Benefits of lapping

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Just thought I'd let everyone who was considering lapping their CPU, my e6600 idle temps have dropped from 44 to 38 :D

e6600_lap.jpg


Not bad for a few quid and an hours work. :)
 
Jokester said:
What about you're load temps?

Jokester

Load temps abit less, 4-5 degrees off. It was definitely concave from the wear though.

Robbie G said:
How did you do it / method guide please :)

I followed the guide, and used 400, 600, 1500 and 2500 grade sandpaper. Only the first 2 grades were necessary, the mirror polish was probably only for show :D

I mounted each piece of sandpaper on a piece of glass using masking tape (I used glass table mats which worked superbly). Otherwise followed the guide in the sticky. I stopped when all the silver had gone.

Darren1987 said:
nice finish to it :)

how much did it cost for the different grades of sandpaper? are the higher grit a lot more expensive or not?

Thanks :D

I got the 1500 and the 2500 off fleabay as my local place were out. I think that was £5 inc delivery (rip off, but what can you do). The 400 and 600 grades were about 50p each or something, not a lot. The sheets were A4 sized, so I have some left over.
 
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I thought about it but it looked pretty flat. Maybe next time :)

I agree though it would probably be worth it.

edit:

Here you can see that the CPU started to wear away first at the corners, indicating a concave IHS:-

progress_lap_2.jpg
 
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Ahh fantastic, was talking about this in a thread recently. Im definately giving it a go once my oc is done.
Well done good job.
So I assume by what your saying its worth stopping at 800 grit?
mark
 
Thanks :)

Well I felt that after 800 the work of flattening the CPU was done. Once flat, polishing it smooth with the 1500 and 2500 certainly took off some copper, so it could be of additional benefit. Perhaps not as much as the earlier grades.
 
To me this is just a cost effective way of getting the last MHz out of your CPU when OC'ing and really its only the load temps difference which really means anything, but good Job.
 
truebluecfc said:
To me this is just a cost effective way of getting the last MHz out of your CPU when OC'ing and really its only the load temps difference which really means anything, but good Job.

As said above the load temps were about 4-5 degrees down from there previous values.

Not sure if it is good or bad for the CPU to be honest, but as there are no moving parts then I wouldn't have thought vibration would be a problem.
 
I would have thought there would be a bigger drop on load temps than idle - at least thats what happened when I have lapped my 2 previous cpu's. :confused:
 
I perhaps wasn't entirely accurate on the measurements of my previous idle temps. I tend to concentrate on load.

It should also be noted that when I took the PC apart to lap the CPU, I changed one of the exhaust fans from an Antec to a Yate Loon :)
 
Some blocks - Swiftech for sure - are now intentionally not flat. This is because a block which exerts more pressure in the center has been shown to perform a bit better than a completely flat block.

Swiftech state that the block should under no circumstances be lapped.
 
I thought that ridges in a heatsink for example were because that gives increased surface area. Smoothening the bottom of a heatsink would make it less effective in my opinion.

although i see this isnt a heatsink :)
 
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