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Lapping The CPU Does it Really Work ? --- A Idiots View

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UnseenMenace (Jun 06, 2001 08:19 p.m.):
Yes I am the idiot who put his most interesting post to date in the wrong place.. but I ask you does Lapping the CPU really work?... is there a better alternative... check my investigation out at this URL and give me your views please


Note: no idiots were harmed in the making of this post :)
Oh that don't sound like a good idea to me whatsoever. The cpu is ceramic. Lapping would not get it smoother but would scratch it up. ...unless you are into that sort of thing.
 
Actually I have very good results from doing this. Not that I am brave enough to do it or anything.
 
Seen a few articles on this being done, I might give it a go on the Celly when I have finished with the heat sink.
 
For years before I got into OC'ing and up to the present, I have been an avid amateur gunsmith. Lapping was not a new term to me. However, lapping, as applied to OC'ing struck me as odd because in gunsmithing, with the exception of fire lapping a barrel, lapping implied taking the two mating components, putting lapping paste (grit in an oil carrier) on them and cycling them until the action was more smooth. Only in OC'ing have I seen the term lapping refer to putting a finish on only one half of the mating components.
That, having been said, I would never lap a Duron or Tbird core. They are fairly smooth to start with and AMD has put a sealer on it. Now, I don't figure that sealer is free, so I assume they do that for a reason.
By now, everyone is probably tired of the "letting the smoke out" metaphor/joke, so I won't go there. ;D

Hoot
 
I lapped a 400 Celeron and GlobalWin HSF up to 1600 grit, ans ended up with a mirror finish on the Celeron. I did reduce temps a little, but as the chip wasn't a particularly great overclocker, I was never able to get any speed increase out of it. Not to say you wouldn't get some benefit. As Hoot said, AMD chips don't seem particularly amenable to lapping. Given what I consider the fragile nature of TBirds, lapping is the last thing I would do to one.
 
I have done it to a few Birds with success. I just went far enough to remove the code that is etched into the CPU. Some of the things I have read lately about cores going from concave to convex and pumping out the thermal compound over time leave me wondering about the effectiveness of lapping a Bird. My temps did drop. This dog 1333 I have is behaving so badly that I may just lap it too!
 
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