I just got a new setup. AMD Phenom II X4 965 (125 W version). The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-785GMT-USB3 (http://www.gigabyte.us/Products/Moth...ProductID=3328).

What is a good reasonable average temperature (range) for this processor? At what temp should I begin to worry?

I'd look at setting bios to defaults if not already set. It should have numbers to use for health. How close are you to those?

When you start to see the blue smoke, worry. Or stop worrying depending on your perspective.

What temperatures are you seeing in practice?

From what I recall of my laptop(s), as long as I was 40C or less(or was it 50C?), things were good. Much beyond that and the machine would literally shut itself off. If you're worried about it, then don't over clock, and do over cool. Room temperature somewhere around 21C +/- if you need a point of reference. *9 /5 + 32 == 70F room / 104F (40C) computer.

I can convert C and F.

Right now it's running about 50C, a little less. When it's very active it gets up to about 60.

I am not overclocking, nor do I have any interest in doing so.

Seems kind of warm. I'd think the first shutdown temps are about 50C

Your processor is OK, but do not let it get to 60 degrees C. At around 70 degree C will fry or burn out the processor. If you are worry, buy a more efficient heat sink and/or turn on the AC more often. The following site has reviews on heat sinks.

http://www.frostytech.com/

I'm not sure that is correct. AMD's BIOS and Kernel Developer’s Guide (BKDG) For AMD Family 10h Processors details how the processor throttles its operation as temperatures rise and, if that does not control the temperature, how it turns itself off. Thus it should ™ not be possible to fry or burn out the processor but the higher the temperature the faster the processor will age and the sooner it will fail. Life expectancy is probably also affected by thermal cycling, by the frequency and rate of temperature changes.

To answer the OP question "What is a good reasonable average temperature (range) for this processor? At what temp should I begin to worry?" we would need to know what is the average life expectancy of this CPU at various average temperatures and how long does Meson want it to last?

122 degrees I think, and around 90 degrees max for your hard drive.

I actually already have a new heatsink and thermal grease on the way. I think I might have put way too much on to begin with. The stock heatsink/fan is quite noisy.

I'd really like it to last indefinitely, but 7-10 years would be nice.

It's easy and hence common to apply too much heat paste. Both surfaces (CPU and heat sink) are ground to a very fine and flat surface leaving little gap volume for the paste to fill. Apparently the quantity required is about the same as grain of rice and it should be spread as thinly as possible. Nice page about it here.

Thanks for the info about desired lifetime but AFAIK the other data -- about average lifetimes at various temperatures -- is not available. Faced with this position my strategy is to keep the case temperature ~10 deg C above ambient (the CPU core temperatures are unreliable on the model fitted) which is as cool as practicable and seldom requires even slightly audible fan speeds.

catkin, thanks, those are nice links. I'll do it right when I get my new equipment. I'm not sure what you mean by the core temps are unreliable on the model fitted. Do you mean that the sensor in the Phenom II X4 965 is not accurate?

You can also use lm-sensors to get the CPU temp in real time while doing stuff without rebooting.

Don't know if this helps, but I thing I read that you should be worried if an Intel Core i7 reaches ~67°C.

No -- on my CPU. For CPU revisions F and G, according to AMD's "Revision Guide for AMD NPT Family 0Fh Processors", "The internal thermal sensor ... is inaccurate"

I'm using lm-sensors. Here's my output:
pci temp1 appears to be the CPU.

I'm not sure what all of those voltages correspond to, and I'm not sure if I should be worried about in6.

fan1 is the cpu fan, fan2 is the case fan. I don't know why it sees a fan3 as there isn't a connector for one.
The case fan has a knob to control it manually, i just leave it on the lowest setting.
The new cpu fan can be connected via a 4 pin for automatic speed control, or 3 pin with a knob for manual control. I'm not sure which I'll use, but I'm leaning toward automatic control with the 4 pin

temp1 is the case temp, temp2 appears to correspond to the pci temp1. temp3 seems to be some sort of variation of the cpu temp.

I have the Phenom-II X 4 955 black label chip on an ASUS M4A89GTDPRO/USB3 mobo - the Asus equivalent of the Gigabyte you have. I am mildly overclocking to get to the same performance levels as the 965.

My system is packaged in an Antec P182 case, and I am using an Evercool Transformer 4 heat sink.

My environment is a bit warm (Arizona), ranging between 25 and 28 C. I do adjust the fan speeds depending on how warm it is. For normal loads, my CPU temperature hovers between 38C and 41C. If I give the system a big job that uses all 4 cores for extended periods, it will heat up to as much as 50C.

The heat sink I am using is large and very quiet, using two 120mm fans spinning at 1000 RPM in a push/pull orientation without any ducting at the fins. I selected it because it is very quiet. The way it sits in my antec case enables two of the case fans to actively assist it. When tested and rated by the various magazines, it did not receive high marks for performance, probably because of the slow fans. However, the testers all used intel chips which have a smaller heat spreader die than the AMD chips have, and the design of this heat sink is such that with the Intel die size all 4 heat pipes are not fully in contact with the heat spreader, while on the AMD chip with its larger die, they are in full contact.

I find the heat sink's performance to be quite adequate, and the processor temps to be very acceptable. I don't think you'll be in a danger zone with the processor until you hit 65C, roughly, but in any event cooler is always better.