P4 Temp

What is the Maximum a P4 Northwood should be running? Mine is running 42*C Idle which I know is warm, I ordered some PCM+ as I think the reason it's high is my sloppiness in applying thermal paste. What should I try to keep my temps under in the mean time?

what do you run at load? 42ºC isn't too much to worry about. high temps such as 60+ you might be a little concerned with. Personal preference for me is 50ºC. anything above that and you need to check your cooling.

for my p4 2.4, i'm sitting 31-34º idle and ~40-42º load depending on room temperature.

my AMD 1.47 palamino runs at 49º and the case/cooling isn't that great.

For the chip itself it will run happily without throttling at about 60ºC. It might shorten it's life if it is at high temperatures all the time though. 42ºC is fine.

but if you do worry about temps, sloppy thermal paste applications can affect (sp?) a lot.

yea ive redone the arctic silver paste 3 times, the first two were bad, 50-54 idle, this one is 42idle which i like better.

My board undervolts EXTREMELY at 1.5v its only running 1.36-1.38v. So at stock speed and '1.36v' it should be running not much higher than 35-36 i would think. Ill see what happens when i get the PCM+