Perhaps the question of what temperatures are safe is a bit different than
the question of what temperatures are optimal, and you may get different
answers to the question of what is optimal depending on the context.

If I'm thinking of the right thread that you are referring to, Mark Rode had
noted that a computer's components (such as processors) can actually
tolerate running at fairly high temperatures, over 150 deg. F.  However,
something under 130 deg. F., when the processor is stressed,  is probably
closer to what manufacturers aim for when they design their systems or Intel
and AMD decide what heatsinks and fans to sell their processors with.

130 deg. F. also is often used as something of a cut-off by folks
overclocking their processors.  In this case, they are increasing the
temperature of their processors by raising the speed and usually the voltage
that the processor is running at.  If this results in temperatures pushing
much past 130 deg. F., it typically is taken as an indication that you need
better cooling to overclock to this extent.  Keep in mind that someone
overclocking their processor is using up whatever safety margin was built
into the processor between its default specification and its actual ability.
In other words, the processor is being pushed just up to the point at which
it can no longer function properly; so, keeping the temperature lower is
important to extending the stable range of speeds that a processor can run
at.

In any case, 115 deg F. indicates to me that your processor is well cooled.
I'm guessing that temperature is while the processor is idle.  Usually, it
is helpful to see how this temperature changes when the processor is under
full stress.  There are various ways to do this.  My favorite is to run the
number cruching program Prime95.  This is part of a distributed computing
project that is searching for very large prime numbers, but you can download
the software and use it just for testing, without signing on for the
project.  "Ideally", your processor will still be running at less than 130
deg. F, even after running Prime95 for half an hour or so.  I say ideally,
because I think this is the sort of temperature Intel was thinking you
should get with their heatsink and fan installed and used in a well
ventilated case (which it sounds like you have).

I hope this is helpful and not just adding more confusion to this topic.

John Sproule

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sybilgal" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, September 04, 2004 8:30 PM
Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] CPU temperatures


>I have a P4 2.8 Soyo dragon 2 MB...I always thought that
> a safe temperature was under 130 degrees... Am I wrong?  I have smart
> guard with mb and I have multiple fans (I had unwittingly purchased a
> gamers case, so it came with several fans not counting the heatsink/cpu
> fan)... So I was feeling pretty confident.  Now, I am wondering...
> What's the rule with the temps?  Mine runs at 115 degrees...

         PCBUILD maintains hundreds of useful files for download
                     visit our download web page at:
                  http://freepctech.com/downloads.shtml