Help, I mighthave ruined my heatsink

I just built my first pc and used the stock HSF that came with my P4 2.4C. My temps were a bit high so I decided to replace the thermal pad with Artic Silver.

In the process of trying to remove the old pad I scratched it a little bit with a razor blade. Plus I can't get all that black junk off of it, there's still a black hazeto the surface of the metal.

I've heard of people lapping their heat sinks but do not know exactly what this means. Would this fix the imperfections in the surface? If so how do you do it?

Thanks in advance.

ya...get some 1000 grit wet dry sand paper..put the paper on a clean flat surface...a glass table or granite counter top...

Then start sanding...but make sure you keep the heatsink flat...and rotate 90 degrees every minute or too....

Depending on how deep ya scratched it could take a while...

if you want put a little bit of water on the sandpaper...that will make the heatsink a little bit smoother...

Stop when the heatsink shows no more scratches...

Although a small scratch wont be so bad...you could even run it with the addition of thermal compound...


Proud owner of DOS 3.3

or you could got to a nice manly hardware store and pick up some acetone if you are a little weary of being caught with mailpolish remover or if you are single...


Proud owner of DOS 3.3

plus the girlie nail polish remover probably has all kinds of other crap in it.
simple acetone followed by a wash with water then dry.

<b>Regards,
Mr no integrity coward.</b>

regular, unleaded or premium?

<b>Regards,
Mr no integrity coward.</b>

Thanks everyone for the input.

I actually contiued to work away with the alcohol and lense cloths last night and got it looking decent. I put the Arctic Silver on and let it run with the BIOS heat monitor screen up. The CPU temp stbalized at 50C, my case temp was 35C. I know that that temp is really high for a 2.4C, but my case temp seems high too. Is a 15 degree differential a lot or is the heat sink doing a decent job based on the conditions?

Regardless, I'm planning on taking the heat sink off again and doing some of the things you recommended, we'll see how it works.

Thanks again.

Nail polish remover.