Is the i7 2600k thermally protected

[Guest]

Hello,
Had my PC about a year andIhave had the occassional problem with it shutting down. I have always managed to restart it.
Just to day though it has shut down and would not restart. Ive found out it is the cpu overheating as revealed in the BIOS setup. I removed the fan and heat sink only to find that there was very little thermal paste and it was not spread very well across the surface. I suspect this was the problem because the temperature falls slightly when i gently press the fan motor towards the CPU.
I need to get some paste tommorrow but my question is will I have damaged the CPU. The max temp it reached was 101 deg c
Rich

 

[InvalidError]

Intel has had thermal protections in their CPUs since the P4. While it does not completely eliminate the risk of accidentally frying CPUs, it does significantly reduce it.

 

[o1die]

Probably not. Use the temp shutdown setting in the bios if you have it. I set mine for 70c.