lapping a heatsink?

[Lil' Timmy]

hi everyone, new guy here

so i had some new money laying around, and decided to use it on a new pc a couple of months ago.

cpu: barton 2500+, stock
case: lian-li pc-60
mobo: ga-7n400pro2
ps: vantec ion (500W)
mem: crucial xms pc3200

ok, so i finally put it together a week ago (i was busy!) and i heard that this cpu is good for overclocking, but my cpu temp is running 57C at 1.7v (stock) and ~60C at 1.7v (11x200). now, i'm new to all this overclocking business, but i understand that i probably don't have the best stock hsf if i'm already running that hot in a lian-li (that is hot right? ambient (case) temps are around 32-35C).

so anyway, i was thinking , 'hey, maybe i should get a real hsf?'. my first thought was the thermalright slk900a with like a ys tech tmd fan maybe, but now i'm thinking either the thermaltake volcano 12 or silent boost. 1) what do you guys think of those choices? 2) i understand thermaltake heatsinks need to be lapped: what the freak does that mean, and does anyone here know how to do it/have a nice web resource on the subject??

thanks for any help/info!!!!!!

-lt

p.s. oh also, does anyone here know how to adjust the multiplier on the gigabyte mobos? crtl-f1 lets me mess with the memory and fsb, but how do i adjust the dumb multiplier? am i poked on this?

[Demrok]

Hey Timmy, Welcome to PCA!

I say Volcano12
quiet, from the one I saw, and blows air like a mutha!
I have a Volcano 5 on one of my other machines, good HS

I was gonna buy Volcano12myself, but decided against it at the time because I didn't plan on OCing my XP2600+... now I want to

[Lil' Timmy]

thanks for the welcome, demrok!

yeah, i've been looking around, and i like the adjustible speed feature on the volcano12. problem is i thught the thermalrights are generally better than thermaltakes, but maybe that was pre-volcano12..

anyway, i was also looking in this forum and some others at previous posts on lapping, and it sounds like it involves 'fluids' and 'grit' and 'water' and 'paper' and it generally sounds like a mess.. is this something that needs to be done to a new performance hsf? or is this something only freaks do? i can be a freak if i need to, i just don't want to put much effort into it. i mean, if it's only maybe going to give me a degree or so difference, i'm not going to spend anytime on it..

well, thanks for the recomendation, i'm going to follow it i think. now i'm wondering if i should go and find out how to oc my radeon..

-lt

[nexus_7]

it generally wont help more then 1-2 degrees so I say wy bother. your temps sound wy to high. make sure you use artic silver of some sort and not that dumb ass pad many heatsinks come with. I still sugest thermalright products over thermaltake, but thermaltake has been getting better over the years. and there quiet stuff seems to do very well. as for the v12, that fan as far as I know is still untested (hasent been out for long) so I dont know how well it will stand up to dust and the like.

Welcome, stay around, we are usually nice, and spread the word.

Greg

[Demrok]

honestly, I'm not 100% sure which is better myself lol
BUT I do know I looked at the Volcano12 and it WAS nice....

as for lapping... I say meh don't bother
I've taken 800 grit wet/dry sandpaper and polished down a few HS's before

you have do it on a perfectly flat surface, I did it on a piece of glass, and make sure that the HS gets polished flat...
I even did it on the core cover of a Celeron 400 way back when it was the cool thing to do

I didn't notice any difference really...
I think it's a bit too much of going outta your way to bother doing

if you wanna go ALL out and polish it up nice and reflective like and add some arctic silver, I'm sure you'd see a one or 2 degree change....maybe

[Pugsley]

you dont want it PERFECT mirror finish... this reduses the surace area on the bototm of the HS. you want it to be a hazy mirror finsh.

[Demrok]

lol yes, that is true Pugsley

[Lil' Timmy]

Ok well, I ordered the 'silent boost' and some acrtic silver3 from crazypc. I wasn't sure which of the three to go with, so I went with the cheapest I'll definitely let you guys know how it goes. Is it going to be hard to remove the pad-suff on the core from my stock hsf? Also, should I bother trying to unlock my athlon? I mean, what would the benefit of that be?

thanks to all for you help

-lt

[Demrok]

No it's not hard to get the thermal pad off, you may need some degrease of some sort to get it of...like goo gone or something... I used WD40 then cleaned it really well

and Unlocking your Athalon will give you the ability to change the CPU's settings, if you want to Overclock that puppy, you will need to do it

sounds like you won't be disappointed with what ya got !

[Seth]

so I went with the cheapest

well remember the cheapeast might not be the best.

[Lil' Timmy]

yea, true seth.. but i mean, i read like too many reviews of several different ones, and based my discision on that really..

price
performance
noise level
price

that's the order of my thought process (usually just regarding sex though.. so maybe you're on to something!)

but um, so what exactly is the multiplier? and how will i adjsut it if my bios doesn't have a way to do it (there's some gigabyte software called easytune that has a greyed out multiplier changer..). is reaching "3200+" via the fsb different (in terms of performance) than doing it with a multiplier change? or are you just saying i can go past the 200mhz fsb. btw, does setting the fsb higher than that actually do anything, performance wise? isn't that a real, physical limit of the chipset?

thanks,
-lt

[Demrok]

CPU's can go past what they are "locked" at speed wise. They are tested and once they find a stable speed they lock it so it stays that way... Until you get the speed freaks in there with their huge HS/F Your Multiplier takes your FSB and times it by itself, unlocking your multiplier will allow you to take your CPU from say... 200mhz x 10 and bump it to.... 205 x 10.5 (if I am not mistaken here )

my motherboard allows me to go up in 1mhz increments in the bios, so I would just keep upping it until I find a stable speed that I like. Unlocking your CPU is done by (or at least WAS done by...) taking a pencil and shading a line in across your L1 bridge I believe. I gotta find out how to do mine

[Lil' Timmy]

Ok, so I got the Silent Boost and put it in after diligently following the instructions I got from the arctic silver website. I used mainly acetone and a 'lens cloth' to clean the surfaces involved. I'm both pleased and dissapointed. The cpu's only running about 5C cooler than it did with the stock hsf, but it's noticably quieter (the fans on the psu are the loudest thing now). I guess I have a hot cpu.. cuz it's still running 53-55C (down from 57-60C). The base of the new heatsink was flat, but certainly could have used a lapping. Off to the side, away from the core contact area of the base, there was even a ~.5mm diameter pit! But it was pretty much good enough where the core would contact the base.

I don't know if there's maybe something I'm doing wrong. It sucks, because my old bios (F1) reads my cpu temp about 15C cooler than the new bios (F5). Oh well, I like the noise level certainly, and that's half the reason I bought this particular hsf. And I usually don't keep a cpu for more than 2-3 years anyway. It won't go up in smoke by then will it? It runs stably at 11x200 (2204ghz = 3200+)

Something that's bugging me is that I can't find a way to change the multiplier in the bios on the ga-7n400pro2. From the mobo reviews I've seen, one would think it's in the frequency/overvoltage setting section, but it's not for me (in F1 or F5). I have one of the newer batch bartons that is difficult to physically unlock, as described here http://www.ocprices.com/?rev_id=179

Considering it's running so hot, maybe I don't want to change the multiplier, but I would like the ability to anyway. Ok, well, I'm pretty much done. Any thoughts?

Thanks to all for all your help.

-lt