Computer Overhaul including Mega Shadow, MK-13 and CPU wet-lapping.Step-by-Step-PICS

[Theguynextdoor]

This is a how a quick how-to guide and mini-review of a lot of items; with a hint of do-it-yourself feely-goodness. It is not super in-depth. But it can lead to questions that I and others more knowledgable then I, are willing to answer. Also it can give you pretty good ideas for your next project! Nothing I have done here hasn't been done by somebody else. I am not taking credit for anything.

To first start of and before I show you the goods, it's been a looooong time I've posted in anandtech and the first time since the new upgrade. (I've been a member a lot longer then what join date shows).I'm not sure which category I should really place it under since this will fit a few categories. Mods my sincere apologies, please place this thread in whichever forum you feel it best fits. But this is where I started my nerdfest and where I learned a lot of what I know now. This is honestly a great place for young people to start learning about technology and develop the skills to research and plan. Forums like these are the reason companies like intel, amd and many others are in business.

Anyways. I wanted to share and give back to the community what I have learned from you and done with to give the readers and idea of what can be done with a computer and it can be pretty damn fun (and frustating sometimes lol).

Now this is a BIG project (for me this is nothing compared to what anand and others have done with regards to benchmarks and testing). Also please do not judge the items or choices I make. I am aware there are better options or more money saving options or less frustrating items out there. However I chose these items either because they fit my purpose, or they simply aesthetically please me. As for the time I spent on it it is simply because I am bored, have already fapped recently, and my gf is not around. So time to lap a CPU!

Anyways. Since there is a 10 picture per post limit I will have multiple posts (I have tons of pics from start to end therefore, Mods my apologies if I should I will just link the photobucket alblum).

Here we go!

It all starts out with a brown box...

Oh but who's it from!

Even signed by some dude! Fancy! I wonder if I should call him and pretend I'm all pissed that my mega had a fingerprint on it.

Oooooo so what's inside?

*Note some of the items where I already had from a previous project; the cotton balls, electrical tape and rubbing alcohol. Not shown are the Q-tips.

Items and breif descriptions:

Thermal Compounds
Artic Silver 5
Artic Silver Ceramique
Artic Silver Thermal Adhesive Kit
Artic Silver Thermal Grease Cleaning Kit

For thermal compunds the choice is yours. I usually don't give recommendations of this, just stick to the good stuff. For detailed information refer to guides like this one:

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=150&Itemid=62

120mm fan filter. One of the intake fans doens't have a filter. Glad to finally patch that up.

One of the scythe 120mm fans. Got two of these didn't feel I needed to show both.

Here I have placed a 1 dollar bill to the desk to give you a size idea for the items so you can gauge if something will fit in your intended slot.

These are little thermal copper rod heatsinks. They do work. Find little hotspots. later on I will show you how to prolong the life of your wireless routers with these. You may be suprised. Find little hotspots on your motherboard and put them on. If your stock heat sink blows for your chipset or it doesn't have one, Put a bunch of these on. Brand doesn't really matter. Just make sure they're a solid copper not a mix or aluminum (which what most stock ones are). And they're not big enough to get in the way of your moster coolers.

Here is a comparison between a 120mm vs. a 140mm not really that much difference imo. But yours may vary. Esp. if you're trying to get a "normal sized" case.

The Mk-13 VGA cooler. With all of it's parts and ram heatsinks and a tube of their thermal paste.

The Mega Shadow.

I honestly feel this is more of a "Medium" Shadow. I honestly isn't really that big.

Not "Mega".

 

[Theguynextdoor]

http://s1030.photobucket.com/albums/y366/omgktran/?action=view&current=P1010181.jpg

Average base plate finish. According reviews and Prolimatech that it's supposed to be like this. Who knows? We'll find out in the next few weeks when I lap it and flatten it out. (You'll see why later in the thread).

Now for the system that is to recieve these little upgrades.

Not much to really say about here. Older system. But it does what I need. Q6600@3.2Ghz. Some really old scythe HS (63C under load at 30C ambient temp. *shame*) A 4870, OCZ12000 4GB DDR3. A really old PSU, think when OCZ first started making PSU's yeah those first three and it was the most bottom of the rung one the 420w. lol

Anywho onward to the fun!

 

[Theguynextdoor]

Lapping the CPU

Here we have for the most part the stuff we need for the lapping process.

Shown:
Cotton Balls
91% isoproply alchohol (make sure it has distilled water and is at least above 90% alcohol)
Arctic Clean thermal pad remover.
1500grit sandpaper
2000 grit sandpaper.

Not shown:
Latex or nitril gloves
Q-tips
pair of hands
Snacks
beer
oh s*** button

IMPORTANT! Start by making sure you wear gloves while you do this.

Make sure they are on tight. This keeps from a lot of big things sticking to you and keeps your hand mobile and slip resistant. (Don't wanna drop the cpu now). Also this keeps the fine metallic bits ands pieces that are nearly invisible to the eye get caught up in the skin of your hands only to later end up between the pins of your mobo and CPU or elsewhere. Better to throw away the gloves.

I started with the artic cleaning solution.

Make sure you do a second application. Cause it'll get a lot of gunk you won't see.
When it's all clean:

A good shot of the stock finish:

Flatness test. It was odd but it wasn't a domed shape as I thought it instead was was much lower on two sides while two other sides were a little higher but lower then then middle.

On the sandpaper

I started with the 1500grit. You can apply even pressure by pressing with the force on your hands while using 4 fingers two from each hand on each corner. Now to do this I can't take a picture so no pics of this one.

Another method is to use three finger method (or two for sausage fingers out there like my dad). Where run three fingers down straight across the CPU and apply force all the way through.

