What's a good running tempurature for a CPU?
 

One of our computers is running at 122.5 degrees F. Is this high or not? The computer is having difficulty, it's a hot day, and we're trying to determine if it's because the computer is hot or the motherboard is fucked. Thanks in advance for help.

Depends on CPU.. Intel or AMD ? Clock speed?

Intel P3 866, not overclocked.

Is that the CPU or m/b temp? Either way, 35C doesn't sound too hot.

Since its intel and has a decent board you are better insured against burn outs. If you were running AMD on a crappy board you would be in trouble. Never run AMD on crappy boards, not only will your CPU burn out but so will the board, decent boards will just shutdown the computer before there is any damage done to the board or CPU, saves you money in the long run.

122F isnt 35C

...

its 50C


Thats fine if its the CPU temp. If its the mobo/case temp, its quite high

CPUs will run into problems at 70C+

sounds about right for an 866

Agreed..it seems fine for that cpu..

0_o.
I think it's a tad high, nothing to worry about but for an 866 it's kinda high.

I've got my 2200AMD running at 50C..
Oh well if it ain't too hot nothing to worry about me thinks.

I know the 966 or 900 P3, can only run at 60C, and that is lowest, most can run at about 80C, with Intel chips though they are supposed to clock down automaticaly if they get too hot.

Thanks for all the help folks! I can't wait to replace that computer too..ugh.. it's a shitty machine. It's just a pain in the ass to get new machines out here in boonieland.. have to take a trip to the "big city" for that lol.

Thats not true. They will shutdown if they overheat. If Im not mistaken, but definitely not clock down.

Only laptop chips clock down

So do P4's, I've seen videos of CPU tortures (cooler taken of in the middle of 3D games), those things will just slow down and eventually shut down if overheated. While AMDs and older Pentiums just fry ;) It's a cool sight.

AMEN!

I hade a 1.3 gig t-bird on a cheap ECS k7s5a board, cock sucker burned itself out. Now I have an Asus a7v333 , awesome board.

mine runs 49c.... i got 7 coolers!

My AMD XP 1600+ runs at 60 celcius (140F) when idle. They don't have an internal censor though so the actual temperature is probably around 70-80 celcius, they can handle up to 90 (195F) just fine though. I have my board set to shut it down at 70c. It's a silent cooler though so it's pretty useless, but who cares about an Athlon, I'll just get a 2nd one if it burns. Still cheaper than a P4.

True, but what if it takes the mainboard, ram, pci cards and agp with it?

unlikely

That's cool...I thought mine was running hot at 54c

actualy very likely. The cpu overheats, fries, makes bad internal circuit connections send spower to where it shouldnt have. Parts start frying. Most common thing to take on damage from cpu overheat is ram and graphics chips.