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.
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.
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.
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.