Make sure the sandpaper is secure and taught. But more importantly make sure the surface underneath it is flat and smooth. Rotate it 90 degrees every few minutes.

After awhile you might get something like this:

 

[Theguynextdoor]

Moving on to 2000grit.

After a couple of mins the copper starts showing through.

Apply some distilled water.

Add CPU

Approx. 15 mins later:

25 mins

Cleaning (don't forget gloves)

Pic doesn't show it too well try looking at the alblum for the full res pic but there is a bit of metallic bits and pieces in there. The artic cleaning will get this out. Do multiple apps until it's clean.

next clean the bottom contact points along with the rubbing alcohol.

When you're done you should be left with a mess similar to this:

Real tired right now. Gonna hit the hay. I'll post the rest of the pics in the morning.

 

[Theguynextdoor]

Time to reinstall the cpu and heatsink.

Put the rubber spacer on and attach the backplate.

CPU snug in place use the nuts to hold the backplate in place.

Put in the support beams.

Now it is important that you check for clearance issues. As my intended install was to have the air blowing through the mega from the bottom up. Which apparently from other sources is supposed to be better. But alas my mobo had different ideas:

One last polishing to make sure it was all clean.

It wasn't

Flatness test of the Mega. Hard to tell from the pic but it wasn't flat. In a few weeks that will be taken care of along with another relapping of the CPU.

One more flatness check of the cpu looks reall good. The high spots are now gone.

Apply the thermal grease.

I like to use a piece of plastic to spread it around. In this case I have rubber gloves which will do the trick the best.

 

[Theguynextdoor]

Should looke something like this:

*Remember you do not want your grease on thick. It should be a very thin layer to just fill in the gaps between the HS and the CPU.

Attach the HS and screw down tightly for a test fit.

Take off the HS and check to see if there's good contact.

Now to reattached the Fan but first lets make it looks a little cleaner. The fan is a 1900RPM Scythe. But the stock fan wire is all over the place when in the case and ugly.

So we're just gonna use a little bit of electrical tape to wrap it up nicely and neatly.

Finished product

Fan attached and plugged in. Notice I ran the excess wire through the fan clip and underneath this keeps it tucked away without blocking airflow or not having to worry it might pop out and hit a fan blade or such.

Put the mobo back into the case.

Now I also used the electrical tape to clean up the visible wires to make them a little less noticable. But sadly I ran out of tape so did not have enough to do all of them.

 

[Theguynextdoor]

Everything needed for the install.

Remove the HSF and shroud.

Use the artic silver cleaning solution to clean the ram and GPU.

Cleaned I like how ATi takes their time and lap's their GPU. It is a mirror finish. Why can't intel?

Preplan how your Memory heatsinks will attach.

Now some people say that these heatsinks fall off easily...

Lie the Cooler flat upside down

Put the GPU on line up the wholes and attach the mounting bracket with the screws. Make sure you put the back rubber piece on the backplate. (Not shown)

Finished product:

 

[Axon]

Awesome job! Looks good man.

 

[Theguynextdoor]

Install the bracket arm holder:

Attach the bracket holder to hold the arm in place. Not that the intial spot I chose was not a good one because the fans could not fit in that spot without blocking one of the the shroudings for the compartments.

Attach the the two fans to the armbar. Make sure you have the cables tucked in a neat fashion. I had them both come down and will run underneath the fans out of sight.

Installed:

 

[SanDiegoPC]

Thanks for the time taken for all these pictures, and to post them!

 

[Theguynextdoor]

Installed the final air filter. Sadly it didn't cover up all the holes. lol

The PSU covered up and seperated from the GPU compartment. If you're wondering how the isolation works. There are little "gates" that slide up and down allowing you to run cabling through if necessary. Also the divider between the GPU and the PSU also is a tray that slides in and out allowing you to put extra screws and such in it. When close it is very secure and you have no worries of it falling out.

GPU shroud installed.

Replaced the stock LED 140mm fan with a non-led one (I hate lights)

Moved some of the cable management around. Straightened out the holders so all the text are in the same direction.

Got a new router from my uncle, since my netgear is dying from years of abuse. I tore apart the new one and attached spare heatsinks from the Mk-13 kit. This is great if your router experiences very high traffic. After a few hours of use the heatsinks were hot to the touch. Gonna put on mount a 120mm fan on it sometime later next week.

And for those who are like, No way it's gonna post!

Have a good one guys. I have TONS of more pics that I didn't feel were neccessary for the scope of this thread. But if you want more detailed pics or explainations of something please ask!

 

[PottedMeat]

Nice work.

Cleaned I like how ATi takes their time and lap's their GPU. It is a mirror finish. Why can't intel?

You're probably looking at the GPU itself - the actual semiconductor die mounted upside down on a small printed circuit board. AMD used to do that with the Athlon/XP series until people started cracking the dies or heatsinks were tilting. So they put heat spreaders on.

 

[Theguynextdoor]

Nice work.



You're probably looking at the GPU itself - the actual semiconductor die mounted upside down on a small printed circuit board. AMD used to do that with the Athlon/XP series until people started cracking the dies or heatsinks were tilting. So they put heat spreaders on.

True, but none of my old exposed CPU's were that shiny. 🙁

 

[gsuburban]

Good job on the CPU paste application. I use a razor blade too and put a nice thin coat from corner to corner. Not too many do this as most dab a dimes worth in the center then attach the heat sink.

 

[mfenn]

15 posts since 2002, I've got me a dedicated lurker here! But seriously, this is a necro, so I'm locking the thread.

mfenn
General Hardware Moderator