Lapping the Core

[simon389]

Thats right! I was wondering if there is any temps are lowered by lapping the core of the Athlon Processor (TBird in my case).

PS: I don't like George W. Bush

 

[ThePunkGeek]

i am not sure about t-birds but i know everyone says never to lap an xp. Just upgrade your cooling if u want better thems.

 

[tbirdkiri]

hey calvin... i dont like you...

 

[jreinsma]

why would you want to lap the tbird core. You are just going to wreck the cpu. The core is what holds the circuitry. There is not verymuch room between the surface and dammaging the cpu. Just get a good heatsink and some good thermal paste

 

[The Spyder]

I have a lapped duron that works great!!! 35c folding at @1gig-- just be REALY CAREFULL

 

[simon389]

Well those numbers and letters are all engraved and I thought that sanding it smooth would help temps.

PS: TBirdkiri, i think you're swell

 

[Scottland]

i have seen lapped cores. you just use only a super fine 1200 or 1500 grit paper and dry sand off the letters and numbers. only sand until they are gone... if need be use a tab bit of water.

this is all second hand knowadgle... i have never done it myself.

and PS

the new thourghbred chips have no letters or numbers. just a perfect flat silicon core

 

[Fedorenko]

Laping the core is useless. Why? The purpose of Artic Silver ect. is to fill the small grooves on the cooling equipment with a material that transfers heat.

In reality, alping the Athlon core would make it stay at ambient. It wouldnt start.

 

[cyberey66]

I've heard very mixed reviews on lapping cores. Some people said it's very risky, but will yield lower temps. Some say it is risky but won't give any difference in temps. I lapped my coppermine 1GHz because the core didn't seem perfectly flat. I lapped it very little but just enough to remove the thin blue layer over the core. I'm guessing AMD cores are similar to Intel coppermine(meaning thickness not blue coating). After that, I was running [email protected] stable with a small heatsink. Sorry about temps but my board at the time didn;t read temps.

Well, it's a risky job, I would read into it more from people that have actually done that with your chip before. It's basically up to you if you want to risk that or not. Me personally my curiosity makes me able to risk killing a $60 chip

 

[[EG]~NaTz~]

ok here it goes...

i lapped my core my emps dropped by 3-5 c . i am on an amdxp2000+ with a svc golden gate heatsink and ystech 40 cfm 60mm whiner. i say do it. i even lappe my gpu core. but anyway use a 600 grit wet/dry and please do it dry. do it very lightly. and not for to long get the surface smooth . AN ALWAYS REMEMBER ANYTHING ABOVE 600 IS TO FINE AND ACTUALLY RAISES UR TEMPS. these are my words of advice do it if you want to risk it. but if you are sure that ur not putting a beltsander on the damn thing(just kiddingabout belt sander) you will be fine

 

[Über~PhLuBB]

ok here it goes...

i lapped my core my emps dropped by 3-5 c . i am on an amdxp2000+ with a svc golden gate heatsink and ystech 40 cfm 60mm whiner. i say do it. i even lappe my gpu core. but anyway use a 600 grit wet/dry and please do it dry. do it very lightly. and not for to long get the surface smooth . AN ALWAYS REMEMBER ANYTHING ABOVE 600 IS TO FINE AND ACTUALLY RAISES UR TEMPS. these are my words of advice do it if you want to risk it. but if you are sure that ur not putting a beltsander on the damn thing(just kiddingabout belt sander) you will be fine

Okay, number 1: Dropping your temps anything over 2C as a product of lapping your core is impossible. Your temp drop was probably mostly due to changing your thermal interface (I.E., upgrading from AS2 to AS3), or from the reapplication itself (if the first application was flawed).

2: The reason we say there's no need to go above 600 grit when lapping a HSF is because any finer and the thermal interface material won't get the optimum level of surface area to adhere to. The reason we use thermal material at all is because we WANT to fill those holes. So lapping a core with 600 grit is absolutely and completely pointless, as the depth of the stepping codes is barely that deep!

So I think not just some but ALL your temp drops came from the reapplication of, or replacment of your thermal interface material, or you changed a fan, or any number of other factors.

