[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Five Insane Upgrades That You Should Never Do (and How to Do Them!) here

[MicTig]

Scary...

[siaopao]

I actually did the LCD upgrade once on my Dell Inspiron 6000. I think I upgrade from 1280 LCD screen to 1440 screen. If you are carefull enough person, you should be able to do it in 30-45 minutes or less.

Before, Dell has 1 LCD cable per platform, regardless the screen resolution you choose. Nowadays, because Dell wants to save every single penny, they have multiple cables configuration for each notebook, so you might want to do some research if you are planning to upgrade your LCD.

i.e: if you want to upgrade to higher resolution LCD, the LCD cable that you got in your unit might not compatible with the new LCD.

[ramfisher65]

If I hav e to go this far to upgrade my computer, I'll pass and buy a new $5000 Alienware...LOL

[Kilme]

I hate to sound negative, but I was honestly expecting something more scary. I can understand the LCD, but lapping and water cooling? I've seen scarier at a children's Halloween party.

[One4yu2c]

The goal was to come up with insane upgrades, not necessarily scary ones. Each one of the upgrades had either a high risk-to-performance or cost-to-performance ratio, making them more suitable for power teakers than your average Joe. Lapping your CPU isn't as scary as, say, emerging your system in vegetable oil, but it takes a certain amount of courage to risk destroying a several hundred dollar CPU (and motherboard if you're not careful with the metal shavings) in exchange for a marginal temperature decrease and subsequent overclocking headroom.

[kitsune17717]

wow! tough guy!!!

[jychen1]

I tried upgrading my old (working) laptop screen using ScreenTek: it was a disaster. After telling them TWICE and receiving three different LCD screens, they still provided me a LCD screen with a power cord that was TOO SHORT. Not only that, they I had to "give them" my original LCD screen to them as part of the deal, which was never given back to me because they "processed it" (i.e., threw it out). In the end, I got a refund and a laptop with NO SCREEN.
I would stay away from Screen Tek.

[tdalbert]

It sounds crazy, but if you still want to try lapping your cpu, I would suggest using Crocus cloth instead of sandpaper. it is a non grit emory cloth used in polishing metal and gemswithout marking or leaving any marks. It is available at Auto supply stores and in sheets the same as sandpaper.

Good luck!!

[littlegreenman]

Re: Lapping your CPU- We spend hours of prep when installing a new CPU in order to avoid static electricity. Anyone remember Mr. Science or your grade school teacher demonstrating static electricity & how to generate it? You can draw a 1 cm. spark (10,000V) by shuffling your feet on a rug. Now you want to tell us to rub the CPU back & forth on an insulating sheet of crocus cloth (or sandpaper). The main benefit of this is decreasing the thickness of the integral heat sink so there is less material for the heat to flow through. Almost sure to fry the CPU & generate a keychain in this process.

[crazypj]

I think you missed the point.

The lapping process isnt to thin down the CPU/heatsink but to make it smoother so you get better conductivity.

With a matched surface, thermal paste would actually hinder heat transfe, a vacuum is created between CPU/heatsink if its done right

[kitsune17717]

...but if you're constantly in contact with the cpu as you're lapping it, no sparks will form

[ClemSnide]

I liked this article a lot-- it has good, solid advice on water cooling: which I believe will become more popular in the next few years. I know I'm considering it for my next homebrew. And I also appreciate the brand advice, which the how-to-buy-a-motherboard article omitted.
Would adding another graphics board be considered an insane upgrade? I've always wondered whether (on a price/performance basis) two mid-range boards would outperform one high-end one!