ThermalRight SK-6 Lapping
How-To
Date : Thursday, 25 October 2001
Author : sn1per
Provided by : CoolerGuys
Introduction
Well ladies and gentleman, today I will be going through an in depth article that will show you how to properly Lap your ThermalRight SK-6. Along with this how-to I will attempt to show you the differences between an Unlapped SK-6 and a Lapped SK-6 with 3 different types of fans. The fans I will be using are the Sunon 60mm x 25mm 23.5CFM fan, YS-Tech 60mm x 25mm 40.1CFM fan, and the HAIR DRYER!@!#@! Actually it is the NEW Delta 60mm x 38mm 50.15CFM fan. The great guys over at CoolerGuys set me up with all the equipment that I will be using for this How-To. Very special thanks to Todd over there for getting all of the items to me and for trusting Dice when he said "Hey Todd, we have a newbie here that thinks he is good enough for VH....send him some stuff so we can see how bad he really is!!!!! Well I think I would be wrong also if I didn't give Wolfie some thanks to. How the heck Dice convinced him to give me a shot I will never know. And I probably don't want to know either ;p. Thanks Wolfie!!!
A little SK-6 History
As you all pretty much know already, ThermalRight came out with the first heatsink that I have seen that competes like a natural born champion to the "KING OF THE HILL" Swiftech MC462. The SK-6 isn't as pretty of a heatsink as the Swiftech MC462 is, but better yet, it is way more handsome, a heck of a lot cheaper, and can perform just as good as the Swiftech MC462 if not better. I have (had actually) a Swiftech MC462 and used it for a while thinking I had the next best thing to water-cooling for my 1GHz T-Bird (AXIA) running rock hard and stable at 1.6GHz. Well, let it be known, that I was introduced to the SK-6 by Leroy-Jones from the Virtual-Hideout IRC channel on Enter The Game. I went ahead and purchased the SK-6 with the most popular 60mm fan, the Delta 38CFM. At first, I was far from impressed. My temps were 5c to 10c higher then my Swiftech, and I slipped with the screw driver putting the SK-6 on. No damage done, I decided it was time to see if a Lap Dance...I mean Lap Job to the base of the heatsink would cause it to perform a little better. I went out, bought all the sand paper I could find, came home, and commenced to lapping for 8 hours until I had a copper mirror in my hand. I reinstalled the SK-6 and noticed that I was now only 1c to 2c higher then my Swiftech. WOOHOO!!!!! Then came the biggest heatsink event in history. YS-Tech came out with a 60mm 40.1CFM fan that was more powerful and supposedly quieter then the Delta. I bought it from the first site I saw that had it. A few days later, and $20 less out of my PayPal, I received the YS-Tech. Took me all but about 1 minute to unwrap it and put it on the SK-6. Wallah!!!! I am now 1c to 2c better then my Swiftech. Once the members in the great VH forums got wind of my accomplishments with the SK-6, I got request after request for a How-To on my SK-6. After speaking with Dice and telling him my plans, he came up with this wild idea of me writing articles, reviews, and how-to's for Virtual-Hideout. WOW!!!@@#@! And now here we are.
SK-6 Details
Dimension: L64 x W72 x H31.6 (mm) -- Top
L64 x W64 x H31.6 (mm) -- Bottom
Weight: 330g
Please note. The heatsink I received is the 330 gram SK-6. The SK-6 I purchased a few months ago is the SK-6ab. The SK-6ab is 100 grams lighter, and what I found to be more proficient. Not by much though. Maybe 1°C to 2°C difference at most.
Tools To Be Used
Lets see here. The only tools you will need for this project is your hands. If you do not have any hands, well then I guess you could use your feet. WHAT??? You don't have any feet either? Send me $100 and I will lap your SK-6 for you. Get your neighbor to install it when you get it back ;p. Just Kidding. We don't need any Human Rights People knocking on our doors. Besides your hands or feet or whatever you decide to use, you will need some sandpaper. I also decided to use Mothers Mag & Aluminum Polish simply because it has a consistency of about a 3000 to 5000 grit texture. If you decide to use Mothers or any other brand of a Polisher, make sure you get a water based one so you can clean the base with water or rubbing alcohol insuring you get all of the compound removed from the heatsink.
