how hot is to hot to run your CPU??

[madfish]

So how hot should you let your cpu get? I have as my main a Pentium 2 @ 350MHz with/fan and it stays around 90 deg. F. {of course I got 2 slot fans blowing out and a case fan blowing in} even when gaming with Falcon 4.0 or quake 2. I heard some where on zd net that shouldn't let the temps go over 100*f. I have the latest ver. of motherboard monitor. Thanks.. Cheers!

[cedar2]

You can find specs here for most processors- p2 are well down the page.

[rh71]

I think we're missing the link...

my T-bird 1GHz runs at around 140F during normal usage. I have a feeling this may be too hot.

[the1truescott]

140*f !!!! That is hot ! Bung a case cooler in there ! Or get a bigger heatsink and fan!!

As a general rule your CPU shouldn't get anywhere near that hot. There are simple heat monitoring switches available, that turn your system off if it gets any hotter than 110*f.

If you use a big enough case, aswell as a case cooler fan (80mm) a large heat sink and fan on your CPU and if your over clocking, consider an aditional cooler, like a bay cooler.

The cooler the CPU the longer it will last and the better it will run, if it gets too hot it'll hang, and you'll do your system no good at all. :-(

[Brangwen]

It depends - to a point - on the chip and chipset on what is "too hot." My Intel P3 (600E) runs consistently below 90F, regardless of the load (on a Abit mobo), stock fan, RadShack thermal grease. My first AMD 1.2 GHz (200 FSB) T-Bird (Iwill KK266 mobo) ran at 91F, up to 118F with heavy graphics with FOP32, Artic Silver II, front intake fan, and slot fan under vidcard. Then my AMD 1.33 GHz (266FSB) T-Bird (Iwill KK266 mobo) runs (just looked) at 93F right now, but no higher that 107F even with heavy graphic programs/gaming. Mid-size tower, front intake fan, slot exhaust fan under 32MB DDR graphics card, 60mm exhaust fan top rear of tower, and (most surprisingly) a TAISOL (CGK760092 Forged Aluminum Heatsink with Copper Insert 60x10mm) 21 CFM Fan on my CPU WITH A THERMAL PAD! I was going to remove the thermal pad and apply Artic Silver but I tried the pad and was SHOCKED as I'ved oc'd the chip to over 1.51 GHz with no heat issues. Off subject, but (1) 140F is (IMO) too hot for "normal usage."

Madfish, I think your temps are fine. Out of curiosity, what mainboard are you using? How about you, rh71?

Brangwen

[GunHo]

My poor celron 533 on a 810 chipset seems to be baking away!My bios reports the cpu temp at 56c.Sandra se pro reports the temp at 79.5-80c.MBM 5 reports it at 77c (with no compensation).Strange though,,,i can put my hand on the cpu's heatsink and barely feel ANY warmth.(heatsink is flat and polished...and so is the top of the cpu,,with a micro thin coating of thermal greese)system is running at default settings(no overclk)....think i'll trust my hand temp guage.

[madfish]

Brangwen, it's an ASUS P2B with the Intel 440 bx chipset. Feb. 1999 vintage, my first build, luckly I had no probs the first boot up.
I got 320 MB PC100 in it.

[This message has been edited by madfish (edited 05-08-2001).]

[Brangwen]

As an aside, the 440BX chipsets are excellent.

Your temp at 90F is fine in my opinion. I am not an "expert" in computer tectnology / engineering, but I've built and run several systems. I suspect most members here would agree your system is running fine and will continue to do so at between 90 - 100F, maybe more.

Good luck!

Brangwen

[stevenvee]

Brangwen

BTW I agree re: the tape for heatsink interface. The thermal tapes I've used outperformed arctic silver. But you'll get 500 messages claiming silver is better. My 1G T-bird is oc'd to 1.31G and temps are only 90F with a cheapo heatsink and pink thermal tape.

[madfish]

thanks all.. cheers

[jkittlesen]

My k-6-450 runs 130-134F,so depends.