A lot of those CPU monitors are not accurate. Best bet is to restart and enter your BIOS (hit delete when starting up, often when your motherboard logo comes up) and monitor that temp. Set your computer up so it will warn you at a certain temp, and shut down at any temp higher than safe. About 70 celcius is getting too hot. A few ways to effectively decrease CPU temp is to...

1. Remove the heatsink, wipe off dust, add more thermal compund (be very liberal)
2. Check CPU fans speed to see if it is performaning less than it should, a few hundred less rpm really drops it.
3. Add more fans, more the marrier, i curently have 12 (yes 12 haha) in my computer, 2.6ghz running at 3.1ghz and it is around 25-30 celcius. Fans are cheap!
4. Buy a new more efficient CPU fan, a good one will run 40 some bucks.

The logic between the temps on different programs is believable. If a prgram requires more work from the CPU it will get hotter. Let you comp set at idle and notice the temp, then run a demanding program and the temp will shoot up.

Phil

[This message has been edited by Pennywizz6 (edited 06-01-2005).]