 

[[EG]~NaTz~]

uber that was the 5th reaply and the others were not bad applys it could have been a better break in though now that i think of it i ran f@h for a few hours instead of just some counterstrike i probably got the 2 c then because the writing imbedded or burned into my core seemed to be a little moe prominant than 3 of m friends xps. and ive only ever used as3. from the first time my processor ever hit the soket and hsf. and so on it was all brand new it could have also beenmy proc setting in then. and the fact is that the xp cores are so smooth that by lapping it with the 600 grit i added a lot of surface area. and yes ur rigt we use 600 to get those tiny scratches, and if you lap till 2000 grit ur finish will be so mirrored that it willl hold in or repel heat in some way. i totally agree now that you pointed that out to me but howevere when did it several other things were done so the combined drop may have caused the 10c and i like my 43c max load air cooled temp much more than the 54c.

 

[Über~PhLuBB]

uber that was the 5th reaply and the others were not bad applys it could have been a better break in though now that i think of it i ran f@h for a few hours instead of just some counterstrike i probably got the 2 c then because the writing imbedded or burned into my core seemed to be a little moe prominant than 3 of m friends xps. and ive only ever used as3. from the first time my processor ever hit the soket and hsf. and so on it was all brand new it could have also beenmy proc setting in then. and the fact is that the xp cores are so smooth that by lapping it with the 600 grit i added a lot of surface area. and yes ur rigt we use 600 to get those tiny scratches, and if you lap till 2000 grit ur finish will be so mirrored that it willl hold in or repel heat in some way. i totally agree now that you pointed that out to me but howevere when did it several other things were done so the combined drop may have caused the 10c and i like my 43c max load air cooled temp much more than the 54c.

Sorry, but can you edit that and add some caps and punctuation? I can't make heads or tails.

I think I read that your friend got 10C or something?

(I'm not insulting or making fun of you, I do want to read the post, but I can't.)

Edit: wait, I think I got it. You reapplied AS3 5 times, and you burned it in with F@H, not CS. The stepping codes on your die seemed deeper than that of your friends, so you lapped it and got 2C from that. You did some other things (presumably a new HSF combo and case airflow?) and dropped your temps 10C, down to 43C max load. Right?

If I got that right, then did you lap your core at the same time you made the other changes?

 

[CrystalMethod]

Lapping your core MIGHT give you lower temps. But, the decrease in temps isn't worth the risk to the core IMO.

 

[simon389]

Well i think I'll risk it.

It's about time I got rid of this old die.

 

[rogerdugans]

It is VERY risky: the core is fragile and if you go too far it is a dead cpu.

I did lap a TBird 1000 to get rid of some gunk that just would NOT come off- I used 1500 grit (I think ???been a while) and I did get rid of the gunk and get better temps. How much improvement I don't recall at the moment.

A note on using nothing past 600 grit: I heartily disagree

I go to 1200 or 1500 depending on what I can get and my temps do get a small bit of improvement from doing so.
The best possible heat transfer would be between two surfaces that are completely flat- which is impossible.
The closer you get to that however, the better.
Using finer grit does show minimal improvement over 600/800 grit paper, but it IS there, at least on the cheap heatsinks that I mostly use.

 

[simon389]

How would using an orbital sander work?

 

[Yodums]

A sander? It's best to do it manually. A sander's surface isn't 100% flat like doing it on glass so you'll just end up with worst results than you did.

Lapping a core won't do much and it isn't worth the risk.. If you just want to get rid of your chip sell it on Ebay since the demands of a 1.4 Tbird's are up and buy a new one..

 

[Über~PhLuBB]

A sander? It's best to do it manually. A sander's surface isn't 100% flat like doing it on glass so you'll just end up with worst results than you did.

Lapping a core won't do much and it isn't worth the risk.. If you just want to get rid of your chip sell it on Ebay since the demands of a 1.4 Tbird's are up and buy a new one..

I think he was just kidding. =)

It's best to temporarily glue a shim to your CPU so you will get a perfectly flat lap on the core (do it over glass).

 

[simon389]

Wow thats a great idea. Thanks.