CPU Temperature: Whats too hot?

[kadean]

So i built my new PC a few days ago and im running an Intel C2D E6400 with an abit motherboard. Ive just now noticed that my abit utility program is telling me that my CPU is too hot, at about 39-42 degrees Celsius. But in a different part of the program, it tells me that the low temperature would be 35 degrees and the high temp would 65 degrees, 40 falls in the middle. Is 40 degrees celsius too hot of a temperature for a CPU? Ive checked all my fans and they seem to be working properly and i think my heatsink is installed correctly...
Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[nerdye]

Well I'm assuming that you are using the default intel heat sinc and fan, otherwise you probably would have mentioned an after-market cpu cooler in your post. I'm using an intel core 2 duo E6300 with a mini typhoon cpu cooler with artic 5 cpu thermal paste on a p965 ds3 gigabyte motherboard and find my sytem idling between 22C at lowest up to about 29c after playing a for a good 30 to 60 minutes. Since I'm not using intel's stock cooler I can only speculate, but perhaps your 775 cpu heat sink is not entirely mounted on one of its 4 pins, its thats not the case make sure you have an good amount of thermal paste (not too much), and also make sure you are running the stock voltage for you system (considering you are more concerned with temperature than anything else). Yet 40c is not that bad for a cpu, 65c would of course be quite high. I hope this may help, Good luck.