I finally upgraded to Ivy Bridge and socket 1155, but found myself having to buy a new cooler (HR-02 Macho) because there is no stock in the UK for any of Thermalright's 1155/1156 bolt thru kits that could have retrofitted my perfectly good IFX-14. I have been looking out for these bolt thru kits for at least six months and they have never been in stock during that time; Scan does not have a restocking date for them, and no other shops even list them any longer. I sent an email to Thermalright about the BTK's but never received a reply. The implication must be that a suitable bolt thru kit will never be available again from official Thermalright channels.

Does anybody know of any third party mounting hardware for socket 1155 that can be retrofitted to Thermalright heatsinks?

Would you consider a custom made mount instead? Don't know if you have metal work skills or tools available but this is always a possibility for heatsink fitment.

I don't have the tools or inclination for home made.

When I tear down the old system I am going to see if the new mounting hardware for the HR-02 is compatible with the IFX-14. If it is I may try contacting Thermalright to try and purchase an extra set. Surely they must supply replacement kits to people who lose them etc?

Socket 1155/56 cooler mounting holes are set to 75mm spacing; 775 holes to 72mm spacing. If the Ivy Bridge board is working OK with the stock cooler it might be easier to just drill four holes at 72mm pitch for the IFX-14. But in practice this could not be done without a severe risk of damaging the motherboard. Asrock actually do this with some of their motherboards such as the Z77 Extreme 6, they also rotate the holes slightly to stop them overlapping. It might be possible to elongate the holes in the mounting bars on the cooler to allow it to be fixed with M3 nuts and bolts, dispensing with the ThermalRight backplate.

I had the same problem with my AXP-140, so I ordered a Thermalright LGA1156 Bolt-Thru-Kit for AXP-140 from Performance PCs for only £10, including shipping to Sweden. I can't find a kit that specifically fits your HS, but if you do some searching maybe you'll find if one of them does.

The only place I could find it was in Poland. http://skinflint.co.uk/pl/475764

Your HS is also sold as Cogage Arrow, although without the back cooler, but with 1155/1156 mounting kit included.

I would be a little scared to drill holes in the motherboard for fear I might damage it! Seems high risk when the mobo costs more than the cooler.

Unfortunately the new Thermalright mounting hardware (HR-02 Macho) is not compatible with the old IFX-14 due to the cpu blocks being different sizes; the new retaining plate is shaped to fit securely on the block and will not mate with the slightly larger old design. I still seem to have a large paperweight on my hands as no luck in tracking down suitable bolt-thru kits despite much searching.

The good news is I installed the HR-02 in the new system and am very happy with it; on quiet BIOS fan profile (Gigabyte Z77-D3H, 3570k at 4.2ghz) it is running at 600 rpm idle and 960 rpm when stress testing.

If that's what he meant, it would be the worst advice I've ever read in this forum!

Anyway, good to hear that you're happy!

It seems that the solution to my problem was released by Thermalright six weeks after I gave up looking and bought a new cooler instead! How's that for timing.

Although I haven't tried out the new bolt thru kit on the IFX-14 yet, Thermalright have confirmed it is compatible. See this thread for details: Thermalright introduces VX BTK II mounting kit