 CPU and heatsink lapping. That is a topic that I wanted to make a workshop video on, and actually spent many hours attempting to do just that. What the heck is it? Well, theoretically your heatsink has teeny tiny little grooves and nooks and edges on the surface, imperfections that will theoretically cause issue. But even worse than this, there are the curves, convex, concave, or even the sought-after lack thereof, also known simply as flat. These are all but variables in the overall equation of cooling performance within your system, and some matter more than others. The theory behind lapping is to neutralize said variables, to remove the curves and imperfections, and create something flat, shiny, and smooth. Intel's Skull Canyon NUC features a 6th generation Core i7 processor and Thunderbolt 3. Learn more in the link in the video description down below. To better explain how it is done, I will explain the process from the start, and we can use some of the seemingly endless footage of myself doing so in order to represent this. You begin by gathering materials. You need a strong, sturdy table that won't move, shake, or bend when things are placed on it. The table's surface would hopefully be glass, but if not, you should source some relatively thick and heavy glass, or a mirror, as glass, and especially mirrors, are very flat. Once you have sourced the flattest surface you can, it's time to stop by an auto parts shop. You need sandpaper, and a lot of different grits of it. I get wet and dry sandpaper, and I would recommend you use a fairly standard progression of grits, consisting of 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1500, and 2000. Wet the sandpaper, starting at your lowest grit, and leave some standing water on it in order for the heatsink to glide nicely. Tape the sandpaper down to your surface and get to work. Keep note of the direction the heatsink is facing, and slide it up and down the paper five times, totaling 10 total passes. When doing this, control the tilt of the heatsink so that it is able to travel without skipping or tipping as it goes along, but don't push down. Let the weight of the heatsink press into the sandpaper instead. Once you have completed one round of this, rotate the heatsink 90 degrees. Once you've completed 10 full rotations, it's time to move up a grit. As you can probably guess, it's an extremely tedious process. I would highly recommend putting on an audiobook or watching a movie or something during the process. Just make sure you don't lose count. There was tons of evidence online of this working really well for people, albeit most of those were super old posts, but either way, it was fairly consistent for people to achieve anywhere between one and five degrees of improvement in cooling performance after lapping. Awesome. Perfect candidate for a workshop video that might actually have a conclusion that isn't, you know, actually it doesn't matter what you do. Because trust me, it's not just you that's getting tired of that. I want things to matter. I hate it when things are just whatever. Cable management, whatever. Fan placement, whatever. Thermal paste application, whatever. I'm tired of it too. So I grabbed a Hyper 212 Evo thinking that it would be a good candidate because of how many freaking people own them. If there's one small improvement here, it would have the biggest impact on the community due to just how many Hyper 212 Evos there are. There's a lot of them. I then spent three hours sliding a heatsink back and forth, the base of which had quite noticeable imperfections when I started. And looked, you know, super nice and shiny when all was said and done. Before lapping, it was able to cool a 4790K overvolted to 1.35 volts to 67 degrees Celsius in an ambient room temperature of 19 degrees. After lapping, it cooled the same CPU with the same fan speed to 70 degrees Celsius, but the ambient temperature of 22 degrees. Meaning that the temperature of the room went up three degrees and the temperature of the computer, or more specifically the CPU, went up three degrees. Also known as not a damn thing changed. I was frustrated as I am now. I felt like the results were off, like I probably did something wrong. I needed to do some research. And I did. And armed with my recent results, I found many additional sources of information, many disagreeing with each other, which is always frustrating when trying to get to the bottom of something. When you're researching anything, having people disagree with each other is kind of annoying. The most thoroughly tested, documented, and investigated resource I could personally find was from Silent PC Review. Namely the Article 1366, also known as the post titled Our Laps CPU Heat Sync Test Platform. Here's where it was reinforced that the surface scratches and imperfections are less of a big deal than the curve. Here's where it was reinforced that the curve, or lack thereof, is kind of what matters, not really how shiny it is. Here's where I learned that due to the manufacturing process of direct contact coolers, like the 212 Evo, they're all basically flat. Meaning that the sanding that I did just removed some material and made almost no other difference at all. So do you think lapping is useless? No, you probably don't. And that's a good thing. It made no impact when I did it, but as someone who appreciates science, that sample size is bad, and if I thought it was enough, I should probably feel pretty bad. Not even Silent PC Review really tested a wide enough range of heat sinks, in my opinion, and I wouldn't expect him to. We need a community of people for that. I suggest you go read the article on Silent PC Review, and if you would, check out the forum link in the video description, and let everyone in the community know, including myself, what experiences you have had with lapping your CPU or CPU heat sink. From reading the article, it seems that concave heat sinks are bad. Flat ones are relatively neutral, and convex ones have a bit of an advantage, thanks to their stronger mounting pressure directly over the CPU die as it curves. This information has led water block manufacturers and enthusiasts to intentionally bow the bases of popular blocks in the past, like the DTEK Fusion and Apogee GT. So while we don't have anything obviously concave to test for you, we hope you still found the methodology for lapping we presented useful, and we'd love to see your results on the forum. iFixit.com is your complete DIY electronics repair solution, from their 19,000 free step-by-step repair guides, to their huge inventory of replacement parts and tools with lifetime warranties. iFixit has got your repair needs covered. Today we're talking about their latest and greatest, the all-new Pro-Tek Toolkit. It's a completely reimagined design, but just as rugged and portable as before, and it's even easier to use the tools as they are easier to access. It includes the new 64-bit driver kit, which replaced the former 54-bit driver kit, and it has more durable case with magnets included, which is actually really nice. The 64-bit driver kit is held to the tool roll using magnets, as is the shell cover that goes on top of the 64-bit driver kit. It's easy to use, it's longer lasting, and that means fewer repair roadblocks with their newly redesigned swivel top precision driver and all that fun stuff as well. It still has the flex extension for hard-to-reach screws, precision ESD safe tweezers, a pair of reverse tweezers, and a wider variety of plastic opening tools and picks to safely work on tablets and smartphones, and just prying various things open as well. It has suction cups for display assembly removal, it has a metal spudger, and iFixit's own rubber handles, jimmy pry tool, ESD safe strap, and etc. And all of that is at a price of $69.95, so head over to ifixit.com slash linus and use the code LINUS at the checkout to save five dollars on your next purchase of ten dollars or more. Thanks for watching this video guys. If it sucked, you know what to do, but if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit the like button, or even consider supporting us directly by using our amazon affiliate code to shop at amazon. Although you'll probably buy sandpaper at a local shop, that's fine. Buy a cool t-shirt like this one, or the direct monthly contribution to the por-porum? Well the direct monthly contribution to the forum. Now that you're wondering what to watch next, maybe check out one of the previous workshop videos. The answer to every single one of them is it doesn't matter, but there's going to be one of them up there, so check it out.