Cpu And Heatsink Lapping

[Verran]

Wow, that is quite impressive. Has anyone/could you lap an aftermarket VGA cooler to a GPU. And has anyone/could you lap waterblocks?

Sure. You can lap any heatsink really. Most waterblocks that I've seen are impressively flat to begin with. But if you get them out of pre-built kits like Koolance, I'd bet that might be another case. I'm pretty sure my DangerDen 939 TDX block was lapped before it got to me. That thing was perfectly flat.

 

As for GPU coolers, I'd think that wouldn't matter as much. The contact surface on most GPUs is a lot smaller than it is on a CPU. I would think flatness would not be quite as important. It certainly couldn't hurt to try it though.

[ebarone]

I was feeling daredevilish and decided to lap my E8400 processor/heatsink about a month ago. Its very scary.. not only are you grinding off the top of your CPU with sandpaper, but theres water a few millimeters from the business end of the processor...

 

That said, I was exceedingly careful and spent about an hour on each my processor and heatsink. I saw a drop in temps between 6 and 8 degrees C using the Zalman STG1 grease, which I'm told is what you shouldnt use for best performance on a lapped CPU haha. With different/better goop I bet I could bring it down a couple more degrees, which means I could be pushing for a 10C drop overall.

 

I would say if you have the time and money to replace the proc should you accidentally drop your CPU onto the sandy watery surface, go for it, because it does help. Its also a bit of an adventure (the sole reason I did it, my temps were fine before haha), but BE CAREFUL! And have fun!

[Baulten]

Maybe I"ll give it a go with my old Athlon before I sell it to a friend.

 

Do you use the same method lapping the CPU as the heatsink? Just make sure the sandpaper is a wee bit drier?

 

Reseating my heatsink (Well, rather, bending the bracket a bunch more) dropped my temps from 62C under max load on all 4 cores to 58C... I'd love to drop it past 55. If I could do that I could probably push this to 3.7 or 3.8 GHz on air... which would be nice.

[ebarone]

<shrug> I used quite a bit of water on my sandpaper... it wasnt like a big puddle or anything but it was really wet to help the proc slide over it. I actually did my processor more than my heatsink, because I was having a lot of trouble making sure I wasnt pressing down on the HS which would've given an uneven lap. It kept falling over, really annoying. I used 200 grit for about 5 minutes, then 1000 grit for about 20 minutes on the HS, 200 -> 600 -> 1000 -> 2000 on the proc. Worked well enough

 

I will give you one word of caution though... if you do like I did and pour water onto the sandpaper and then spread it around to get it all wet, DONT USE YOUR FINGERS!! Like an idiot, I sanded the skin off the pads of my fingertips spreading the water around like that, and by the time it starts to hurt its already too late haha. And boy oh boy did it hurt. So yea... be careful

[Verran]

I dry-sanded the IHS on my Q6600. I didn't think it was any harder than wet-sanding, and it made me feel better to not have water on my $300 processor. Water and processors just don't go together in my head.

[Kuronin]

I'll look for a guide on the OCC later. Lmao, who am I kidding, I don't even have the stones to flash the BIOS on my 3870.