The heat spreader has popped off of my P4 2.0GHz chip. What do I need to do to fix it? Is the heat spreader really needed?

Just stick the heatsink on top of the core

Over on [H] a little while ago they had a video of some guy using a milling machine to remove the spreader from a P4.

I can't even tell where and how the darn thing was mounted on there. It came off CLEAN.

I'd like to see that, any chance you can post a picture?

As Bursar said, it would probably be fine to mount the HSF directly on the core, but one thing to be somewhat concerned about would be any gaps. The stock HSF is machined to allow for the heat spreader thickness, so there may be less than optimal contact.

I don't have my digital cam with me (i am at work). But I will post a picture tonight for all to see.

Sweet, thanks!

yes also @ [H] they used a vapochill unit to cool it, however becuase the unit strats to cool after the CPU it turns on the heat made it expans and the immediate cold made it contract so the spreader came off.

they sent it to intel to and they got a shiny new one back.
It seems Intel is VERY interested in the P4's which have their heatspreaders come off, they want to see what happens.

Personally i would send it to intel and get a new one. Get in touch with them!

Even if it as an OEM chip? Where do I send it? Intel's site is probably the worst I have seen.

i also found intels site to be bad.

best thing is to e-mail support with your problem. if they start to b*it*ch* tell me and il give you a link to the reference on [H] site!

What is the link to [H]?

Trust me, if this is an OEM CPU Intel will not be interested in looking at it.
I cannot believe [H] had any luck either, they probably threatened to slag off Intel and they bent over backwards.
You could try your vendor, they will have given you anything from 30days to twelve months warranty, so you may have more luck there.

Sorry the pix are so blurry, crappy cam. So I can't send this back to Intel then huh?

I'm certainly not saying don't try Intel directly.
Give them a call, explain the situation and say "OEM or not, this should simply not happen" and see what they have got to say.
I'm only going on my past experiences with Intel and OEM CPU's.
Don't just send it to them, call first.

Thanks for the pictures.. Really quite interesting. As suggested, I would try to get in touch with an Intel rep from your region. Perhaps even a sales rep would be a good place to start. Frequently, on weekends, I see an Intel rep at stores such as Circuit City and Best Buy, if you don't see one, perhaps a drone working there would know how you could get in touch with one.

CyberGen, here is the link,
Look right @ the top:

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NDIy

It tells us that "Our processor died in such a way that Intel expressed a great interest in the dead CPU, so we sent our dead 3.06GHz Pentium 4 off to the engineers at Intel for evaluation"