Thread: How To Lap CPU & GPU Dies or Heatsinks

(480GTX Heatsink, Lapped as Smooth and Shiny as a Mirror)

The rule to transfer heat is the smoother the surface the faster and efficient it will be at transferring the produced heat away from your Die and Cooling it. Lapping is process in which you take you time to smoothen the surfaces for better Heat transfer. Now the problem is most factory heatsinks of our processors and graphics cards have heat sinks that are not the best in terms of quality, If we can smoothen the transfer surface of these sinks we can reduce the overall temperature.

Today I will be quickly explain the procedure and show you the results of a Lapped a Heatsink surface. I will be lapping my 480 GTX’s heat sink as it has a blasted rugged finish that is very bad for heat transfer. It’s a relatively easy process and with some patients, shouldn’t take you more than 20mins, results you could achieve 4* – 10* C drop in temperature.


Materials

Small pieces of Sand Paper: 320 Grid, 400 Grid, 600 Grid, 800 Grid, 1000 Grid and 1500 Grid

Thermal paste: I am using the famous Arctic Silver 5 / AS5




The basic Procedure is you have to Wet Sand it, use the most rigged Sand Paper and work your way up to the smother sand papers (eg. Start with 320 Grid, then 400 Grid, Then 600 Grid, Then 800 grid and so on. You will slowly see it forming into a smooth shiny surface. Now You can go up to 4000 Grid if you wanted to but I only had upto 1500 Grid at home and that gives you a mirror finish any way.


How to Lap the heat sink :



Lapping the heatsink will NOT void your warranty as long as everything is intact. Take the heat sink off, make sure no electrical stuff is connected now take it to the sink and wash it, clean off the old thermal paste using soppy water.





And start sanding it slowly in a one way direction at a time, first go up and down, now go left and right, then take the next sand paper and do the same till you have made it into a mirror, REMEMBER TO KEEP USING A ENOUGH WATER WHEN SANDING, BUT DON’T OVER DO IT! Nice and Easy Does the trick…








How to Lap the DIE



This can also be done to GPU / CPU DIE since its the same procedure, before you do anything, begin by cleaning the die with a paper town and some cleaning solution.

This is how your result should look like once its clean.



Now if You want to lapping the Die, Its recommended that you take extra care, and use only drops of water or no water at all, don’t let the electronics get wet.In other words you probably shouldn’t lap the DIE if your worried about warranty as sometimes they wont honor the warranty if the CPU numbers and markings are removed.



Finally put it all back together



use a small or medium amount you know, a rice grain or a bit more size drop. As you can see I am not good at applying thermal paste since I applied a bit too much, but hopefully this will work just fine

Tip:
There is a curing time for certain Thermal Paste's, for AS5 its a ridicules 200Hr's operation time with well breaks in the middle. So if possible, leave your computer on for say 9 - 10 hrs a day for at least 10 or 20 days. (It needs rest to form up) that way you should have it all hardned up and at optimal performance by the end of the month.


Hope that helps, until next time we meet, happy modding..

Cheers,
Zaid

i am new to modding stuff so didnt understand a thing so if u will explain
i am here learn

Originally Posted by zaidibd14

i am new to modding stuff so didnt understand a thing so if u will explain
i am here learn

hmmm...if you lap(make smooth) your stock CPU or GPU heat sink's bottom where the heatsink touches the CPU/GPU; and you make it smoother using sand paper, much like I did in the first pic. Then when you install it back using thermal paste you will see some decrease in temprature ( 4*- 10* C)

Sand paper = Shish kagoj, available in different grid's (more grid less roughness = smooth eg. 320grid very rough, 1500grid very very smooth)

I will send some thermal paste and a spare processor for you to practice when I send Meraj's package.

thanx zaid bhai
i know about sand papers carpenters and painters use it all the time
i dont what is heatsink! yes i am no hardware genius i am just a casual gamer who likes play games
i think its for decreasing heat and a cool pc is a happy pc
going a bit offtopic now any news abiut ghost? i am very much excited about ur G.H.O.S.T
plz update when u feel better

I had lappend an athlon 64 3000+ quite a while back, reduced the temps quite a bit.
A nice tutorial over here, but I you should tell the people that doing this will void the warranty, and they might fudge up which will kinda kill their heatsinks, if not done properly (?)

Originally Posted by 3xstatik

I had lappend an athlon 64 3000+ quite a while back, reduced the temps quite a bit.
A nice tutorial over here, but I you should tell the people that doing this will void the warranty, and they might fudge up which will kinda kill their heatsinks, if not done properly (?)

Look closer, I actually have warned them,

Now if You want to go about lapping the Die, Its recommended that you take extra care, and use only drops of water or no water at all, don’t let the electronics get wet.In other words you probably shouldn’t lap the DIE if your worried about warranty as sometimes they wont honor the warranty if the CPU numbers and markings are removed.

that's why I tell most newbies to just lap their stock / heatsink / cooler instead of the DIE, not because its any harder to do or they could fudge up, But because lapping the CPU would usually as I did mention cause trouble or simply put it void the warranty.

Welcome to the forum by the way