Hi.

What is the highest temperature in a computer that can be maintained without damaging the hardware?

So what are the highest core, ambient, CPU, etc temperatures and what do those different temperatures measure?

thanks

hi and welcome to SPCR.

The highest CPU-temp depends on what CPU you have, look in the chart from the site below to see what your CPU limitation.

http://users.erols.com/chare/elec.htm

My temps is quite high becuse om my shitty CPU-cooler: a passive Zalman 9700 im hitting 68 degress C with my overclocked CPU.
Soo as you see in the chart im in the danger zone but no problems yet.
With a good cooler your not going to have any problems like mine


I hope it helped you with something

Anything over 60 on consumer CPU's is bad, although shouldnt effect the lifespan of the CPU much. Over 70c and your probably going to start getting stability issues and shortened life.

Personally i aim for below 55c under real world load (in my case video encoding).

+1

note that there is an intermingling of "cover" temp and die temp on that website...where I'm guessing "cover" temp may mean the case (package) temperature...and that is a huge difference and dependant on the thermal efficiency of the package.

Tcase = Tjunction - <theta>jc*Pd

where

Tcase is the outside temp of the package
Tjunction is the die temp
<theta>jc is the thermal efficiency of the package in degrees C/W
Pd is the power dissipated.

This is a hard question to answer with any precision because there are dozens of different components each with its own absolute max temperature rating and each with its own stress level. Cooler is always better than hotter with semiconductors for longevity and reliability. A rule of thumb is that a semiconductor's life span (MTBF) will double or half with a 10degC change in temp.

I might be using Core 2 Quad Q6700.

What should be a healthy temperature for the CPU then?

I'm not sure how you would follow Neqrom's link posted earlier. Measuring cover temp is a tricky process without the right equipment. I usually just use the internal temperature measurement of the processor or motherboard. You can usually get this in the BIOS or using something like Speedfan.

From those measurements, I'd say that 60°C is when it starts getting worrisome. If it gets to 70°C under load, then there's a real problem. At that point, I'd shut down and reseat the heatsink. A processor can usually survive at 70, but I wouldn't run at that temperature regularly. Your idle temps should be anywhere from 30-45°C, and your load temps should not exceed 60°C.

On the Core2Quad Q6600 I recently used, it idled at about 37°C with the stock heatsink in a fairly cool room. I didn't measure the load temps, so I can't help you with that.

What I'm trying to get at is is there a temperature x degrees celsius that if a CPU is near/above x degrees, you would say "crap the computer's overheating and not good for the hardware"

It depends on what your PC is doing.

If its sitting at the windows desktop idle and the CPU is 65c then id say thats "too hot"

On the other hand if your in the 3rd hour of a 4hour CPU / gpu stress test and the temp is 65c then id say thats ok.

I think this is a gross over-generalization. You would be hard pressed to show that a CPU running at 40c would have significant improvements to longevity or reliability compared to one running at 50c, much less double. I'm sure there is some point where where reducing the temp 10c would double life span, but that point is going to be at a rather high temp.

In general, things have a "comfortable" operating temp and anything lower provides minimal or no benefit. If you are running lower you can either slow down your fans for less noise or overclock for more power.

thanks for the nice info here

What program(s) do you suggest for monitoring and stress-testing the temperature of the PC components?

OCCT

[Mod comment: please explain this!]