How hot is too hot for a 2800+ Barton?

I turned my computer off earlier this morning so in case we had a power fluctuation during Hurricane Isabel's effects hitting here in the triangle that it wouldn't be affected.

My normal load temperature was 43 degrees celsius up until my power down this morning. I've got a ThermalTake Volcano 11+ CPU Cooler with the Temperature Sensor underneath the CPU and it sometimes brings the fan up to speed when the CPU gets a little hotter.

What I did notice when I turned it on was that the CPU fan went up and down for a few seconds and just went back down to the lower RPM setting and is now sitting at that setting. My CPU is also sitting around 51 degrees Celsius. Now I've been told this is a perfectly fine temperature, and I've not had it go past 52 degrees Celsius when I loaded up a game.

Anybody have any insights on this? Should I be ok with a 51 degrees celsius CPU temperature? It used to be around 43 Degrees Celsius as I mentioned, and I prefer that over 51...but any insights on this is might helpful.

I could unplug the temperature sensor from the CPU Fan and let it run at full RPM's. The only reason I had it on was I couldn't stand the noise.

dinoX aka BlackDog

The cpu will begin crashing or become unstable well before you can do thermal damage to it.
And mid 50's is fine.


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I am not a Via fanboy.
I am not a ATI fanboy.
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And a low price fanboy.
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Mr no integrity coward.</b>

the sensor is on the bottom of the CPU, stuck on with the tape that came with it - but I'm assuming maybe the sensor on my mainboard is wrong...since I'm using AsusProbe and the BIOS to tell the temperatures.

dinoX aka BlackDog