Rated: 97.14% (7 votes)
Loading ...Lapping Q6600
veato
Having seen 3DMark06 crash during the CPU test 1 I decided to take drastic measures with the temperature. To be honest it only hit 63 degrees (@ 3.6GHz) which is well within range of a G0 SLACR but I couldn’t see any other reason why it crashed. I normally run the Q6600 at 3.2GHz but would like to push it more - 3.6GHz 24/7 ideally on air. After recently upgrading due to wanting to play the PC-eater that is Age Of Conan watercooling wasn’t affordable so lapping was the only option. I bought the premium kit from Kustompcs and this is what arrived in the post a couple of days later.
Kit
It appeared to be a nice kit and the grades of paper go all the way down to 10 micron for that ‘mirror finish’. With that I took the CPU out of the case, held the glass and paper in place with Duck tape, applied a bit of water to the paper and away I went. I moved the CPU in a forwards and backwards motion for thirty repetitions then rotated through 90 degrees for another thirty. I did this for around five minutes. You could then see the residue left behind on the paper as it did its job.
Residue left behind
Before long the heatspreader on the CPU was starting to reveal a copper coloured surface.
Scratching the surface
After 5-10 minutes each with 400, 600, 800 and 1000 grit papers the CPU was almost all copper with a dull-ish surface
Looking better
I then moved onto the micron grade papers and this produced a mirror-like finish. With more work I believe the finish could have been even smoother but this was good enough for me. The reflection you can see on the CPU is a blue knife handle.
Shiny
That’s it. Finished. I left the CPU alone for an hour to make sure it was dry and held my breath during the all important boot up. Thankfully (and with an almighty sigh) the PC loaded XP and all looked well. Spending £140 on another Q6600 was not something I would have taken lightly so being brave could have ultimately also have been very very stupid. Not this time though!
Results
So for the all important part….. temperature. Well, I’ve previously lapped an Opteron 146 with fantastic results so was hoping for something similar. So far that hasn’t happened. The thermal compound advises 12-24 hours to let it bed in before you see the true result so I shall see but for now I’m not all that impressed yet. The temperature in XP after an hour of running is 49-50 degrees @ 3.2GHZ which not significantly cooler than before (reported by SpeedFan 4.34) with the individiual cores are reported as 42-45 degrees. I couldn’t lap the HSF which might have made more of a difference though.
Conclusion
Admittedly at just over a tenner with postage I think its good value even only managing to shave off the couple of degrees I’ve managed. I was hoping the result would be good enough to let me push the Q6600 to 3.6GHz with my current Akasa Zen case and Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro but this isn’t looking likely. I will have another look after the weekend when the thermal compound has bedded in but it looks like I will ultimately have to get myself a Thermaltake 120 VX /Tuniq Tower or wait for the Arctic Cooling Freezer Extreme. Watch this space!
*****UPDATE*****
After tearing my hair out wondering why the lapping had changed pretty much nothing I realised my BIOS was totally out of date. I’ve updated this and now I’m seeing the temps I would have expected. At 3GHz (for now) the CPUTIN is reported as 28 degrees and individual cores between 39 and 43 degrees idle. I’ll have a session on Conan tonight and check again to see how much they went upto under load. much happier for now though. Will go for the big 3.6GHz later in the week when I get chance to tinker with the voltages but am still looking forward to the Freezer Extreme. Next cooling project…… GFX card!
Rated: 80% (1 votes)
Loading ...Age Of Conan - Eating PC’s For Breakfast
veato
I was convinced on Friday to buy Age Of Conan for a not so bargain price of £29.99. Although cheaper than at Game et al I still hate the thought of paying full price for a game AND paying a subscription charge on top. Nevertheless its a bitter pill we all have to swallow to play the latest all singing all dancing MMOPRG.
I’m not actually into MMO’s all that much and only got started playing World Of Warcraft when a couple of guys at work convinced me to give it a go. That was a good year or more ago and now my level 70 warrior has hung up his epic sword to make way for AOC.
The thing is though WOW ran really nice on my PC. Its not a ninja PC - Opteron 146 overclocked to 2.9GHz and a 7950GT overclocked also - but 1680×1050 and all the detail I could turn on (including 4x multisampling) made the most of the cartoon-esque graphics. Iwould even go as far to say WOW could at times look pleasing to the eye.
And that brings me to AOC. Ok so the recommended specs on the back of the box asks for a Core2Duo 2.4GHz and 7900GTX so I knew I was pushing it, but with the minimum being a 3GHz P4 and GeForce 6600 I figured I might get somewhere in the middle. Afterall I’ve overclocked the 7950GT to something like the 7900GTX and the CPU isn’t exactly a slouch albeit single core. After a long installation and 638MB patch I was ready to go. So how did the PC cope?
It didn’t. Thats right, it was slayed by Conan’s own blade. No matter what I did to each individual draw distance setting, etc I could not get the game to run at more than 22fps. It was horrible. Then I lowered the resolution and took some more detail off. So now I get an extra frame or two at the expense of any graphical quality. It looks so horrible at this point I start to wonder why i bothered. Seriously I’ve seen smoother edged Lego models.
After many expletives shouted at the monitor I decided there was no option apart from an upgrade. The Opti had been playing up for some time anyway and was recently lapped to stop it running hotter than the surface of the sun. Added to the random reboots and game crashes which I can only assume was graphics and memory related I convinced myself. Saturday morning at 10am on the A50: destination Stoke on Trent!
Hurrah! The game now runs. No it doesn’t just run, It looks lovely. Lush grass and trees, detailed buildings, lighting and textures providing lots and lots of eye candy all at 1680×1050 on ‘high’ with Shader Model 3.0 and bloom, etc all enabled. The FPS is always in the 30-50 region and loading times have come down a bit too. I’m not all about the graphics when it comes to gaming but it’s made such a difference. Without the upgrade I probably wouldn’t have played the game past its free trial period as It was bordering on unplayable. I’ve yet to fully judge how good - or bad - AOC is and if it will stand the test of time as WOW has done for the last three years but graphically its yummy! If you’re wondering what I had to chuck into the case on Saturday it’s this:
- Quad Q6600 @ 3.2GHz (will push to 3.6GHz after putting some hours under its belt)
- 2GB G.Skill DDR2 1066MHz (going to try for 1200MHz soon)
- Asus P5K Deluxe Wifi-AP Black Pearl Edition @ rated FSB 1424MHz (356MHz)
- Creative X-Fi Xtreme Audio OEM
- MSI 512MB 8800GT @ 660MHz Core / 1900MHz GDDR3
And thats it! Would I recommend an upgrade to play AOC? Probably not but if you’re looking to upgrade anyway you’ll be pleased with the results. Lets just hope it matches all the eye candy with some decent gameplay. Time will tell.
Rated: 80% (3 votes)
Loading ...Pink PC
veato
Ok so its not the typical mod you might see gracing these pages but my neice wanted a pink PC. The donor was a P4 Packard Bell in beige and grey with an old CRT monitor and kid-sized mouse. I decided on a pink and purple combo so not to be too damaging to the eyes!
I tried to get plently of detail in the CD and floppy drives too rather than wash them in a single colour
With all the bits back together the tower didn’t look too bad (for a girl!). I didnt go mad with in between sanding coats so the finish isn’t immacualte but she’s only 6!
And the finished article. The speakers and mouse are two-tone like the CD drives which took some doing but the result was pretty good. Shame about the keys on the keyboard but you cant win ‘em all!
To be honest given more time I would have liked to improve the finish and give it some sort of wax/polish finish but I’m semi-happy. Hopefully thats the last pink PC I’ll be seeing for a while!