Yeah it is epoxied. Why do you want to remove it? It's way too risky to remove the heatsink from the M1697, you might rip the whole chip from the mobo anytime
Why do you need to rip out the Northbridge heatsink? If you want to improve the temperatures of the NB you gotta attach a mini fan onto it. Ripping out the heatsink will possibly tear apart the chipset which you don't want it to happen anyway.
