I think that you dont want it over 60 and 35-45 is a good place under stress but it generally depends on the CPU.

Intel's Pentium 4 Prescott's can often hit 70 degrees (C), although they shouldn't run more tha about 75C

the Pentium 4 Northwood's shouldn't run more than about 60-65C

the Athlon 64's normally run at about 40C (or 50C if it's a dual core)
55C would be pretty high for an Athlon 64, or 60C if it's a dual core

Athlon XP's can operate between 60 and 70, although they really shouldn't. on stock cooling, they should be about 50-55.

post about ur cooling nightmares.

I have an Athlon XP 2400+ which has never run under full load hotter than 45C and thats with a standard heatsink and fan.

When it did get to the 45C I stripped down my PC cleaned everything and put it all back together (cables tidier) and now my CPU never hits 40C and its OC'd

I had a 2400+ that always ran fairly hot. I could get it up to 60 degrees celsius under load. I upgrade to a 3200+ and now my max temperature is like 55 under load. A lot of factors can influence this though. Different cpus have different temperatures. The ambient room temperature is fairly important. The room where my computer in tends to be hotter than the rest of my house so that can always raise the temperature a few degrees.

Also case cooling and cpu cooling are important. As well as what kind of thermal grease/tape you are using to connect the cpu and a heatsink/fan.

I once forgot to plugin my CPU fan when I was building a computer, I turned on the computer and it ran for a few minutes. I thought I created a really quite computer, but then I noticed the fan wasnt turning. Luckily, I noticed and the CPU didnt have any thermal damage (I think).

The fortunate thing for all of us is that computer components are much more forgiving and designed for the worst of us to use. It used to be a lot easier to fry something through forgetting things like fans. I know because I did it. I would think in most cases the motherboard would shut down when the die temperature got high enough, as to prevent any extensive CPU damage. I assume you managed to use that chip for a while.

I remember back to my very first computers when I was using an APPLE II clone. It was actually very easy to bend to socket pins for inserting I/O cards into the computer. I had one box where more than half the slots did not work at all because of broken pins.

It used to be that Intel CPUs would self shut down in reaching a certain temperature to prevent damage to the CPU, while you could literally melt AMD CPUs. Not sure if that is the case.

My P4 2.400 usually runs around 32C or so, if I want to overclock it then it goes over 40C.

I had an athalon 2200+ with the stock heatsink that ran less than 45 for over 3 years before it gave out. My current temperature is only 33, and that is as high as it ever gets now, after the nightmare of a 79 one night, had to buy a heatsink and fast (Vantec Aeroflow it was)

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</Dream In Code>
-William. § (marvin_gohan)

One thing people need to keep in mind when comparing temperatures is ambient room temperature plays a huge role. My PC is in a room that tends to be on the warm side, so my cpu temps always run a bit higher than they would in a cooler room.

This link should be of some use regarding stock cpu / fan temps...

http://www.heatsink-guide.com/content.php?content=maxtemp.shtml