Freeder Posted September 27, 2004 Posted September 27, 2004 I just received my Thermalright XP-90 a few days ago from frozencpu.com. With giddy anticipation I opened the xp-90 box to find the top side fins bent in many places--I was PISSED. Man how can Frozencpu.com sent such a poorly handled heatsink to me? I emailed to them about this... well, that is another post. It took me over an hour to try and set the fins straight again, which was such a pain man. After that I read the instructions on how to install it on my DFI Lanparty Pro875-B mobo, it was easy sailing after that. The xp-90 sat on a thin layer of Artic Silver 5 then on my P4 3.0c chip. I then booted up and went straight to overclocking it to 900 fsb @ 3.39 ghz 1:1 dram (thats the highest it'll go with 1:1 so far on my crappy mixed dual channeled ram, i'm waiting for my PQI turbo 3200 2-2-2-5 ram to come in for some real oc excitement). Got into Windows XP and Prime95'ed it right away, I dont care for idle temp readings so it wont be mentioned. (BTW i'm using an Enermax Highflow 92mm fan 66cfm @ 34.5 db) Two instances of Prime95 ran for 12 hours straight without errors and temp readings I got was 46.5 c and the case temp @ 34 c. Not bad huh? Though I wasn't satisfied with the seating of the hs so I decided to do it again and got a WORST temp reading--48 c! And so I decided to reseat the hs again, and that's when I noticed the scratches and grooves that were on the base, probably from my inexperience of installing the xp-90 on my first and second try. So what did i thought of: LAP IT! I had no prior experience what so ever with lapping, but do know the basics of it. I used a 600 grit to sand it down, then 1000 to smooth it further, then finished it off with a 2000 grit to polish. It was like a copper mirror--that's right, I sanded it down till all the nickel coating on the base was gone ! I messed up with the sanding of it quite a bit at first with all these odd techniques I developed. The best, and last, one that worked was taping the sheet of sandpaper to a flat table and pressing down on the sides of the lower P4 clips and do mostly up-down and few side-to-side sanding then turning the hs upside down and repeat. It would of saved a few milimeters of the base if knew about it first. Hoping for the best i reseated the noobly lapped xp-90 back, and it was still a snug fit after all that I shaved off! Boot up Windows and is now still running two Prime95s for the past two hours: cpu temp.... 43 c!!!!!!!!!! and case @ 34 c still. What a difference huh? Well that was my lapping story, hoped this help out somebody. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
spectrascope Posted September 27, 2004 Posted September 27, 2004 great results Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
littleaznkid Posted September 27, 2004 Posted September 27, 2004 Man i wish i can do lapping like that. fuzzy to shinny copper. =p good job man! from 46 to 43 is good. wonder what happen when you put a tornado in there... lol Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
slayer2cool Posted September 27, 2004 Posted September 27, 2004 bah but since you sanded away your nickel coat, your copper will tarnish hahaha so it wont be shiny for long.. but i dont think it should affect the performance though ..hmmmm or does it? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
suchuwato Posted September 27, 2004 Posted September 27, 2004 the bit that matters is the part in contact with the cpu... that bit is covered (if done right) with thermal paste, therefore no air, so the copper won't go bad Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
r_target Posted September 27, 2004 Posted September 27, 2004 Lapping is great. It made my Spark 7+ actually worth using. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccokeman Posted September 28, 2004 Posted September 28, 2004 Thermalrights contact surface finishing has gotten worse IMO I actually had to lap my sp-94. But my slk900a was as smooth as could be. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
worker Posted September 28, 2004 Posted September 28, 2004 I was looking at the sp-90. It looked good. Maybe frozencpu handled it bad get it form some were esles maybe work better. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BabyBalrog Posted October 16, 2004 Posted October 16, 2004 I was looking at the sp-90. It looked good. Maybe frozencpu handled it bad get it form some were esles maybe work better. Yea me too, think it will let my 3000+90n get to 2.6 Ghz Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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