lapped my IHS on a Q6600 (pics and results)

[graysky]

Well, after lapping my HS, I've had this nagging little voice in my head telling me to do the same from the CPU. I did the job with 800 grit sandpaper. Initially, I told myself I'd just buff what's there right now just to see if it's level. After about 30 laps in one direction and 30 in the other direction I discovered I had quite a concave IHS. So I just kept at it. Two 9x11 pieces of 800 grit later paper later I was left with a darn flat layer of copper looking back at me. I finished the job and put a mild shine on it with a sheet of 1000 grit I got from the local auto parts store just for the f*ck of it.

Here are a few pics and the temp. results I got from lapping both my CPU and HS. I would recommend that anyone wanting the best $20 decrease in temps should consider lapping both the CPU and HS.

Hardware details: Q6600 @ 9x333 and vcore of 1.2625V in the BIOS, P5B Deluxe (vdroop modded) cooled w/ an Ultra-120 Extreme (lapped) with Scythe/s-flex SFF21F 1600RPM fan, in a P182 case:

Temp results:

Each temp. point represents an average of data collected over approx. 1 h time period during the 2nd pass of a 2-pass x264 encode of a 720x480 DVD source using a high quality video profile. Data points were logged by Speedfan every 3-4 seconds over this time period. The average CPU usage was >99 % on all 4 cores throughout the experiments. Also room temp was between 20-22 °C.

This is my preferred setup: 8x10 piece of glass on a flat counter top. You can see I cut the sandpaper into a thin strip (about 2-3x the width of the CPU) and attached it to the glass with some tape. The glass is in turn tapped down to the counter top to keep everything immobilized. You'll want to moisten the sandpaper with some mildly soapy water (like 1 drop of dish soap in 1 liter of water), then blot it until you have no pools of water. Remember, if you get water into your chip you're sunk. Then simple hold the chip and gently move it front-to-back. I don't recommend doing circles since they tend to give uneven results. The copper color on the sandpaper is material I just removed from the IHS on the chip.



Remember, you're after a flat chip here so don't push down on it as you lap: let the weight of your hands do it without extra pressure and go slowly so you don't use uneven pressure. After about 30 laps front-to-back, I gently blotted off the chip with a moist paper towel to remove the metal particles I just sanded off, then rotated it 90 degrees and repeated 30 laps front-to-back. Then you'll want to clean off the sand paper (add more water, then blot it damp and repeat). I'd recommend changing the sand paper frequently since it's really doing the work for you. That's basically it. You can start with 400 grit or so and lap until you can't see variations in the surface of the chip (no silver color is often a good indication that you're flat), move up to 600 or 800, then finish off with 1000 or 1200. I did mine entirely with 800 and 1000, it just takes longer with finer grits. Remember, the key is FLAT, not shiny. I would recommend that you do NOT polish the chip with a metal polish since you'll leave behind a residue that will hurt your heat transfer.

You can test the flatness at any point during the lapping process by carefully placing a razor blade across the surface of he chip and looking at the area where the razor meets the chip. Now position your eye so that you're level with the chip and pointing at a light source (a lamp will do nicely). Do you see any light coming though? If so, keep at it. Another test you can do is to take a black sharpie marker and make about 9 dots in a 3x3 grid on the surface of the IHS. Lap about 5 times, rotate, and do 5 more. Now look at the dots... did they wear off evenly? If not, keep at it. You can also simply draw an "X" from corner to corner on the chip and do this as well. Again, you'll looking for even wear.

After about 5 minutes of lapping in each direction with 800 grit. You can see how the nickel plating has come off around the edges first which shows you just how concave this thing really was:


After more lapping most of the nickel plating has been removed expect in the really low areas (the camera flash fired so close to the chip makes all the scratches show up much more so than they do under normal light):


Switched to 1000 grit, here's the result:


Another angle shows the nice dull reflection, still very so slightly concave at the extreme edges, but good enough for me:


I would recommend that anyone wanting the best $20 decrease in temps should consider lapping both the CPU and HS.

Oh, I also thought I'd mention that before I lapped the chip, I had a pretty big difference in core temps when loading with prime95 or 2x orthos: up to 6 degrees C (sorry I don't have a screenshot of this). Lapping the chip REALLY evened-them-out as you can see from the coretemp numbers after the IHS and base of the heatsink were lapped (stressed using prime95 v25.3):



The table I showed above was not based on prime95 or orthos, it was based on x264.exe which is a video encoder. It is good at using all 4 cores, but not as efficient as prime95/orthos which explains the differences in temps from that table.

[Reign]

that's a nice result. i don't have the guts to lap my cpu's

[graysky]

Sure you do dude. Start off with your HS, and once you feel comfortable with it (practice/developed your technique) I'm sure you can do your CPU no problem. That was the evolution of it for me anyway.

[Colossus]

I personally do not think it is worth the loss of a warranty to save 5 degrees at best.

It is quite difficult to asertain that the changings in temp is a direct relation to the lapping. The only way you can compare that is if each test did not contain any thermal compound.

[graysky]

It is quite difficult to asertain that the changings in temp is a direct relation to the lapping. The only way you can compare that is if each test did not contain any thermal compound.

I dunno about that... I had the same AS5 on there when both were stock. The lapping is clearly making a difference.

[Colossus]

Lapping is not going to make that much of a difference, but the way the paste is spreaded wont be act from the first application to the next. So that thicknessof that paste would make a difference.

So for accurate delta difference, you need to use zero paste.

What do you mean the paste was the same? You cant keep the same paste on through a lapping :P and once you remove the heatsink from the core after it was pasted, its a good idea to redo the pasting.

So with that said, I extremely doubt there was a 10 degree difference with lap vs unlap. There have been other people who lapped that saw maybe 3 degree difference. Even removing the LHS completely did not lead to a 10c difference.

[graysky]

I didn't mean to imply that it was the same TIM, but that temps were measured using TIM before and after.

[Nater]

Overclocking is going to void the warranty anyway, why not lap it?

[graysky]

I just edited/updated the first post of the thread with a few more pics and a brief description of how I lapped the chip for anyone interested.

[nattylife]

i will be doing this this weekend. it was a pain in the *** to find 2000 grit sandpaper, but i was lucky to find it at an auto parts store.

[proxops-pete]

That is an awesome job you did!!

[graysky]

@NL - you don't actually need the 2000 grit... it can't hurt, but 800-1000 is fine. So you're running 9x344?

Is your Q6600 a B3 or G0?
What is your vcore?
What are your load temps?

[Nater]

Have you found any benefit from wet sanding? I dry sanded and used compressed air (re: Duster) to blow of the particulate matter. Wet sanding should give you smoother surface, but I'm not sure if you really worth the extra effort.

[ChaosEnsues]

Overclocking is going to void the warranty anyway, why not lap it?

Because when you send it in because it fried, they won't be able to tell it was overclocked, but lapping will be obvious. I don't lap my heatsinks because Swiftech is very particular about their surface finish - there's no way I'm going to improve on what they can do. As for the CPU, I'm not worried about voiding warranty, but more worried about going a bit to far, or weakening it, etc.

[Nater]

I know AMD said they can tell if you've upped the FSB beyond it's rated spec. That might just be FUD, but they said it. I'm sure if AMD can do it, so to can intel.