Case Modifications
My old Antec SLK2650BQE case was good, but lacked decent airflow through the front of the case. To help with this I filed down the plastic vents, enlarging the openings by +50%, and I took out the aluminium mesh on the case itself. This not only increased the effective surface area of the fan, it decreased resistance so the air can move faster. Decreasing the resistance also decreased the noise from the fan due to turbulence.
I used bolt cutters to cut between the holes, then filled the metal smooth. It is a very good idea to remove all components whilst doing this - and metal fillings will cause short circuits and damage your pc.
Lapping a Zalman CNPS7000-Cu
In order to get the best from a cpu cooler it is important to have as much of it contact with the cpu heat spreader as possible. Thermal compounds help improve this by ‘filling’ in the cracks with a highly heat conductive material, but to have even better cooling the extreme modder makes sure that both surfaces are as flat as possible. The process of flattening out a cooler is called lapping.
Why lap a heatsink?
- Lapping or sanding can greatly decrease heat when over clocking.
- Lapping is relatively safe and if you have the correct sandpaper, its free..
- I said its free and it reduces heat from the CPU. Do I need to say more?
Firstly a before picture, you can see in the reflection that the surface is curved (not flat) and on closeup you can see little ridges where it has been machined. These ridges and troughs prevent good contact with the cpu. On the forth picture you can see the ’splatter’ pattern, where the thermal compund makes good contact and where it makes poor contact.
This is not a how-to article, there are loads of good tutorials on this on the internet - we don’t need another one. This is just my experience of it.
After about 10 minutes of sanding with 300 grit sandpaper, I used 600 for another 10, then moved to 1200 grit. Finally I used metal polish. When that was all done, I cleaned the surface with isopropanol to remove all trace of the polish (which is a very good heat insulator). The results:
Notice the reflection, how clear and undistorted it is. That is because the surface is like a mirror now. So shiny I can take pictures of the house opposite on the surface!
Performance wise it reduced my temperatures (as recorded by MBM5) from 49C idle to 48C, and 65C load to 60C. Well worth the effort in my opinion.
Thermaltake Giant3 Video card cooler installation
I took delivery of a few new toys, one of which was my Thermaltake Giant III VGA cooler. The highest clock I could get stock was 389mhz GPU and 345mhz Memory, and this produced a 3D Mark 2003 Score of 6400. Couldn’t get higher on stock cooling, so I thought that this might be worth a try. It was in a sale as well so BONUS!
The Victim:
Connect3D ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB 256-bit
The Kit
Thermaltake Giant3 Video card cooler
All parts were of high quality, heat sink was a little rough but still acceptable, spare screws and washers included.
The Ati R360 is used in the 9800XT which is quite a bit faster than my Pro. On my card it has been underclocked, which means that I sould be able to run my 9800 Pro at XT speeds without problems.
My Shiny R360 Core. Lucky me!
Tighten screw A, using nut B and supplied washer C then screw clips using screwdriver and secure using clip D. ??? At this point I did away with the instructions and made it up as I went along.
I’ll just use my pliers to grip the nut while balancing the card on my knee and tightening screw with other hand.
Tchzing! Pliers slipped and I hear a clink and something hits the table. Oh NO!!
MEDIC!!!!
There, that should do it!
Carried on installing regardless. On with the Goo…
It still posted, but as soon as I got into windows and ran explorer, screen corruption was very visible then PC reset. Post beeps a few times and screen has mess all over it. Weird characters and colours then PC powers off.
Moral of the Story: BE CAREFUL WITH PLIERS!!!
Got a new X800XT Platinum Edition now 
