Worst heatsink base machining ever!

C

cyclone3d

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Aug 16, 2004
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Anyway... I just got done lapping my Thermaltake Fanless-103 heatsink base....

It is quite a bit hotter than it was last night... idle was at 32C... and now today it is at
39C... about equal to the difference in ambient temps, and I still am running 2C cooler load temps with Orthos than I was last night.... I will have to see what the end result is tonight.
 
nope.. no pics.... I shoulda taken before and after pics.... I was too much in a hurry to put the thing back on to take after pics...

And, it really isn't mirror finished at all.. I only went to 400-grit.

I guess I could take it back apart and take pics... but that would mean I would have to take it back apart.
 
You need to go to at least 600 to get a good base... 800 or 1000 preferrably.

400 is NOT enough.
 
I have access to microscope section grinding wheels, and go all the way down to a 5 micron polishing powder. Now THAT'S a mirror finish. I can see some very small, faint scratches in our sections(made of glass) with my naked eye down to 1200 grit, so I assume that they are there with my blocks too. I wouldn't stop any lower than 1200 because of this, but 1000 is probably fine, we just don't have that grit. Even at 800 I'm not really happy yet.

Of course, I use these machines all the time, so going to a finer grit is no big deal for me.
 
400 grit was the highest I had with me.... and it is about 100 times better than how it came from the factory.

I was mostly just wanting to get rid of the huge craters/canyons from the factory.
 
a.) you bought a TT product

b.) as mentioned above, try a finer grit.

c.) what thermal paste you using?
 
I am using arctic alumina.

Yes, I know it is a TT product... poor base machining.. but that is normalish and I have lapped heatsink bases before.

It was a very good price... and after reading reviews, I figured I could get very good performance if I added a couple fans to it.

I actually bought that cooler over a year ago now.. and it cooled my 3700+ perfectly fine.. even when running at 2.83Ghz at 1.75v.

Anyway... I ordered a nice new Big Typhoon (for $37 shipped... from www.coolbidnow.com) last night.. and it should be arriving here shortly. I will be modding it as well.. and putting a higher cfm fan on it.

I was contemplating on ordering the Tuniq Tower.. but from what I could find, I should be able to get just as good of performance from a modded BT.
 
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