Lapping Question

[MervTeck]

Im looking to lapp my friends HSF but its all silver i dont see coper and i dont wanna lap it if i cant do the silver kind, wanna check with you guys b4 i try anything. Lemme know.

Thanks! Merv

[EXreaction]

What?

[MervTeck]

lol ok look my buddys HSF is old, and its all silvery colored theres no copper on the botem, and i wanna Lapp it. But i wanna know is it only that silvery metal or is there a layer of copper underneath

[EXreaction]

What the heck is lapp?

[ShyguyXPC]

he wants to lap (lapping) the heatsink... (sand it down to a near mirror shine basically, old school OCing enhancement crap to the heatsink underside so the thermal paste & HS can better mate with the CPU & provide better heat transference & all that junk)

How to Lap a Heatsink Guide - Overclockers Club

no, you should be able to see copper if it had copper on it... otherwise his HSF was aluminum or some sort of nickel plated copper or something like that...

not sure about the Aluminum ones, you could try, though don't know if you'll get it to shine like you could with copper (near mirror finish)...

Nickel plated copper or whatever (like some of the Thermalright HSF's, SI series for example)

I don't really know how much of a difference that would really make, considering most thermal pastes like Arctic silver, is designed to fill in the pits & holes in the surface anyways, to transfer the heat from CPU to Heatsink in first place... might improve heat transfer, a small amount, but not 100% sure.

don't know if its even really necessary, unless its for a OCing Benchmarking rig, trying to break some records or something, trying to get every last ounce of performance out of the rig?

[EXreaction]

Ok, that is what I figured it was. They gave that a rather strange name. :/

Unless you can actually feel ridges and bumps in it you'll be wasting your time.

[ShyguyXPC]

yeah, years & years ago when I first heard of it, I was like who in their right mind would Lick their HSF to get it smoother, as it was the only other meaning of Lapping I had heard or knew of (as in a dog lapping its water in the bowl) LOL...

but yeah, thats what he was talking about.

[MervTeck]

Yeah pretty much jsut trying to pull off as much as we can get out of his old ass rig haha

[EXreaction]

It probably won't make much of a difference. If it is really bad (bad enough to feel large ridges and bumps) it could be a couple of degrees difference, but that minor of a difference isn't worth the work usually.

[Detritus]

I haven't heard anyone talking about lapping heatsinks for years!

Lapping is a machining term btw.