Hi I use a Noctua NH-D14 cooler ,this cooler has been swapped from my core 2duo to my Sandybribge set up ,I noticed that the heat sink had been slightly marked by the previous Cpu ,I contacted the manufacturer who said it did not matter as the heat sink was not perfectly flat ,as I am going to use a new gelid thermal paste and also fit 2 new Thermalright ty140 fans ,I wonder if any one has lapped a Noctura NH-D14 if so did it make any difference to the temps ,many thanks for reading

peter

To be honest, my previous experience with lapping is that the best you can hope for is a couple of degrees less... if you're lucky. I did it a couple of times in the past but decided it wasn't worth the effort.

 

I have the NH-D14 as well, love the cooler, the best cooler I've owned, cool and very quiet. It perform beautifully as it is, I don't personally think lapping will help you much.

 

ty140 fans from what I've read are very powerful, should provide better cooling. However, I believe they are noisy at full tilt, so bare that in mind.

 

I tried a couple of Noctua NF-F12 focused flow fans on mine, but to be honest the reduction in temps was minimal and they were a tad noisier. So I decide that the fans already supplied with the D14 were best for me, in terms of the cooling/noise balance.

 

Innovation Cooling's Diamond Paste is my favourite. It's not easy to spread, but you don't spread it anyway, you place as 5 mm blob in the middle, and allow the pressure of the cooler to spread it for you. Research done by Innovation Cooling demonstrated that this was the best way to avoid air pockets.

Hi thanks for your answer I will lap the heat sink ,a couple of degrees less for nothing will help ,As for the fans again as i want to try the variable speed set up via the Bios ,Noctua is a funny company i wrote to them asking to purchase there latest fans which have variable speed ,they stated that they had no intention of selling them separate from the heat sink, thanks for your reply

peter

I used to lap all my heatsinks but when I got my 2700k I read that the heat spreader on the chip was concave and that some heatsink manufacturers (Thermalright at least) have designed the base of their coolers to be slightly convex to ensure the best contact between the two. The advice was that if you wanted to lap your heatsink you should also lap your CPUs heat spreder (IHS) so that you know both surfaces are totally flat and you have the best contact between them, failure to do this could potentially lead to worse temperatures. I didn't really want to lap my CPU so I didn't bother with the heatsink and beleive I made the right decision as I'm happy enough with my temps.

 

After reading many favourable reviews I used the Gelid paste and have hd no problems with it, I'd certainly recommend the small pea / grain of rice application method over spreading.

 

I have both the TY140 and TY150 fans and think they have a reallly good noise / performance trade off. I have decent airflow through my case and a halfway decent cooler (Thermalright Macho) my fans are conrolled with Asus Fan Xpert 2 and they never spin up much past their idle speeds unless I'm stress testing meaning my system is near silent most of the time.