The grits that I will be using in this How-To are:
You should be able to get all of these at a local hardware store, Auto Zone, Pepboys, and even Walmart. The 3M Imperial Wetordry sandpaper was purchased at Walmart for $3 a pack. Walmart Also carries a 2000 grit sandpaper that you can use as a finisher. The only reason I didn't use it was because my local Walmart didn't have any in stock, and the Mothers Polish would do the job of the 2000 grit sandpaper and then some.
The Job At Hand (Or Feet ;p)
Lapping a heatsink is the furthest thing from difficult I could ever imagine to tell you the truth. If you take your time, have patience, and at least 2 beers, this job will be a breeze for you. Remember, if you are in the USA and under 21, substitute the 2 beers for soda, milk, or water. I don't want your mother being mad and blaming me for you being an alcoholic case modder. One thing I have noticed about lapping a heatsink is it does involve some pain. If, for some reason during your lapping job, your arms do not hurt and your hands (or feet) do not hurt, you are either doing the job wrong, or you need to lay off of the steroids or the pain killers. If the base of your SK-6 isn't in the best condition, I would probably recommend using some thick leather gloves or maybe some winter gloves when doing the initial cutting/sanding of the heatsink. My hands were damn near bleeding on this one by the time I got a flat base to work with.
The Steps
Step 1: 400 Grit Initial Cutting/Sanding
The initial cutting/sanding of the base. The first thing you will want to do is take the sandpaper and put it under a water faucet and get it completely soaked with water. Water will allow you to cut into the base much faster then using a dry piece of sandpaper. Water temperature does not matter at all. Me personally, I don't like sticking my hands under freezing cold water or scalding hot water. So an ambient temp is what I use. Now lets start the sanding. You can either apply some pressure and do small circular motions, or you can put your palm on the top of the SK-6, apply a lot of pressure, and just twist the heatsink in circles. I would definitely recommend using the gloves I told you about if you plan on applying pressure and doing a twisting motion. Applying pressure and twisting will cut into the base much faster saving you a lot of time, but if you apply to much pressure on one side, you can make the base of your SK-6 uneven. Doing the small circular motions is much slower, but you will not cut in as deep, and it is pretty hard to make the base uneven. If you do decide on applying the pressure and you accidentally make the base somewhat uneven, no need to sweat. Just switch over and do small circular motions until it is where you want it.
Left Image is Twisting and applying pressure. Right Image is
doing small circular motions and applying limited pressure.
Here is what my heatsink looks like after about 10 minutes of cutting with pressure.
And this is it after about another 10 minutes.
Woohoo!!! I can goto step 2 now.
Step 2: 600 Grit Sanding
With the 600 grit you will definitely want to do small circular motions. There is no need to cut into the base any more starting with this step on. With the 600 Grit on up, all you are doing now is making the larger cuts/scratches on the base of the heatsink smaller. You will however want to apply a fair amount of pressure down onto the heat sink. You will also want to completely soak the sandpaper with water once again. After hitting it and making the cuts in the base of heatsink smaller, I like to then use a dry piece of sandpaper to make the larger cuts smaller. Using dry sandpaper allows for a finer, smoother sanding. At this point, you will notice after doing a dry lap that the heatsink is starting to shine.
As you can see, the finer sandpaper's do not like to soak up
the water and they tend to puddle. This is fine.
Step 3: 800 Grit Sanding
This is where the How-To starts to get somewhat boring. You will do the same thing with the 800 grit that you did with the 600 grit. There is no difference at all in the way you would do this. All you are doing is making those cuts/scratches smaller.
Step 4: 1000 Grit Sanding
Hey guess what???? Yup, you guessed right, do the same exact thing. One thing to note. If you are a cheap a$$, you could stop when you finish the 1000 grit sanding if you did a good job at making the cuts much much smaller. I would not this though. If you do stop here, you could attempt to apply the polish, but you will be applying polish for about 4 hours just to get it to shine. Now, do you really want to waste 4 hours instead of paying maybe an extra $10 to $15? If you say yes to this question, I will find you, and hunt you down, and attempt to tattoo "KMart Case Modder" on your forehead. Here is a sneak peek at the base of my heatsink after hitting it with 1000 grit sandpaper.
Not to shabby ay? You just wait until you have a finished project
with this one.
