This may sound like a completely n00bish question, but I wasn't exactly certain. Tis' why I posted here. Anyway, most of the time when dealing with cooling a CPU you almost always want something OTHER than stock. And most of time, more advanced CPU heatsinks require you to remove the retension plate and socket mount (for the heatsink to be held in place). My question is, does this void most motherboard warrantys? I've never worried about this in the past but after loosing my rig because of mobo failure (I've rebuilt it since then) and having the warranty void b/c of water cooling, I just wanted to make sure before I slap another nice heatsink on there. (I had to sell the watercooling parts because.. well they were just garbage.. Thermaltake is great but not really high quality if you know what I mean. Plus I needed the extra cash for rebuilding.) LMK! Thanks a bunch guys.

It's possible, as using anything but a stock cooler on a retail CPU voids that warranty, removing the stock heatsink on a videocard, save eVGA or XFX (can't recall), voids that warranty, and so forth. However, there is no real way of telling aslong as you throw the stock part on there before RMA'ing.

Hmm.. Good point.