I find that the idle temperature of my P4 3.4 GHZ CPU (as indicated by Everest) is around 10 degrees higher than it used to be a year ago using the stock cooler. I blow out the dust regularly. This makes a minimal difference. I also have added seven 80mm case fans installed at the (top bottom front, rear and sides of the case! These fans only drop the CPU temperature around 2 or 3 degrees. It's still showing 50+ degrees C at idle. It used to run in the mid 30's at idle. The mobo and drives remain under 40C. What could cause my cpu to get gradually hotter over time? I'd rather not have to strip the computer down to replace the cpu fan. Is there a simple solution?

Fist is you don't have any scale that relates back to a national standard. Your sensor is well senseless. You'd need to use some other test to be sure. Saying that, here are a few ideas. You may not have the same OS and settings as last year. Various programs and malware and spyware later may have changed your "idle". Also power supply changing voltages a bit could cause this. Also changes to other components could cause this. Playing to the angels Les Paul (1915-2009)

"This makes a minimal difference. I also have added seven 80mm case fans installed at the (top bottom front, rear and sides of the case!" Tests have shown that a SINGLE exhaust fan in the rear is *usually* all that's required: http://icrontic.com/articles/pc_air...

Thanks for the replies. Yes, I have definitely added a lot of software and, over the year, have removed several dozen viruses, rootkits, worms, etc. and God knows what may be still there with no antivirus programs detecting the infections. I have added 3 hard drives and a tv tuner card. That cooling experiment is very interesting. The additional fans I have added have necessitated additional connecting cables which may have decreased air flow. I can certainly duplicate that experiment by decreasing fans one at a time. Unfortunately, I plan to be away from the house for the rest of the week, but later I will try it. Actually I found that reconnecting the two side fans and bottom fan tonight decreased the cpu temperature from 53 to 51 at idle. I suspect some dust has become compacted at the base of the fan near the heat sink. Do you think I can get that fan out without removing the motherboard. I understand there are clips on the back of the board. It's an Asus P5B-VM by the way.