Step 5: 1500 Grit Sanding
HEHE...I won't go there, but yes, this step will be ALMOST the exact same The major difference though, DO NOT APPLY A LOT OF PRESSURE!!!! Yes, you heard right. I like to use the wet sandpaper for about 2 minutes here max. Small circular motions. After about 2 minutes (It's up to you. If you think it is ready and it is starting to shine a heck of a lot more), you can hit it with dry sand paper. What I like to do is barely apply any pressure, let the heatsink's weight be the pressure I will do small circular motions and add a little side to side action while doing this step. You will now see a nice smooth base and an extremely ugly look in the base of the heatsink. Oh wait, that is your face, my bad. ;p. No really, the base will look almost sexy at this point. Well, depends on if you have a heatsink fetish or not. Here is what my SK-6 looks like at this point.
Step 6: Applying The Polish
This was my final step in the lapping of the SK-6. It depends on if you want to make another step and hit it with 2000 Grit Sandpaper or not. Applying the polish is super easy, and you can even sit on your couch and watch TechTV or whatever you like while applying the polish. According to the directions on the Mothers Polish:
DIRECTIONS: Apply a small amount of polish to a terry cloth towel. Rub polish onto metal surface until black residue appears. Buff off residue with a clean terry cloth towel. Hard rubbing is not necessary. Use sparingly. MOTHERS will not scratch metal surfaces.
DANGER: HARMFUL OR FATAL IF SWALLOWED. Now if you swallow this stuff, then you should be in some sort of mental hospital getting your head checked because you are a few sandwiches shy of a picnic.
Now I will let you in on a little secret. I was a cheap a$$ when I did this step. Why? I didn't buy a terry cloth towel to do this. Instead, I used an old pair of underwear. It left some weird brown streaking that I couldn't get out. #@#@ JUST KIDDING. I used an old T-shirt. This worked perfectly for this job. Just to note, your T-shirt will be unbearable in the future after this due to all of the black nasty dirty marks from the heatsink. Now, if you did happen to swallow some of the polish, well heck, go ahead and wear the shirt anyway. I guess you will think they are black poka-dots anyway. Alrighty, lets move on shall we. I spent maybe and hour total polishing my SK-6. What this polish will do is deep clean the base of the heatsink and take out any scratches that you may have left after sanding. Very easy job.
As you can see, when you apply the polish it will leave a black
dirty film. This means it is cleaning and sanding.
Once you finish the polishing, the next thing you will want to do is run it under warm water and scrub the base of the SK-6 with a soft cloth or, take a bunch of cotton balls and grab some rubbing alcohol. Cover the cotton balls with rubbing alcohol and then do small circular motions on the base of the SK-6. I prefer the rubbing alcohol method because for some odd reason I feel that the alcohol will clean better then the water or soapy water. What you want to make sure is you get all of the residue that may be left from polishing.
Lets See How This BAD MAMA-JAMA Does
After a whole day of lapping, cleaning, building, wiring, and you name it. It came down to the nitty gritty. Before I ran the tests of the lapped version of the SK-6, I decided to see how well it performed on the Duron 800. There was no way in hell I was going to run this thing unlapped on my T-Bird. The base would have definitely left indentations on my core. As I stated earlier, I was going to perform these tests using a very silent Sunon 60mm fan, a some what noisy YS-Tech 60mm fan, and the....WHAT???!!!! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!! I'm sorry, lemme shut this thing off. Oh, I will also show you the Super Noisy, drive you crazy, kill your cats and dogs, and lets not forget the children, and every once in a while the wife, Delta 60mm by 38mm fan. Let me just warn you now. If you have this fan sucking the heat off of your heatsink, make sure your window in the side of your case is secure. If you don't have a window, then make sure you paid more then $50 for your case. If you have a toupee, take it off, this thing will suck it in and shred it.
