Scratches On CPU Die When Delidding, HELP!

[Luke2468]

Hi there, so I recently decided my i7 7700k to reduce thermal spikes and I used coolabrotory liquid pro. As I was cleaning the die I used the provided green pads the liquid metal came with and stopped soon after when I noticed it left a good amount of scratches. I continued with the delid as normal and put everything back together and the thermals were so much better however I'm concerned that overtime those scratches will have a negative effect on something. Should I be concerned or are a few scratches on the die ( under the IHS ) caused from the provided green pads okay and wont effect anything overtime ? Thank you for any advice

 

[das_stig]

May degrade over itme, but you should be talking years and by then not an issue. Thermal paste will help protect it.

 

[daswilhelm]

Check out CPU Lapping. won't cause a problem.

 

[Mr5oh]

Yeah don't use those scotch bright pads they include on the initial delid. Really, I wouldn't use it ever. It will scratch things all up, as you found. It's not worth lapping either. Google liquid metal corrosion, you'll see what I mean. The liquid metal will fill those scratches just like a thermal paste. It's not ideal, but it's fine.

Generally people would use those pads to clean after delidding a second time. This is my 7700k after about 10 days of Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra , while I was waiting for some Conductonaut to arrive (I'm not claiming it will be any different either!), and you can see there is already changes happening to my die:

Right after delidding, before application of liquid metal:

That's after a little over a week. Now that was with a copper IHS, so I went back to the stock IHS. However after seeing that I see no reason to lap the die to take scratches out, as I firmly believe the liquid metal will mess up your shiney lapped surface anyways. That being said, it's now been months later, and no changes in my temps, and I don't expect them to change.

I also wouldn't delid again, I don't think it was worth it.

 

[Luke2468]

Thank you guys so much I'm relieved now lol but I'm enjoying not having to watch my fans go up and down due to my cpu spiking to 51 when opening tabs, the max temp I saw with prime 95 was 46 ( version 27.7 I believe or the one that isnt as harsh towards intel chips)

 

[Mr5oh]

Thank you guys so much I'm relieved now lol but I'm enjoying not having to watch my fans go up and down due to my cpu spiking to 51 when opening tabs, the max temp I saw with prime 95 was 46 ( version 27.7 I believe or the one that isnt as harsh towards intel chips)

It's version 26.6 on Prime95 for Intel chips. Later versions have the AVX code that puts unreleastic loads on CPUs with these instruction sets (I3 and up).