ran for about a month without cpu fan

[scoop]

So i'm replacing a case fan in my wife's pc that I rebuilt about a month ago when I notice something very disturbing. The power connector for the cpu is not connected to the motherboard. I obviously didn't reconnect the power connector when I finished building the pc last month (yes, I know, I should have checked, then re-checked). I'm using the stock cooler with Arctic Silver Ceramique applied. Anyway, my question is, how did I not fry this CPU? My wife uses the pc for mostly basic stuff, but she plays WoW a few times a week. I asked her if her pc froze, restarted, or did anything weird in the past month and she said it's worked perfectly fine. The motherboard has no options in the bios for warning or shutoff temperature, so I guess that explains why I didn't get any warning beeps. I heard that some processors can throttle their speed to keep from overheating, but isn't that only if the mobo supports that feature? Is my processor just that tough? I'm using this stuff:

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 2.0GHz Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3200BPBOX - Retail

MSI K8T Neo2 v2.0 Motherboard (VIA K8T800 Pro+ chipset)

CORSAIR XMS 1GB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Desktop Memory Model CMX1024-3200C2 - Retail

Any insight in to how I lucked out? Should I expect future issues?

 

[Battl3fr0nt]

With a good room temp and the heatsink on the cpu Im sure it could stay cool enuff to not do any dmg. How long would she play wow for?

 

[Crotan]

Well as long as you had good airflow the heatsink is what saved its life that and the 3200 really doesn't generate enough heat to fry anything

 

[FadedSpark]

the 1.35v venices ran really cool. someone on our forums delidded his, downclocked it to a point where it could be effectively cooled with a BGA ram sink, it was hilarious

 

[scoop]

With a good room temp and the heatsink on the cpu Im sure it could stay cool enuff to not do any dmg. How long would she play wow for?

She would play about 3 hours at a time when she fired it up. I'm still amazed it didn't freeze up or anything duing gameplay. I run it in one of those Chenming full size midtowers with 3 case fans. Maybe that was enough to keep me out of the danger zone. Speaking of which, what is the danger zone for one of these processors? Is it my imagination or do they run cooler than older socket A Athlons (it's been so long I can't remember).