Lapping Q6600

[swaaye]

It's nickel actually. It's an awfully thin layer. It is there to prevent copper oxidation. Nickel is much worse at heat conduction than Aluminum even, apparently.
http://www.engineersedge.com/properties_of_metals.htm

I'd like to know what the solder they use to connect the heatspreader to the CPU is made up of. Lead sucks as a conductor.

Why wouldn't overclocking void your warranty? Of course it does. Whether or not they can tell you overclocked is the question. If they knew you did, they would never honor your warranty. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the chip had something like the ECU of a car, in that it records and measures various data. There is extra hardware in the CPU for debugging and testing.

Alcohol won't get paste out of the metal as well as a Xylene or Acetone cleaner. Or, even better, ArctiClean. I love that stuff. I'm more than happy to pay for a cleaner that smells like oranges and doesn't wreck havok on my hands or lungs, while also cleaning as well or better. I bought the big bottles of Articlean and they've lasted me years. Alcohol is useful for lighter hardware cleaning tho. Cuz it dries so fast and leaves no residue (other than that 9% of water for a bit). I have Articlean, Oops, and Isopropyl 91% in my "lab" lol. The Oops rarely gets use because it is so nasty.