That worries me because my four thumbscrews can be tightened all the way down.

I have not tried to re-apply thermal paste. I came here to figure out the first steps I should be taking. Is thermal paste the first one? The cooler came with thermal paste applied.

I keep seeing people using this tension mount but this cooler did not come with one.

This cooler did not come with a tension mount.

I'm not really willing to stick with DDR4 or AM4 right now.

Sorry, i am just saying, i don't have air conditioning so there isn't much cold air entering the computer intakes so my tempers are higher than most people. Also, my office gets VERY hot. So i am trying to cool down my PC as best as i can.

I have been using the stock AMD cooler on my Ryzen 1700 and it performs like crap, sometimes getting up too 95C+. After talking to my friend who has the 7700 who has temps of 85C+ on the stock cooler and switched to the D15(dropping his full load temps by 20C+/-) i decided i wanted to have better cooling. Also, I live in the PNW and don't have air conditioning, which isn't needed really where i live but i don't need my computer heating my room to 80 degrees in the summer and want it to cool as well as it can, especially with that power hungry/hot GPU.

Originally i was going to get the 5800x and a GTX 4070. Then, after a lot of vodka and youtube videos i decided that i wanted to try out DDR5 and the newest Ryzen 7000 series CPU's. I had the Ryzen 1700 since release and EVERYONE said to just use the stock cooler, which i have been but it isn't really great at all and i have seen it peaking at 95C many times so i wanted a better cooler. The problem is, the cooler i picked doesn't fit in my old case so I chose the Corsair 4000D purely because of that reason. I also have been an Nvidia fanboy for years but i decided on trying out AMD cards so i picked the 6950XT for $40 less than the 4070 was going to cost me. The MOBO I chose because I have had problems with my current ASUS ROG STRIX B350-F and after looking into it, the new ASUS MOBO's are having the EXACT SAME memory issues i was having in 2017 so i am jumping off the ASUS ship.

I play 1440p/144HZ.

I've used Fieldpiece and Fluke for years and so far they have both been utter disappointments. My fluke 324 no longer reads amps and my Fieldpiece SC460 no longer reads volts. So I carry both of them right now in my bag until I get decide on which new meter I want to fail on me in the future.