A quick P4C temp question

OK, I've got a 2.4GHz P4C using the stock fan (with the thermal pad on it).
Whats a good, safe temp for the cpu? I know a new fan will help (even just some thermal paste instead of the stupid pad).

Right now: 2520MHz, 42C idle/~58C full load.

Just wondering how far I can push the thing; it'll be a couple of weeks before I can grab a new fan....

Thanks!

Max temps from the Intel website are around the mid 70's C... Give or take 1-5 degrees depending on your processor.

But I think that is the fail temperature, I don't think that is long term.. I might be wrong.

What motherboard are you using? If your using the IC7/IS7 series than those temp might be ok(Abit board read temp a little off), but for Asus board those temp seem pretty high. Might try and grab a couple of case fan and hook it up so you'll get some good air flow going around. You can also take the black tape off from the bottom of your heatsink and add some as3/as5 and applied with a paper thin layer, that should probably lowered some down.

Look at my sig Stock cooler and thermal pad, idle around 37-41C load around 51-56C. Most of the time idle is 41C and load is 51C, cools down fast after I quit playing a game.

Thanks for the info everyone! Took awhile to reply because I was having logon problems here then lost my net connection for awhile. Stupid Verizon!

Just found out the memory is unstable at 2.6GHz
I have the crappiest memory possible in the system: two sticks of unmatched 266Mhz DDR. Didn't have the $ for DDR400 when I got the mobo

Temp @ 2.4GHz full load hovers around 52-54C, at 2.6GHz it's 55-57C. Did a little rearranging of the fans.

The mobo is an MSI 865PE Neo2. Got it because it has Dynamic Overclocking. Good board, but can't lock the PCI/AGP speeds (but it still lets you set the speeds somewhat; @210MHz FSB the min. is 67/34Mhz or so).

Now I need a new CPU fan, some Artic Silver, and some 433+MHz DDR memory and I'm set!

I'll grab all of that with my tax refund; along with an Abit IC7-Max3 and a P4C 3.0GHz and a gig of Kingston HyperX 433Mhz memory. I'll OC the 2.4C as far as it'll go, and use it as a backup machine...at least with Prescott the prices have dropped a bit. 3GHz isn't expensive now!