My volcano is very noisy, so I purchased a new cooling fan, however I can't remove my old heatsink/fan combo. The clips attaching it seem solid (tried a screwdriver etc). I have an athlon xp1600 on an ECS MB.
While difficult, you may need to pull the motherboard out of the case in order to remove this heatsink. Mine took a tremendous amount of force to get that clip down and pried away from the plastic flange. My wife has a similar set up as you do for her computer, and I just changed hers from the volcano to a delta screamer ( yikes! ) and now we went with the Zalman flower ( 92 mm fan hovering over the all copper fanned out heatsink....quiet and dropped temps quite a bit! )
Just make sure you are using the right sized screwdriver so it doesn't slip out and scratch the motherboard
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do it right, do it yourself. If that doesn't work, prepare to pay for your mistakes.
this is why i like having my slk947u since it attaches to the board itself with the mounting holes. just remove the 4 screws and the heatsink comes off
heatsinks are in my opinion, the hardest part of making a computer.. you may have to take the board out like they suggest, i had to to take off a heatsink the other day..
and makaveli, yes, but just try to keep the heatsink level as you work, and dont put a lot of extra pressure on it
I ended up getting it out without taking apart everything. Basically it was impossible until I used the right size flat head screwdriver. Use a size that will fit the little flange exactly and then when you push down even a little it applies the pressure evenly allowing you to take the clip off.
this is why i like having my slk947u since it attaches to the board itself with the mounting holes. just remove the 4 screws and the heatsink comes off 
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