more TIM than was required from the syringe, as pictured above. On a second try I got it right, before installing the cooler to run the tests.


Now comes the boss-fight of the NH-C14's installation. Take a good look at that square cutout in the aluminum fin array. There are two of those, and the installation requires you to use the provided Allen key-shaped screwdriver and pass through that hole to reach the spring-nut that comes fixed to the heatsink base. The spring-nut has to align with the protruding bolts on each of the mounting bars. Make yourself familiar with this mechanic before proceeding to place the heatsink on the motherboard.

Now place the heatsink onto the motherboard. It's not a symmetrical heatsink, and isn't extremely stable as you place it, put some effort into keeping it stable. Now pass the included screwdriver through that square hole I talked about, reach the spring-nut, and applying pressure (against the spring), fasten the nut (clockwise). The pressure must ensure that the nut is driving itself into the fixed bolt below. Once you've made a few turns into the bolt, move on to the next spring-nut and bolt. If you completely fasten the first one, the second one will loose alignment or become very tough to fasten. Connect the two fans to the Y-cable, connect that to your CPU fan power header.

On a scale of 1 (hardest) to 10 (easiest), I would rate the NH-C14's ease of installation at 6. Notwithstanding its difficult shape, you will almost always need to get the motherboard out of the case for a failsafe installation.