Duron System Specs
MSI K7T-Pro 2A
Duron 800MHz (6x133 @ 1.7v) & 950MHz (7x133 @ 1.9v)
256MB PC-133 CAS 2
Gainward TNT2 Ultra 64MB
20GB Maxtor 7200 RPM / ATA 100
AC'97 Onboard Sound
3Com 10/100/1000 Ethernet card
SK-6 w/ Delta 60mm x 38mm Super High Power Rocket Blower!!!@#@
T-Bird System Specs
MSI K7T-Turbo Limited Edition
Athlon 1000MHz AXIA (7.5x133 @ 1.8v) & 1533MHz (11.5x133 @ 1.9v)
512MB PC-166 CAS 2
Asus Geforce 3
20GB Maxtor 7200 RPM / ATA100
SBLive! 5.1 X-Gamer
3Com 10/100/1000 Ethernet Card
Look at the big bizatch sittin' high on my Turbo LE!@!##
Initial Installation
Before I installed the SK-6, I double checked the base to make sure it was clean, I cleaned the core of both CPU's, and I applied Arctic Silver 2 Thermal Compound. I apply my Arctic Silver exactly how Arctic Silver shows on their website. The only thing I do different is I do not wipe off the base of the heatsink they way they show on Arctic Silver's website. I use a very small amount of Arctic Silver on the base, and then I massage it into the base using a piece of plastic, normally the wrapping to a pack of cigarettes since I have them with in reaching distance.
As you can see, I use a very small dab in the center of the heatsink.
I then rub it into the base in small circular motions. I then take a razor blade
and smooth the finish.
The Results
All test consisted of:
• IDLE: Temperature taken 15 minutes after
being powered on.
• LOAD: Temperature taken 15 minutes after starting Prime95 Torture Test.
Duron 800MHz @ 800MHz Unlapped Results.
Duron 800MHz @ 950MHz Unlapped Results.
Duron 800MHz @ 800MHz Lapped Results.
Duron 800MHz @ 950MHz Lapped Results.
T-Bird 1000MHz @ 1000MHz Lapped Results.
T-Bird 1000MHz @ 1533MHz Lapped Results.
Conclusion
As you can clearly see, there is a very nice advantage between an unlapped heatsink and a lapped heatsink. I was very happy with the outcome of this job and with the results as well. If I was to pick out my favorite combination here, it would definitely be the SK-6 with the 60mm YS-Tech. Granted the YS-Tech is a little loud, but not nearly as loud as the Delta was. Plus, the YS-Tech was 1°c to 2°c warmer then the Delta. I can accept this difference with a little more peace in the house. Now if you are looking for effective cooling for a processor, and you are not planning on taking the cpu to the hilt like I did, then I would definitely go with the SK-6 and the Sunon fan. So quiet, but not as efficient as the super fans. And if sound is not an issue for you, then go right ahead and get the Delta 60mm x 38mm fan. One thing to note about the Delta fan, make sure you have your parents, wife, husband, child, children, neighbor, or neighbors written consent stating they are not bothered by the noise. You might also want to check your local ordnance on noise pollution, because I guarantee you will be able to hear this fan over your 15,000 watt super stereo you supposedly have.
Well, this concludes my first article for Virtual-Hideout at this time. Hopefully not my last article, and hopefully my articles get better. I would like to give very special thanks to DiceMan for making any of this possible. Dice had the patience to show me his special setup for doing his reviews. He taught me the HTML setup Wolfie likes, and he even taught me a few things with my digital camera since we both have the same exact model. I know my pictures were without a doubt not the best, but in the future I plan on using a totally different setup for my pictures. I will be using a nice large table with flat white back drops insuring no sloppy flash crazy pictures. Also, very special thanks to Wolfie for even giving Dice the time of day to recommend me for the VH Team. Just a little note...Maybe in the future, since I live about 30 or so minutes from Thor, him and I can get together and do something huge for the VH readers. You never know. Plus, I have to get my bootay over to the Lanaholics for some good ol' lanning and own the crap out of Thor.
<insert=" subliminal message">GET OVER TO THE COOLERGUYS AND FILL UP A CART FULL OF GOODIES</insert>.Once again special thanks to Todd over at the CoolerGuys for the great hookup of merchandise to make this How-To possible. He has a lot of pimp stuff over their guys so get on over there and check em out. Great prices, fast shipping, and great packaging (until your 110 pound pitbull decides to knock over a box of shipping peanuts and get them everywhere) ;p . Although my dog did get all 43583778583 peanuts all over my house. That might be my next How-To!!!! How-To clean up the shipping peanuts off of your floor. HEHE....You definitely cannot go wrong ordering all of your modding equipment, cooling equipment, cases, and whatever else you may want from the CoolerGuys.
/me finally finishes....zzZZzzZZzzZZ