Typically, my CPU and MB both idle at 32-36 degrees Celcius, ~40 during load. However, recently, things have been running a LOT warmer. Now, CPU idles at 50-55, and 69-72 during load. MB idles at 39-41, and 60-64 during load. I usually don't monitor my temperatures as I don't overclock my computer. I only noticed it after I started getting a lot of frame lag from running games. My video card is a Radeon 9000 Pro (128mb), which is about 3-4 yrs old now. Games that have run fine in the past, are stressing the video card to the point that the frame lag is significant. I believe the frame lag is due to heating since as I play, the lag only worsens. Another software problem I noticed is that my boot time is slightly longer (as in, after windows loads, and is loading 5 basic programs). Once OS loads, programs usually take 30 seconds, but now takes 2 minutes. The 5 basic programs are: asus probe, zonealarm, SoundMax, Norton AVirus, spybot. I am not quite sure where the problem lies. I think I have narrowed it down to a few possibilities. A. the stock heatsink/fan combo is starting to die, and CPU is releasing a lot more heat. This heat is spreading in the case, warming the video card, hence, leading to the noticable frame lag. B. Video card is simply dying C. Video card fan is dying, and just requires extra cooling. D. Room temps have been increasing (room w/ no ac, from philadelphia where temperatures are now 70-80 daily). E. Other. Any advice or possible ways to test out where the problem is, and how to fix it would be much appreciated. Thanks. -Amit

Before assuming there are hardware failures i would check the processes running maybe a piece of unknown software is stressing your computer close EVERYTHING that is not 100% necessary to run windows and see if the problem continues

You eve cleaned out your pc? could be a lot of dust built up. AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 2GB Dual Channel DDR 3200 Nvidia 7800GT SATA II 2x 200gig 7200rpm 16mb cache RAID-0 Gigabyte Nforce 4 SLI