Cor 2 Quad overheating

[gokhotit]

I have a 2.66 Core 2 quad processor in my machine, don't remember the number). Anyway, the water pump on my cooler quit, and the processor got so hot the the computer just shut down. When i was able to power it back on, the BIOS was reading a Temp of 110C. My guess is it shut down around 115C-120C (took a couple minutes to get it to turn back on.) My question is, is the thing fried, or is usability degraded? I havent been able to get a new heatsink to test it, but should I start looking for a new setup or will the old one still be good? I am looking for opinions or educated guesses before I start dumping money into parts i dont really need.

thanx in Advance.

[Neil Hewitt]

That's what the thermal shutdown protection is for. If it boots, it's still OK. You'll have lost some life but generally speaking a CPU can't be partially fried. If any portion of it were truly dead it just wouldn't work. Find a cheap air cooler and then try booting it and run a test overnight. If it survives then you're good. If not, it's a good time to buy high-end Sandy Bridge chips...

NH