Geforce 4 Lapping Success

[tombance]

After a couple of failed high overclocks on my GF4 Ti4200, I realised that the metal 'core' on the chip sits below the plastic packaging so heat can only be transferred through the small plastic rim and therefore heat was not being dispersed well. Tonight I decided that I would have a go at sorting this out, so I got some sandpaper, wrapped it around an old heatsink, and began lapping. Finally I felt that the visible ridge had gone and so put the stock heatsink back on.

Whilst my old top overclock was 303/606 core/memory (with a few odd artifacts) I can now reach 609 with the same few artifacts on the memory (im guessing the increase is due to the board being cooler) and have so far managed to reach 316Mhz on the core (before I stopped out of boredom). At that point there were no artifacts whatsoever so I'm guessing I should be able to reach 320 easily and perhaps on a cooler day even higher.

The back of the card now feels cooler, and whilst running 3DMark i felt the heatsink get warm which it didn't do before. I also felt the ramsinks on my 3.3ns D) RAM get very hot, almost too hot to touch, which suggests to me they will need better cooling before I can overclock my memory any further.

Im sorry about the pointlessness of this post, I just feel quite proud right now (that my card actually still worked after being lapped) so I had to share it.

<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=5467618 " target="_new">Almost Breaking 12k!!</A>

 

[sirak]

Thats cool - can't say I've ever used sandpaper on any of my components :lol:

 

[spike]

For anyone interested there is a Micro Mesh kit that I use on the canopys of the airplanes I work on to get scratchs out. You start out with 400 grit sandpaper and eventually work up to 16,000 grit. I havent tried it on a heatsinc yet but going to do a test soon. I think it will the ticket to some good overclocks.

Asus A7N8X Deluxe
AMD Athlon XP 2700
512 MB Corsair Twinx
MSI Ti4600 8X
3DMARK2001SE 14654

 

[svol]

You're my hero... I'm going to try that out for sure. I already have some 1000grid sandpaper for sanding.

I'm 99% sure this is causing my lousy GPU OC of 290MHz (the other 1% would be more voltage needed).

I love my Delta 60HP 7000 RPM fan that puts out more dB then CFM

 

[tombance]

Go for it. Just make sure you brush it off well afterwards to prevent any shorts (I did this with a paintbrush :redface: , but it still worked fine).

<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=5467618 " target="_new">Almost Breaking 12k!!</A>