I guess there are minimum two possible sources of failers...

1. heated air problem
a. The air inside the PC case can't circulate in a good way. Make sure that all the flat cables inside the case are out of the air stream so that the air can circulate and the fan can provide the CPU an optimal air condition.
b. The surrounding heat of the PC is too high (I had some PCs crashed by heat in last summer). A fan doesn't really make its job if the air that it brings to the CPU is hot or even hotter like the air that it blows away from the CPU. In this case you need a cooler place - maybe the cellar or a climate control unit in your office. This year I'll use them with open cases...

2. the CPU is too much overclocked
a. If your CPU clock is too high then it isn't a matter as long as you're doing not too much on your PC. But right in that moment when you're starting an application which needs much CPU power then you'll have a heat problem after a (short) while. In this case you can try to slow down your CPU speed in your BIOS.
b. It's possible that your CPU is a so called monday product. Another CPU for testing your application would clear this point of speculation. In this case you can also try to solve your heat problem by slowing down your CPU speed in your BIOS.

Some may think that this problem would be caused by the program itself but a modern program only uses the software interfaces that the operating system provides them. So, this heat problem could be caused by every program that uses the same interfaces/routines.

I hope I could help you a little bit...

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Greetings from Frankfurt (Germany),
Sheriff ;-)

[This message has been edited by Sheriff (edited 06-01-2005).]