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Arctic silver actually works!

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Seal

Member
Joined
Aug 14, 2002
Location
London
I reluctantly picked up some of that arctic silver 3 stuff that everyone goes on about in these forums the other day, it set me back an insane £7! i wasnt happy untill i tried it out, i wasnt expecting that much difference in temps (i was using white grese) but boy was i wrong! i've only just put it on and it hasnt settled in yet but right now its 5 deg c lower on full load!!! (was 48+ deg c, now its 42 deg c!) I didnt think this stuff would work that well!!! i'm looking forward to the results when its settled in!

Also i tried lapping my processor, i noticed that there was a little imprint from where the core had been (the tiny indents on the core showed up on the heatsink) so tried lapping quickly with 400 grit then 600 grit, took me 10 minutes in total but at first was a little dissapointed as it was previously very shiny and now after lapping looks a little dull.... anyone else get this? I supposed it worked tho judging from my temp drops! Would it be worth me getting any finer wet+dry paper to lap some more???

Also anyone else's lapping only take them a few minutes? I read everyone taking at least 15minutes per sheet of wet+dry paper but after a few minutes a lot of copper had transfered itself to the paper and it was smooth, only took me 10 mins for the whole process.

Thx
Seal
 
Yup, the ASIII dropped my temps by about 6 degrees C. I was very satisfied.

I have a Volcano 7+, so the bottom was already polished pretty well.
 
shiny isn't everything, flat is what you want. the flatter the better, shiny has nothing to do with it.
 
gingo said:
shiny isn't everything, flat is what you want. the flatter the better, shiny has nothing to do with it.

tru...but some people like to know it's there :D
 
True, you really just want to get it as smooth as possible. 10-15 minutes total is not unreasonable at all. You probably could get a better shine with wet/dry sandpaper, say 1000 grit. But I doubt you would see much improvement. You have already gained the bulk of the improvement at 6C.
 
I lapped my AX-7 for almost an hour with 800 grit. Couldnt find any 600. Anyway it was dull so I used some brasso to clean it up and then with alcohol and it was like a mirror after that. I mean if I had to I could shave looking into that sucker. Temps dropped 6-7C. Should have lapped months ago.
 
oh, i think i messed it up, i moved the heatsink because the fan wasnt screwed on properly and the temps are high agen. i think i have to re apply the stuff.

shall i put it on my northbridge and gpu too? theyve got black plasticy squares as cores.
 
Just make sure not to spill any over the cores, otherwise you'll probably short something.
 
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