Lapped Q9550

Jon20 · 28 Apr 2009 at 12:28

I decided to lap my Q9550 as I had already lapped my TRUE Black. Bit of a strange feeling rubbing a £200 CPU against some sandpaper. Anyway on to the pics.

To start with I put the black plastic backing on to protect the rear of the CPU. I then stuck some duck tape over it to keep it sealed.

This was after a few passes of 400grit. As you can see the IHS was a bit concave.

After 400grit

After 600 and 800grit

After 1000 and 1500grit

Now at this point I could have stopped as the IHS was flat, but as I had some 2000 and 2500grit wet and dry, I decided to go for the obligatory shiny shot

After 2000 and 2500grit

Now on to the temps. Q9550 is at 3.4GHz. This was before the lapping after a prime95 overnight run.
http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/4125/34ghz8hoursprime95stabl.jpg
Idle 37-37-43-39 (obviously before the run)
Load 60-59-64-60

After lapping with a quick 15min prime95 run with small fft's

Idle 30-30-36-32
Load 57-55-59-57

So for a couple of hours of work I've knocked 7c off the idle temps and 3-5c off the load temps.

RJC · 28 Apr 2009 at 12:40

Looking good

magicroundabout · 28 Apr 2009 at 13:01

top job there.

Banny · 28 Apr 2009 at 13:57

very nice lap, good finish.

FaceplantSi · 28 Apr 2009 at 17:48

Yeah nice job of that. Makes me tempted to do my own as I get very similar temps to yours before lapping.

Good work!

Jon20 · 28 Apr 2009 at 18:21

Thanks for the comments.

Mr. May · 28 Apr 2009 at 18:31

how hard was this too do because ive just bought a pack of 400 600 800 1200 2000 grit sand paper for £2.50 lol

any tips befor i destroy my q6600 ?

setter · 28 Apr 2009 at 19:13

It's not hard technically, but it certainly is physically

, make sure to use a flat surface, piece of glass is ideal, also when lapping, dont put to much weight on the cpu to force it into the sand paper, to check that its leveling properly use a new craft knife blade on the surface while held up to the light, as seen above, place the cpu in its protective cover and tape round the edges to prevent dust getting inside the chip.

Jon20 · 28 Apr 2009 at 22:47

Mr. May said:
how hard was this too do because ive just bought a pack of 400 600 800 1200 2000 grit sand paper for £2.50 lol any tips befor i destroy my q6600 ?

setter said:
It's not hard technically, but it certainly is physically, make sure to use a flat surface, piece of glass is ideal, also when lapping, dont put to much weight on the cpu to force it into the sand paper, to check that its leveling properly use a new craft knife blade on the surface while held up to the light, as seen above, place the cpu in its protective cover and tape round the edges to prevent dust getting inside the chip.

Yeah basically what setter said. It is very simple to do, you would have to be incredibly heavy handed to do any damage I would think. Only couple of things that I would add are to sand in one direction for a minute or so and then rotate the CPU 90 degrees and continue. Keep doing this all the way up the grades of paper. Also clean the metal dust off the CPU fairly frequently as you'll just be rubbing it back on to the surface, and causing light scratches, which would require more sanding to get out.

/Thom\ · 29 Apr 2009 at 01:01

Nice lapping, though you used a lot of different grits i noticed :O i used like.. 2 on mine : but still nice results, though it took you a while longer then me too, but the shiny cpu is slightly pleasing to the eye it must be said haha. the temp gains were worth it imo

nice work

Mr. May · 29 Apr 2009 at 21:38

thank you guys iam going too get some 3000grit and go ll the way on it i am going to try it on my fried 3000+ athlon 64

and a old heat sink

ill try take some pictures when i do it still dont know how too upload them lol

setter · 29 Apr 2009 at 21:44

No real need to go any higher than 1500 grit, 2000 and above only puts a mirror shine on the cpu, which is gonna be covered by a heatsink anyway. The important thing is getting the surface nice and flat.

OzZie · 29 Apr 2009 at 22:41

Yesterday i lapped my Q6600 G0 (1.3250v VID), not really because of worrying temperatures, but because it looked easy from the videos on YouTube.

Only took about an hour to do. I used 400,600,800,1200 & 1500 from halfords (£10 for the lot), but you get 4 large sheets of each grit level. I used my flat kitchen worktop and just did an equal amount of movement in all four directions of the CPU (rotating 90 degrees after each). The most worrying thing i found was that i couldn't get the thermal paste to spread evenly across two sides of the CPU, no matter how hard i tried.

My idle temp's have dropped around 3 degrees, and my load temps around 4-5, although how much of that is down to different thermal paste is arguable. (MX-2 over Tuniq TX-2 that was on before). However, i'm certain the surface is flatter as the difference in temps between my cores has decreased by 2-3 degrees. Now under load they are within 1 degree of each other, and idle no more than 2 degrees. Before they were around 5-7 degrees.

/Thom\ · 1 May 2009 at 01:05

tbh i think thats a good result ozZie, that main reason for lapping for me, when it comes down to it was to bring the temps closer together across the cores.

On another note, slight hijack of thread, but so far how would you rate MX-2? can you compare it to AS5?

OzZie · 1 May 2009 at 11:25

Well the fact that it takes no time at all to bed or settle in is great. I used to use AS5 all the time a few years back when it was the paste to use, but MX-2 seems to top all at the moment, although your only looking at a few degrees at best. However, but it together with the lapping process and your looking at quite a nice temperature drop.

I would happily use it on all components.