Groltz
My demeaning user rank is
After weeks of procrastination I finally got around to upgrading the North Bridge heatsink on my Epox 8K3A+.
Through the posts of others at a couple of non-SF forums, I found that people were reporting significant gains in FSB overclocking stability once the miserable stock NB heatsink was replaced with something better. So, I got my hands on a Zalman NB32 passive heatsink for $4.45 @ Sharka Corporation.
The first order of business was to lap the NB32's bottomside flat. The NB32, like many heatsinks I've seen, was far from flat on the bottom. It cleaned up very nicely after about 20 minutes work on my lapping block and 3 different grits of silicon carbide sandpaper.
The stock NB heatsink was attached with adhesive thermal tape. :roll:
A gentle twist and pull removed it without any trouble. I dressed the surface of the NB chip with some 600-grit sandpaper and then wiped it with a cotton cloth that was wet with automotive brake cleaner. The perimeter of the chip was masked with narrow strips of masking tape in case some of the epoxy flowed down the sides onto the motherboard. (None did). A small batch of Arctic Silver epoxy was mixed and duly applied by my all time favorite thermal compound applicator---A finger with a latex glove on it. The NB32 was pressed smartly down onto the wet surface and it cemented nicely within 20 minutes. The masking tape was removed and....that's it. I haven't done any pushing of my FSB limits yet, but after 3 hours of uptime I can report that there are no problems whatsoever with my system running at the frequency it was at beforehand (12.5 X 175).
Buck mentioned a short while back that I should get another picture posted of the machine...I haven't really done much in the line of improvements since the last pictorial I did, which was 06/23/2002.
Nonetheless, I took some pictures through some of the steps of the project and you are welcome to see them. Like before, I will probably not leave them on the server for more than 2-3 weeks as to not waste space.
I hope this doesn't cause any hassles, but the pictures are in the JPEG2000 format (jp2). If you have a program that can display them, great. If not, grab this one. (792K download) I used the jp2 format because of its quality-to-size ratio. Essentially, images in the jp2 format are compressed to the size of JPEGs but almost have the quality of TIFs. Except for the one monster image, all the pics are 172-496K.
Picture #1 shows the topside of the Zalman NB32 heatsink.
Picture #2 shows the bottom of the NB32 before I started lapping it.
Picture #3 shows the bottom of the NB32 of the first few rubs on the 220-grit sandpaper. This shows just how badly warped it is.
Picture #4 shows the bottom of the NB32 after I had finished the first (220) and second (600) grits of lapping.
Picture #5 shows the bottom of the NB32 after I finished with the final grit. (1500)
Picture #6 shows my heatsink lapping block. It is a 12" X 12" by 1.5" solid block of polycarbonate. It itself was lapped completely flat on one side at my uncle's machine shop.
Picture #7 shows the NB32 next to the POS stock heatsink.
Picture #8 shows the KT333 north bridge chip, sans heatsink. (Video card removed for access)
Picture #9 shows the NB32 attached to the NB chip.
Picture #10 is an overall side view of the PC.
Want to see some detail? Here is a 1920 X 2560 version of picture #10. It is 6.1 megabytes; download it at your peril. :wink:
Picture #11 is a 3/4-view of the PC's inside. The patented Groltz Super-Duty Cpu Fan Rheostat is in view.
Picture #12 shows the back of the PC. The 400W Sparkle PSU's fan grill, which was very restrictive to air flow, has been removed with a Dremel. The funny remaining outline of the hole was necessary due to way the original grill spanned it. Also, you can see that the POS stock PSU fan has been replaced with a nice Pabst unit. The rheostat knob is just below the case fan.
:zzz:
Through the posts of others at a couple of non-SF forums, I found that people were reporting significant gains in FSB overclocking stability once the miserable stock NB heatsink was replaced with something better. So, I got my hands on a Zalman NB32 passive heatsink for $4.45 @ Sharka Corporation.
The first order of business was to lap the NB32's bottomside flat. The NB32, like many heatsinks I've seen, was far from flat on the bottom. It cleaned up very nicely after about 20 minutes work on my lapping block and 3 different grits of silicon carbide sandpaper.
The stock NB heatsink was attached with adhesive thermal tape. :roll:
A gentle twist and pull removed it without any trouble. I dressed the surface of the NB chip with some 600-grit sandpaper and then wiped it with a cotton cloth that was wet with automotive brake cleaner. The perimeter of the chip was masked with narrow strips of masking tape in case some of the epoxy flowed down the sides onto the motherboard. (None did). A small batch of Arctic Silver epoxy was mixed and duly applied by my all time favorite thermal compound applicator---A finger with a latex glove on it. The NB32 was pressed smartly down onto the wet surface and it cemented nicely within 20 minutes. The masking tape was removed and....that's it. I haven't done any pushing of my FSB limits yet, but after 3 hours of uptime I can report that there are no problems whatsoever with my system running at the frequency it was at beforehand (12.5 X 175).
Buck mentioned a short while back that I should get another picture posted of the machine...I haven't really done much in the line of improvements since the last pictorial I did, which was 06/23/2002.
Nonetheless, I took some pictures through some of the steps of the project and you are welcome to see them. Like before, I will probably not leave them on the server for more than 2-3 weeks as to not waste space.
I hope this doesn't cause any hassles, but the pictures are in the JPEG2000 format (jp2). If you have a program that can display them, great. If not, grab this one. (792K download) I used the jp2 format because of its quality-to-size ratio. Essentially, images in the jp2 format are compressed to the size of JPEGs but almost have the quality of TIFs. Except for the one monster image, all the pics are 172-496K.
Picture #1 shows the topside of the Zalman NB32 heatsink.
Picture #2 shows the bottom of the NB32 before I started lapping it.
Picture #3 shows the bottom of the NB32 of the first few rubs on the 220-grit sandpaper. This shows just how badly warped it is.
Picture #4 shows the bottom of the NB32 after I had finished the first (220) and second (600) grits of lapping.
Picture #5 shows the bottom of the NB32 after I finished with the final grit. (1500)
Picture #6 shows my heatsink lapping block. It is a 12" X 12" by 1.5" solid block of polycarbonate. It itself was lapped completely flat on one side at my uncle's machine shop.
Picture #7 shows the NB32 next to the POS stock heatsink.
Picture #8 shows the KT333 north bridge chip, sans heatsink. (Video card removed for access)
Picture #9 shows the NB32 attached to the NB chip.
Picture #10 is an overall side view of the PC.
Want to see some detail? Here is a 1920 X 2560 version of picture #10. It is 6.1 megabytes; download it at your peril. :wink:
Picture #11 is a 3/4-view of the PC's inside. The patented Groltz Super-Duty Cpu Fan Rheostat is in view.
Picture #12 shows the back of the PC. The 400W Sparkle PSU's fan grill, which was very restrictive to air flow, has been removed with a Dremel. The funny remaining outline of the hole was necessary due to way the original grill spanned it. Also, you can see that the POS stock PSU fan has been replaced with a nice Pabst unit. The rheostat knob is just below the case fan.
:zzz: