how hot is too hot

[Funky]

I have an iwill kk266 kt133a motherboard and a t-bird 800 cpu with 256 meg of pc 133 RAM and a geforce 256 video card. I am not super familiar with teh overclocking world and id like to get into it. but i can't seem to find anything on how hot my cpu should run. Well i oc'ed it to 120 FSB voltage around 1.85 it got upwards of 54C. I have a Chrome Orb cooler and i am using arctic silver as my thermal grease. Is that too hot, if not how hot is too hot? help me please guys.

[pik33]

It is not too hot.
I had my cpu working at 72-73C and it didn't fry...
Now after some cooler lapping I have 61C at full load...
I think if you don't exceed 60C, nothing bad can happen to cpu.

[SickBoy]

Your cooler isn't the greatest... I'd look into a Alpha, GlobalWin or Swiftech unit if I were you. 54 C under full load isn't too bad though, but it's higher than I'll let my CPU go. I let mine go to about 48 C max under load. (FOP32-1 with generic thermal grease)

SickBoy

[Funky]

thanks for the info, more would really be appreciated also. i was thinking about lapping some too. who knows. i need to unlock my multiplier though. then we will see what this baby can do.