-
Join the MyBroadband community
South Africa’s biggest forum. Discuss, discover, and connect with thousands of members.
-
Question of the Day: What's the most interesting small town you've visited in South Africa?
Lapping heatsink...
- Thread starter TheRift
- Start date
In theory it should work. Thermal compound is a relatively poor conductor when compared to a metal heatsink, but thousands times better than air. I think a lot would depend on your particular processor and heatsink? Only one to find out....
If you lap your cooler you might as well do your CPU also, Makes more sens having both surfaces flat instead of just 1.
I did see a temp difference but depending on your cooler you might be better off adding a faster or another fan to the cooler.
There is not much point going further than 1200 Grit and don't use brasso (or similar product) to polish it after
I did see a temp difference but depending on your cooler you might be better off adding a faster or another fan to the cooler.
There is not much point going further than 1200 Grit and don't use brasso (or similar product) to polish it after
SirFooK'nG
Executive Member
I have the cooler master V8, its contact surface area was milled and pretty much level. So I did not lap that. I did lap my Q6600, man was that uneven! My Wife also runs the Q6600, stock cooler and stock speeds. At Idle I run about 26C under load 41C, My wife's runs idle @ 34C and load at 55C. My Q6600 is Oc'd to 3.0ghz from 2.4ghz. So yeah theres a nice improvement. Before the lapping and V8 I would hit 65C - 70C easy under load (using prime95).
Last edited:
Thanks for the info. I'm not entirely keen on lapping my CPU's heat spreader though. I'm hoping to purchase it later this week so would prefer keeping it stock for a while just in case it needs to go back.
I assume of course that you guys have used silver paste when doing this. It's the best heat conductor.
IRG, those temp drops sound excellent. There is still cold weather time left before summer arrives. My stupid house boils during CPT summers so I'll order a suitable new heatsink close to summer, lap it and try it out.
The other thing that bugs me with lapping a CPU is static build up. All that rubbing should wind up building static on the CPU, or so it would seem to me.
I assume of course that you guys have used silver paste when doing this. It's the best heat conductor.
IRG, those temp drops sound excellent. There is still cold weather time left before summer arrives. My stupid house boils during CPT summers so I'll order a suitable new heatsink close to summer, lap it and try it out.
The other thing that bugs me with lapping a CPU is static build up. All that rubbing should wind up building static on the CPU, or so it would seem to me.
SirFooK'nG
Executive Member
I gained about 3C - 5C with the lapp, not that much. But the V8 was impressive. (The coolermaster Sphere was usless - no better than the stock cooler).
As for summer temps, ambient temps make a huge difference. Your PC idle temps will always be hotter than ambient. So in durbs when it's crazy hot (32C + humidy factor) I will Idle at about 36-40C and peak at 55-60C. Only water cooling gonna get betta than that. But at least I'm still way under the 71C limitations of my CPU with the overclock. I only lapped after my CPU warrenty was done!
Edit: BTW the total design of your case's air flow is very important. Its no use having the hot air just circulate without venting it out. I have a big fan infront of my HDD bays, sucking clean, cool air from infront of my case. Which then passes over my Hard drives to my GTX280, my vent out is directly behind my CPU, (and V8 - which obviously has its own fan) it is also a big fan!! Cool air for my CPU is sucked from vents in the top of my case. Keeping the airflow good is key!
Last edited:
3-5C is quite a bit difference. Yes, I'm aware of it all being relative to ambient temps. That's why I'm enquiring about lapping in order to reduce the amount above ambient.
In my current CM Stacker case I have the crossflow tube fan. A little life saver that as it actually clears out some heat build up behind the motherboard. I might transfer it to the new case. I would however like to find some sort of duct to vent the drive heat out. I built up an air duct from fibreglass for the CPU heatsink, but never tried it out ... I got too high from the fumes.
The idea is to get a phenom II 955 but for budget reasons I'll start out with the stock heatpipe-based cooler and get a TRUE later on with a high flow, high pressure fan.
Not very keen on water cooling since the best seem to be massive and expensive external units. The self-contained pre-built units don't seem to beat air cooling in the reviews I've seen.
I have a couple of high-power TECs lying around, but those things suck up some huge power and let's not talk about the condensation issues. I saw some cooler the other day which used a TEC on the heatpipes.
In my current CM Stacker case I have the crossflow tube fan. A little life saver that as it actually clears out some heat build up behind the motherboard. I might transfer it to the new case. I would however like to find some sort of duct to vent the drive heat out. I built up an air duct from fibreglass for the CPU heatsink, but never tried it out ... I got too high from the fumes.
The idea is to get a phenom II 955 but for budget reasons I'll start out with the stock heatpipe-based cooler and get a TRUE later on with a high flow, high pressure fan.
Not very keen on water cooling since the best seem to be massive and expensive external units. The self-contained pre-built units don't seem to beat air cooling in the reviews I've seen.
I have a couple of high-power TECs lying around, but those things suck up some huge power and let's not talk about the condensation issues. I saw some cooler the other day which used a TEC on the heatpipes.
killadoob
Honorary Master
SirFooK'nG
Executive Member
Did it all on the same day took about 3-4 hours between 10H00 and 14:00. Changing cooler fans took about 15 min each time. (hate pulling mobo out - but hey was worth it!) - took about 45min to lapp the cpu to a nice finish.
I started with the CM Sphere - No lapping, then put on the Stock cooler - No lapping, Put the V8 on also unlapped. Then Lapped the CPU only with the V8, have left it like that ever since. Using the CM Ammo case on a GA-P35-DS3L MB. I Ran both OC'd and Stock clocks with all. My aim was to run min 3.0ghz at temps below 60C (was mid summer when I did this - Jan'09) on full Load with Prime. My temps often went over 70C with the stock and Sphere coolers under load - didn't want that! Also I used the arctic silver guide for applying thermal paste (used the CM paste that came with the Coolers).
As for the ambient temp, I did it in my office at a constant 26C ...
Last edited:
There shouldn't be any static if the sand paper is wet.
Nice way to get rid of the left overs.
chickenbeef
Executive Member
Unless you have something like a TRUE for exmaple (Concave base) its pointless to lap a CPU. The 5 degree improvement in performance is not worth it imo
I've been thinking of getting the TRUE in a few months time. I've seen the concave base issue so I assume flattening it enough would not need CPU lapping. Really have no hassle with heatsink lapping, but CPU lapping I'm not too keen on.
SirFooK'nG
Executive Member
the lapping was easy on the chip, used water paper and a peice of glass. I considered lapping the cooler, but its physical dimensions just didn't allow for a way to keep the contact area square. besides as I said before, i checked it in our workshop and it was really good enought not to bother. I am very pleased with my results. And I run on average 10-20C cooler than my wifes q6600, even though i'm OC'd!
I've tried the generic wet paper on other stuff before and the difference is real.