I need to know the operating temperature range for an Intel XE 3.40
Pentium 4.  This is the extreme release, for a LGA 775 motherboard. It
has a 2 mb L-3 cache and is for 800MHz FSB. Intel code is SL-7GD.

i think they say max is around C80 but they can go to around C85

PS if your planning on overclocking i suggest getting a heat monitor
and ether 10 or so fans or water cooling

Here is the Intel's datasheet for this CPU:
http://developer.intel.com/design/Pentium4/datashts/302350.htm
There is a whole chapter about thermal specifications. I didn't read
it too closely, but it seems that the minimum temperature is 5 degrees
Celsius and the maximum is 66 degrees Celsius.

Thanks, I found that too. Unfortunately, either the motherboard (Asus)
temp function is off, or that temp value is not valid.  According to
my bios, this chip idles at 70c (have reset fan&heatsink twice) and I
have yet to stress it.  I talked to Intel support.  The guy there said
it would run full performance till about 80c, then start shutting down
by the thermal protection circuit in the chip.  He also stated to
stress it out with an intensive graphics program and if it doesn't
slow down, reboot or just quit, all is well.  Just seems pretty damn
hot to me.

Mark

You can try Throttlewatch:
http://www.panopsys.com/throttlewatch.htm
to see if the CPU runs at full performance or not. I found out with
the help of it that my P4 starts to lose performance because of
thermal throttling at 73 degrees Celsius (under 100% load conditions).

Thanks for the input.  I downloaded throttlewatch and will use it as
soon as I get the thing together.  Thanks-Mark

If you had any sense at all you would not even look at an intel (yes
'intel' has an 'l' on the end cos none of you have seen the mistake in
the 'subject:' title). If you have that much money to waste on an
'Intel Extreme 3.4'(at around £640 ) then you should save some money
and buy a 'AMD Athlon 64 FX-53' for £540. So yu would be paying less
for a cpu and getter better performance.

Hope you found this intersting and now search the web and find out for yourself.

For more info related to a similar topic visit;  

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=438408

HaHaHeeHee, thanks for the input.  Go to bed now, please.

I don't know how or why, I did make sure the motherboard pegs on the
heatsink/fan unit were secure (again), but it is now idling at 48.5C. 
It either was not in full contact with the cpu (careful-don't put
pressure down on the cpu) or the motherboard cpu temp function is
screwy.

Thanx 4 th comment markolias but i never sleep.

Has anyone got any decent sites that i could visit? (i get bored
stayin up all th time)

I just put my system together and have not driven it hard yet, but it
idles at around 60 celsius with the side cover on, and about 5 celsius
less with the side cover off. I'm going to mod the case and make it
"thermally advantaged" with some 3" PVC pipe. I'm using a Spire
CF502C4 heatsink/cooler.

FYI - my sytem consists of a P4E 3.4 Ghz 800 FSB 2mb cache, D915GEv
mobo, 2X512 DDR2 533 in dual channel, and 2 - 37 Gb Raptors in RAID
0.........no video card yet, just using 32 Mb Intel GMA 900 shared RAM
for the time being until I can decide on a video card.

When everything got together and the heatsink/fan was reseated again,
I think the Arctic Silver started working as advertised.  It now idles
at 43C (per asus probe) and hardly ever gets over the 50-55C range.  I
have oc'd it 10% and have had no heat issues to date.  Glad that worry
is over.

Mark