Thread: CPU glitches solved

Originally Posted by CommonTater

Y'know what... the nickel plating is on there for a reason... It is to avoid the galvanic reaction between the copper spreader and the aluminim heat sink. It may look real spiffy and it may even work better for a short term, but when the reaction sets in corrosion byproducts will pollute the thermal junction and it will eventually overheat wildly. The short term gain utterly defeats the long term stability of the cooling solution.

<irony>Yes because "long term stability" is the goal of an overclocker, especially an overclocker willing to sand down the heatsink on his CPU to further his hobby.</irony>

Short term gain is the goal of such procedures, just as short term gain is the goal of pouring liquid nitrogen into a 20 cm copper cylinder mounted directly on the cpu, after insulating the entire motherboard with nail polish remover.
It's a hobby, do you think drag racers would tune down their engine so it would live longer? I never made any claims of CPU lapping being a good idea if long term stability is the goal, ofcoure i didn't, who would? I simply said it's a well-known way to lower the CPU core temperatures, i just thought i would mention it.

Also, you don't want an absolutely flat smooth surface there. The slightly dished center of the heat spreader actually helps prevent the thermal interface material from creeping out of the junction and leaving it dry, with heavily degraded thermal performance.

No matter how good the surface match of the chip and sink, even terrible interface materials like peanut butter or toothpaste will perform better than a dry thermal junction.

Who on earth said anything about using a dry thermal junction? No overclocker in his right mind would do that, lapped CPU or not.

Thermal transfer compound comparison

The article reveals something very surprising... Vegimite sandwich spread beats arctic silver... for about 4 hours, until the vegimite dries up.

In my experience overclockers are like audiophiles... they're really not much beyond spending $120 on a power cord because they think it sounds better... The only real difference is the fads they run with and a whole lot of this thermal grease stuff they pay ridiculous prices for is no better than good old fashioned zinc oxide cream.

To give you an example... How many of these guys realize that the zinc oxide cream they buy in the computer stores at $10.00 or more for a 5g tube is actually the same stuff --chemically identical-- as the lifeguards use on their noses and buy in 150g toothpaste sized tubes for $3.99. As P.T. Barnum says: "There's a sucker born every minute."

For Marios comment about people flocking to a new product over 2 or 4 degrees. Wow, talk about a fools errand. This difference is so small as to be impossible to measure reliably. On one day you use zinc oxide and record 48c, the next day you use arctic silver and record 44c and you get all excited... except that the ambient temperature is actualy 5 degrees cooler today than it was yesterday. Have you gained 4 degrees or lost 1?

Why don't people flock to Thermstrate TC if it's so good? Well, that's largely because it's a production compound, not generally available to the public and not well known outside professional circles. Overclockers aren't using it because a) they don't know about it and b) they couldn't buy it even if they did.

Review: Power Devices Thermstrate, Powerfilm and Powerstrate thermal compounds

There are so many misunderstandings and truly bad ideas floating around out there that I really do get a good chuckle over some of these guy's antics....

There are smart overclockers and stupid overclockers, just as there are smart audiophiles and stupid ones. Personally, i've just used whatever i had handy, i've never ever paid for thermal compound, since they practically throw it at you as accessories whenever you purchase cooling equipment for a CPU. But again, i've yet to mention thermal compund in any of my posts in this thread up until now, so i'm not sure if all the above was aimed at me or just a general rant on a hobby you clearly refuse to understand?

Originally Posted by Neo1

so i'm not sure if all the above was aimed at me or just a general rant on a hobby you clearly refuse to understand?

Who says I don't understand it?
I've worked with refrigeration and water cooling in some pretty wild overclocks myself... Try a pentium 4 run up to 4.8ghz... overclock enough for you?

The reason I toss in notes about nickel plating and lapping etc. as well as advising products designed for longivity is that overclocking is a very small sector of the computer world and I always worry that someone who doesn't know any better does not get the bright idea that computers run like that for more than a couple of hours during benchmarks.

Now retired, but still the local "go to guy" when it comes to computer problems, I see this all the time... People with basically just enough knowledge to be dangerous get out on these and other forums, read these things and fail to differentiate between OC contests and day to day computing, then come to me with some of the most ridiculous ideas I've ever heard... much like the kid who wants a turbocharged hemi Charger with Nitrous Oxide injection to get to school and back. They just don't know any better. (Oh and while on the topic, yes, many hot rodders do "dial it back" when not in competition.)

As for audiophiles... I've met a good many self-proclaimed ones in my days servicing pro-audio gear... and frankly most of them are up to their knees in self-deception and more than willing to part with large amounts of money to prove it. I just can't help laughing everytime I see one of them spend $50.00 on 10 feet of speaker wire or $120.00 on a power cord all because they think they hear some trivial difference that is probably more related to their blood pressure than their purchases.

Thus my comments were for two reasons 1) for the largest sector of computing... people who, if brains were dynamite couldn't blow their own noses and 2) for one particular poster here who couldn't say "Gee I didn't know that" if his life depended on it.

I'm so bad

Originally Posted by CommonTater

Who says I don't understand it?
I've worked with refrigeration and water cooling in some pretty wild overclocks myself... Try a pentium 4 run up to 4.8ghz... overclock enough for you?

The reason I toss in notes about nickel plating and lapping etc. as well as advising products designed for longivity is that overclocking is a very small sector of the computer world and I always worry that someone who doesn't know any better does not get the bright idea that computers run like that for more than a couple of hours during benchmarks.

Now retired, but still the local "go to guy" when it comes to computer problems, I see this all the time... People with basically just enough knowledge to be dangerous get out on these and other forums, read these things and fail to differentiate between OC contests and day to day computing, then come to me with some of the most ridiculous ideas I've ever heard... much like the kid who wants a turbocharged hemi Charger with Nitrous Oxide injection to get to school and back. They just don't know any better. (Oh and while on the topic, yes, many hot rodders do "dial it back" when not in competition.)

As for audiophiles... I've met a good many self-proclaimed ones in my days servicing pro-audio gear... and frankly most of them are up to their knees in self-deception and more than willing to part with large amounts of money to prove it. I just can't help laughing everytime I see one of them spend $50.00 on 10 feet of speaker wire or $120.00 on a power cord all because they think they hear some trivial difference that is probably more related to their blood pressure than their purchases.

Thus my comments were for two reasons 1) for the largest sector of computing... people who, if brains were dynamite couldn't blow their own noses and 2) for one particular poster here who couldn't say "Gee I didn't know that" if his life depended on it.

I fear your valiant efforts to save the world from their own stupidity go wasted in a programming board such as this, in my experience, most of the crowd in here are atleast moderately computer literate.

I'd also just like to add that if a person can't grasp that taking rough grain sanding paper to the IHS of a CPU has the potential to cause damage, it's very likely they also have no idea what a CPU is or how to unbolt the side of their case, in which case there is no potential for damage anyways.

Personally i would love to be spared from your heroic deeds, and the same goes for your condescending tone. Chuckle at me all you want, CPU lapping is a well-proven technique which DOES make a discernable difference when overclocking, and is in no way related to audiophiles and their inane ramblings about gold plated connectors and expensive wiring.