[sdtPikachu]

Hmm, how to measure CPU temp... unfortuately, this depends very much on your computer.

Firstly you'll need a mobo/CPU that has a temperature sensor. Many generic craputers don't have anything like this (it costs money!), although with temperature becoming more and more of an issue it's becoming more standard.

Personally, I measure my CPU temp in BIOS (I'm running the nVidia BIOS), which has a little utility for that kinda thing (it cranks the CPU to maximum cycles and then gives you the temp readout). It might be worth having a root about to see if you have a similar feature.

The better mobos (primarily those designed for OCing) however will also come with a software utility for Windoze that'll let you monitor your core temperature whilst running your OS as well. My friend Bumfluff bought a mobo (can't remember the type, sorry!) with this particular utility. Check it out - you might have one too.

Mushlafa, if you're running a P2 you have no worries of overheating or anything so long as you don't do anything stupid...! That just isn't fast enough to overheat unless you lose the thermal grease/heat sink or something. As far as heat is concerned, it all comes down to clock cycles (in general); if you have a fast CPU (above 1 GHz say) then overheating is a danger... this is why PowerPC chips are great, cos they give equivalent performance to x86's runnig at twice their clock speed (and hence they also use less power).

The new-gen P4's and Athlons are getting to the point that they need refrigeration; in fact Intel predicted that by the time they reached 2 GHz refrigeration would be essential. Then some weird things happened and they found that their chips didn't quite need chilling just yet. But that point is very, very close. If you ask me, ther next big thing will be dual processor systems, cos refrigeration is a huge expense/reliabilty problem and it'd just be easier to get the extra power by using two or more hot CPU's than one frickin' boiling one.

I remember reading a story on /. about some people who accidentally OCed a 486 to 500 MHz or something just as stupid. They knew their processor was going to get fried, so can you guess what they did?

Installed Half Life and played it for 20 mins until the processor crapped out. Class.