How hot is too hot?

[pkraft]

New to this forum, and thanks to it I'm quieting down my pc's by quite a lot!

Now that I am replacing/slowing down fans, temperatures are up. How do I know if I am still safe?

My main pc is an old P4 2.53GHz. I replaced the stock Intel fan with a Zalman and slowed down the case fans with a controller.

Case temp now runs at ~36 and the CPU tops out at ~55.

Intel's website lists a spec called "Thermal Design Power" for all their CPU's. Is this the maximum operating temp that I can safely go to? If so, that temp is listed as 71 for this particular CPU.

Thanks for any input!

[angelkiller]

Put simply, Thermal Design Power (or TDP) is the total amout of power the CPU will use in WATTS under load. The actual details are complex but in general, the TDP can give you a sense of how hot a CPU will get.

So your CPU produces 71W of heat under load. I can't say for sure, but if under load your CPU gets to 55C, than I think you're fine. For your CPU and cooling situation, these temperatures appear normal. No reason to be concerned. I'd get worried if your temps start to approach 70C.

Hope this helps.

[Traciatim]

If your worried, consider this. I just upgraded from a P4 1.6 to a P4 2.4 to get another year out of my PC before I replace it. It uses the stick intel fan. While playing games my CPU temp hit 62C. I wasn't worried in the least. It hovers around 49-51 while idling/general use.

It's a little higher than I'd like in an ideal world, but it's hardly going to bother it.

[charonme]

it's safe if you don't get errors in prime95 and orthos for many hours

[pkraft]

Thanks for this pointer. Completely new to me.

I ran a small FFT torture test for 12 hours with no errors before I stopped it. The highest temp I saw was 58.

Thanks to everyone for their help!

it's safe if you don't get errors in prime95 and orthos for many hours