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Well.. err... how do you mean "well seated"? I suppose I could organise the cables a bit better.

What would be the best method of cooling it down?

Clean it out if there is lots of dust. I doubt that temperature is just down to cable management. By well seated I mean, does the heatsink move a lot if you try to nudge it, are all four pins secured into the board?

Yes, the heatsink is in properly. I doubt dust would be a huge problem being that I built this computer only a few months ago. What about cleaning my hard drive of unused software? Cleaning the start-up entries? I only want to get my processor to 2.2, maybe 2.4GHz.

Hey Bikkit, cleaning out your startup entries would make exteemly little or no difference TBH.

Cable management is important for airflow, and that none of the vents are obstructed. Hot air needs to escape and not build up in your system. You should ideally have a fan at the front of your PC bringing in the cool air, and a fan at the back of the PC to extract the hot air. Keep your PC away from sources of heat, such as radiators (that one should be self explanitory, but you'll be suprised what I've seen people do over the years!).

I also read somewhere (I think on this forum) that having your computer on your desk as opposed to the floor will allow less dust to get in.
Also make sure it's not directly against any solid surface on the sides (IE a desk) as this can block the side vents, which are important.
If you have a lot of cables going to the back (USB, Parallel, monitor, networking, serial (if anyone besides me uses Serial devices anymore) etc...) you might tie them up because they can block the exhaust fan

Well I think I know what maybe the cause of such a high temperature. Every few seconds the cpu usage jumps from below 10% to around 40% and back again, and I have no idea what is causing this.

Any ideas? This has been going on for a while now and this is the only chance I've seen to try and stop it. Sorry for double posting (if it is frowned upon.. if not.. never mind).