Safe CPU temperature??

[paul2]

Im running a MSI motherboard with a 3.06 Ghz CPU on it.When i bought the motherboard i got a cool little program with it called MSI Core centre which does a few things like keeping an eye on temperatures and adjusts the CPU/Northbridge fans accordingly to not fry your PC and keep the noise level down.
I've just upgraded the fan/heatsink from the bog standard pentium fan to a Coolermaster jet 4. This one has its own manual control for fan speed so core centre now has no control over it so my question is.....

Now that i am in control of the fan, what kind of temperatures should i be keeping the CPU at?
What kind of region of temperature is safe for a CPU to function at before it cooks the circuits?

Thanks in advance to any responses

 

[ExGamer]

i have a P4 3.01 so ill check what mine is...to give u an idea

 

[ExGamer]

well my cpu runs at 41C after being started for 2 min....but its droping when i first started the computer it said 45... i think 41 is good....

 

[Kage]

Yeah, though if you have a Pentium, expect it to run a little hotter than the Athlon.

Mine runs at 45 degrees C idle too by the way, and I have an AMD, so this seems about the normal.

Now, don't worry if this increases a little bit more than that, especially if its under load from programs, games, etc.

You should start worrying when it gets to about the 70 mark, so you should keep way below this, try to run below 60 degrees C at all times when running the PC, even at full load, okay?

You can set temperatures in Bios, which will start a warning sound when it gets to a certain temperture, and you can then set another one if it gets much hotter to turn off the PC (del at bootup, and it'll be in one of the menus, not sure which), so you can set this temperature for the alarm at about 60 degrees C, adn to turn the computer off if it reaches about 65 degrees C.

Though even 70 degrees C wouldn't fry the processor, but it could start slowing it down, adn it would be in danger of burning up.

If its a Pentium, do note that they are very good with overheating, and if the fan ever stopped working, the CPU's are very good at detecting this. What would then happen is, it'd slow down the core voltage and speed until the temperature reached a safe level, as to not damage the main core of the CPU, until you turned the PC off and replaced the fan.

I hope this helps

 

[Dishdog]

mines 46 c idle and 54 c under a load. i have a pentium 3.0Ghz

 

[Kage]

Yeah, that seems fine

 

[paul2]

Sweet, thanks for the info.
At bootup it gets to about 45 - 50 C and runs idle at about 40.Under normal load runs around the 45 C mark unless i start playing command and conquer....thats set the alarms ringing before.

Thanks for the BIOS info kage, not sure how it works it but the core centre thing i was saying about has access to that so theres a nice user friendly interface to as u say set alarms on CPU an also North bridge and system temp.The default settings for the alarms are 80 C, (which has now bin lowered) and i just thought that would be way too hot and i guess i was right.

Im impressed with what u were saying about if the fans broke, core centre has alarms for if it drops bellow a certain RPM but i didn't realise the technology to protect itself would be in the actual board aswell.

There are also options in CC to overclock your system with just a few easy clicks so i guess thats why it watches over everything. I have bin tempted to try it out before but at 3Gig it performs well enough to not risk it

 

[ExGamer]

dang well mine must be pretty good lol i have a stock fan 2

 

[lurkswithin]

There is no stock temp reading from any computer. The best thing you can do is map the air flow and regulate the fans to keep your system at the coolest temprature that it can. also be sure NOT TO depend on just a single type of monitoring device for your system...There are a lot of them out there that give false readings....and there are some that will not work with other installed monitoring system. It is best to use the one that is designrd for your motherboard and bios.

 

[Kage]

Glad its alright now paul

Yeah, the CPU has that protectiion built in, its something Pentium has always been good at doing, and hardly ever burns up if you took the heatsink off (I would't try it though ).

If it did happen though, the alarm would go off first, and it'd probably switch the computer off if you had the protection on, but whenit notices it, straight away, the CPU would start to drop in core speed. If you were playing a game at the time, you'd notice the FPS drop considerably, and then it'd stay at about 1fps or something or even 0fps, and so your system wouldn't actually crash (at most times), and you could just then place a new one on (if you had one at hand) and it'd speed up again pretty quick. Clever huh?

AMD are still to get it to work strangly, unless they've done something since the Clawhammer Athlon core...since I watched a video which tested it out. Basically as soon as the heatsink was took off, the computer froze, and smoke started pouring from the chip Opps....