So, I thought that I would do something that I've never heard of anyone ever doing before... lapping, a stock heatsink, and adding a high CFM fan on to complete the deal. The reason that I did this, is mostly because I bought my current rig with an emphasis on being cheap and i just cant justify spending $40 on a cooler right now... plus i had fun, which is really what it comes down to.
I used parts and materials that I had laying around to do it all. I used a SilverStone FM81 fan (92mm fan in a 80mm fan body, 78cfm), a 2x4 and a some wet/dry sandpaper (finest I had was 600 grit, but it was WAY worn out)
I'll spare you all the details, but after all of the drilling, sanding and lapping were over, I got this. I actually think that it kinda looks cool on the inside (the wood grain darkened when i used an air dremmel with a sander on it, creating a swirl effect). The hardest part by FAR was trying to get the bottom "machined" right so that it would attach to the factory heatsink just like the OEM fan.
More important than the fact that I got it to go together, is that when i had it back on my computer, I saw an immediate temp decrease... even at the lowest fan speed (1900rpm). I saw an even bigger improvement when i spooled the fan up to full speed (3800rpm). Here's what I got.
ambient is 23-24c
Stock: Idle 28c, Load 50c*
1900rpm: Idle 26c, load 48c
3800rpm: Idle 24c, Load 43c
* with the stock fan, the cpu would start to throttle back, trying to get the temps back to 50c
Obviously this isn't the best cooling setup, but its better than what I had (plus it was free), and once the AS5 has time to cure, it should go down even more. So just in case any of you have been wondering " I wonder if i could lap my stock HSF?"... the answer is yes, yes you can, and you can see a pretty decent results from it too.
I used parts and materials that I had laying around to do it all. I used a SilverStone FM81 fan (92mm fan in a 80mm fan body, 78cfm), a 2x4 and a some wet/dry sandpaper (finest I had was 600 grit, but it was WAY worn out)
I'll spare you all the details, but after all of the drilling, sanding and lapping were over, I got this. I actually think that it kinda looks cool on the inside (the wood grain darkened when i used an air dremmel with a sander on it, creating a swirl effect). The hardest part by FAR was trying to get the bottom "machined" right so that it would attach to the factory heatsink just like the OEM fan.
More important than the fact that I got it to go together, is that when i had it back on my computer, I saw an immediate temp decrease... even at the lowest fan speed (1900rpm). I saw an even bigger improvement when i spooled the fan up to full speed (3800rpm). Here's what I got.
ambient is 23-24c
Stock: Idle 28c, Load 50c*
1900rpm: Idle 26c, load 48c
3800rpm: Idle 24c, Load 43c
* with the stock fan, the cpu would start to throttle back, trying to get the temps back to 50c
Obviously this isn't the best cooling setup, but its better than what I had (plus it was free), and once the AS5 has time to cure, it should go down even more. So just in case any of you have been wondering " I wonder if i could lap my stock HSF?"... the answer is yes, yes you can, and you can see a pretty decent results from it too.