My 1st Lapping attempt

[{SAS}TB]

Most of you will have seen this originally posted in the {SAS} forum about a year ago, but thought it may be of interest ..........

I whipped the Thermalright 120 Extreme out and cleaned the base and as you can see the base doesnt have a bad finish as standard:




However by putting a new craft knife blade across the the base in both directions it was plain to see that it was nowhere near "flat".





So chip and Cooler cleaned and ready to go .........

[{SAS}TB]

To protect the chip, i cut a piece of the foam packing from the Cooler to the size of the base and masking taped it on.



So armed with 400, 600, 1200 and 1500 grit off i went



I decided to start with the cooler incase i cocked it up :P

After only a few strokes the plating started to come away

[{SAS}TB]

Initially from the edge and then it started to form a section in the middle, proving my "Non flat" theory



So after getting the plating off the cooler I decided to start on teh CPU

Mr Grit, Meet Mr CPU



Again after a few minutes, the edges came away showing that the case wasnt flat.

[{SAS}TB]

So after the 400 grit, they were looking like this



Next into the 600, and things were getting a bit easier

[{SAS}TB]

Still along way from the desired finish



The 1200 felt a bit more like polishing than sanding and started to look a bit more like ....



The 1500 took a while, and after a quick final polish with some Brasso and then cleaned off with Nail Varnish remover the "Mirror" like finish was worth it

[{SAS}TB]

[{SAS}TB]

It took a good three hours, about 10 sheets of grit 1/2 roll of masking tape and several cups of coffee



And finally back it its rightfull place



So after all that it appears to have worked the idle temps are down around 4 to 6 degrees per core and the four cores are now within about 3 degrees of each other where they were 6 to 8 or so apart before

[Lloyd_mcse]

Nice lapp mate!
I've lapped my E6850, it came out very nice. Though i only went to 1000 grit, as i heard that anything over 800 grit is a waste. I'm gonna try and prove that wrong soon. I will post my findings soon.

[Bully]

I think i will try lapping my next cpu.

[Ya Mother]

Im just in awe everytime i see this thread....i havent got the patience.