What is "lapping" a heak sink and what does it do?

[Swanny]

It's all in the title.

Thanks,
Swan

 

[cipher00]

Smooths out the heatsink/cpu interface so you get a very tight fit to the 'sink. There's a thread about how to do all this around here somewhere, but I can't seem to find it right now.

 

[A2KLAU]

I think its something to do with smoothening out the thermal greese so that then stick the HSF and CPU together there is a very smooth flush fit, and all heat will be tranfered from the CPU to the HSF. I think thats what it is.

Albert.

 

[yiwonder]

HS Lapping

 

[thermite88]

"Lapping" is a fine polishing procedure like the one you do to a telescope lense. The purpose to make the surface blemish free and flat. It usually does little for the heatsink/fan if you already use good quality thermal paste such as the Arctic Silver.

In the day of old Celeron time, user actually lapped their CPU too. But the practice stopped when Intel brought out the Coppermine, which is a flip chip and therefore no heatsink metal plate on the external surface.

The Athlon die surface is not very smooth and cannot be lapped. AMD recommends using (thick) phase change thermal pad for their CPU. Go to the AMD Tech Support site and download document 23794 for more information.

Lapping done by the inexperienced hand can actually hurt the heatsink performance if the lapping cause the heatsink surface to become wavy.

You can get more information on "lapping" by searching home built telescop at library or on the net.

 

[Swanny]

Thanks everyone!

 

[Swanny]

If I have something like a Swiftech 462 do you think it would help to lap it? Or would that just hurt more than it would help?

 

[MrHelpful]

The bottom of the MC462 should already be very flat. If you can see a mirror shine on the bottom, you don't need to do any more lapping, unless you use a straightedge and find that the surface isn't flat, but curved.

 

[MrHelpful]

In the old days (Celeron) CPUs were lapped because the surface wasn't flat. Concave, usually. Imagine that.

 

[Losty]

hmm...i didn't do that wash with water . dry overnight . wipe with alcohol . parts ... am i in a bad position?