CPU - How hot is too hot?

[EscapadeFTW]

Lately, I've been hitting about 150-160 degrees while running the game, and my computer starts to lag a bit. I'm running a Core 2 Duo 6600 with an 8600 nVidia card and 2 gigs of RAM. I looked at my heatsink, and it is caked with dust, so I'll be cleaning that in the morning (out of canned air). Anything else I could do to cool it down? Do I NEED to cool it down?

[stuka1000]

I really hope that's farenheit because if not you have a volcano under the hood.  Normal running temperature under stress with adequate cooling should be 40 - 65 degrees celsius.  The auto-shutdown threshold should be no higher than 75 degrees celsius as any higher and you are risking damage to the cpu.  I would suggest fitting one of these <a href="http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=340995" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Prod...roductID=340995</a> or a water cooled system.

[Paceyourself]

<cite>stuka1000 wrote:</cite><blockquote>I really hope that's farenheit because if not you have a volcano under the hood.  Normal running temperature under stress with adequate cooling should be 40 - 65 degrees celsius.  The auto-shutdown threshold should be no higher than 75 degrees celsius as any higher and you are risking damage to the cpu.  I would suggest fitting one of these <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=340995" target="_blank">http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Prod...roductID=340995</a> or a water cooled system.</blockquote>Hmmmm... The system I'm looking at in <a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=409886" target="_blank">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=409886</a> is similar to the OP's system. The F to C conversion would mean that he's experiencing 65 to 70+ on the C scale. That's on the outside of your recommended heat range. I had intended to place 2 case fans in my new system to help dissipate the heat. If I do that should I also look at a better heatsink for the CPU? The one included in the system is a <a href="http://images.magicmicro.com/images/items/spire_p4_775(oem" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://images.magicmicro.com/images...pire_p4_775(oem</a>)norm.jpgIntel Heavy Duty Cooling Fan With Heat Sink    * For Intel CPU up to 3.8GHz    * Chromatics phase change interface.    * One step clip for fast and easy installation.    * Cooler dimension : 89*60*52 mm    * Rated speed : 4600 rpmWill this be sufficient with 2 case fans?

[jagermonsta]

Along with having a decent Heat Sink / Fan Setup on your CPU keeping ambient temperature (aka room temperature) in your case is also very important. Your goal is to exhaust the hot air out of your case and bring in new (cooler) air. You can have the best of the best air cooling setup on your CPU but the temperatures are not going to drop if hot air is stuck in your case. With that said you also don't want your computer sitting a room that's 80-100 degrees...

[LoneGreyWolf20]

<cite>Ranadin@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>Along with having a decent Heat Sink / Fan Setup on your CPU keeping ambient temperature (aka room temperature) in your case is also very important. Your goal is to exhaust the hot air out of your case and bring in new (cooler) air. You can have the best of the best air cooling setup on your CPU but the temperatures are not going to drop if hot air is stuck in your case. With that said you also don't want your computer sitting a room that's 80-100 degrees...</blockquote>That's why I am getting an Antec 900. With the 200mm fan at the top (talking very top, facing up and exhausting out) and the PSU at the bottom, it acts like a forced air chimney of sorts.

[Bloodfa]

Airflow is important.  Stock coolers don't cut it for my tastes, but to each his own.  If you go after-market, copper is better than aluminum for heat dissipation.  And the dust thing, aside from being very bad for moving parts (like cooling fans), it will act as an insulator.  Take the PC outside, if you can.  Remove the side panels, and hit every place you can.  Ram, cooling fans, video card, intake vents, you name it.  It can block airflow, and will act like a blanket on heat sinks.  You'll notice a big increase in performance, I'll wager. 

[Vodr]

<p>Could always do what I did,  I have always been curious about watercooling but didn't want to have to build some super custom rig selecting all the parts etc to do so.</p><p><a href="http://thermaltakeusa.com/product/Chassis/fulltower/Kandalf_lcs/vd4000_index.asp" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://thermaltakeusa.com/product/C...d4000_index.asp</a></p><p>The thermaltake Kandalf is a watercooled case that comes with everything needed to start out.  Case,  Radiator, Tubing, CPU Block, and pre-mixed fluid.</p><p>I have been running for 8 months on this setup,  no leaks and it just runs nice.  The case is HUGE and HEAVY but keeps my processor down to about 50c even when the house is 80f.  That's a dual core Athlon 6000+ downloading,  watching movies,  playing eq2,  and whatever else I have it crunching on at the time.</p>

[stuka1000]

Cooling is always going to be a major headache for the home system builder, especially if you intend to overclock.  The high end cpu's that are now on the market really need to be liquid cooled but you can still get away with air cooling if you have good air flow around the case, enough fans to keep the overall system temperature down and a really good cpu heatsink and fan, the stock ones that come with the cpu are not good enough.  My system has seven 120mm case fans, a 120mm and an 80mm fan for the psu and an arctic freezer 7 pro heatsink/fan for the cpu.  My idle cpu temperature is around 25 degrees and rarely gets above 60 degrees under stress.