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Lapping - Manufactures...

736 Views 9 Replies 8 Participants Last post by  PR1M3R, 
Sullivan
Why don't heat sink manufactures just take the little bit of extra work time and force, to get a nice smooth base on a heatsink? CPUs are one thing, most of the time they come out looking great, but most heat sinks are just rugged.

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D
CPU's IHS isn't that flat anyways.

The simple answer is cost. The cost outweighs the benefit. Companies don't want to spend another $3-10 per heatsink for 1-3C gain.
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P
As a manufacturer it wouldn't be worth it especially since we overclockers are not the mass, the mass people buying things are people that will probally never overclock and intend never to find out how
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Sullivan
Well what makes a bad cpu heatsink base? A bad mold?
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A
Some heatsinks are pretty good from the factory, and the HDT style coolers don't benefit much from lapping (in ljason8eg's test, the S1283V only dropped 1 degree after lapping). You can buy pre-lapped cooler from some online shop (I don't remember the name right now), so the demand for manufacturers to lap their cooler is very small.
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K
I use an abrasive film on a flat granite plate to sharpen the blades on my handplanes. (Woodworking, my #1 hobby) I go all the way to a 10,000 grit which is about 1/2 micron depth of scratch left in the surface.
Think that's good enough for lapping a heatsink?
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Sullivan
Ya, 10k grit is wild. lol
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s14sh3r
2
Quote:

Originally Posted by Kleen View Post
I use an abrasive film on a flat granite plate to sharpen the blades on my handplanes. (Woodworking, my #1 hobby) I go all the way to a 10,000 grit which is about 1/2 micron depth of scratch left in the surface.
Think that's good enough for lapping a heatsink?
If you do this, I definitely want to see pictures
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MAD_J
If your going to use 10k grit to lap, you might as well wave the cpu/heatsync in the air as the dust particles will eventually erode away the rough bits smoothing out your CPU to a shiny lapping that is to die for.
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PR1M3R
90% of CPU IHS's are in worse shape than the "bad" base of the HSF's you are talking about. We just don't notice as much due to color, dullness, and lettering on the CPU's.

Even lapping won't do a whole lot unless the IHS is fairly flat, or is also lapped. My first lap job was on a Big Typhoon. Dropped 2c. Lapped the CPU and dropped another 6c


And I have no proof of this, and it is only something I remember reading, but IIRC lapping to something like 10k grit will not leave adequate space for TIM particles to fill the gaps and does not improve performance overlapping to say 2k grit.
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