Processor is 2.40 gigahertz Intel Core 2 Duo
Mother Board: ASUS P5N-E SLI

They seem to be running fairly consistently at 70c and 46c respectively.Is this about right?

Your CPU at 70 degrees? That's not idle is it?

What are you monitoring it with? This CPUID HWMonitor gives a good spread of temps in your system clicky

Using PC Probe II. I'll try your suggestion

Do you mean 46 idle and 70 load? It's possible, with the stock hsf. If those are the individual core temps, then it's likely you've just got a stuck sensor.

No I mean the CPU when not hugely busy is returning 70 - 75 c and the Motherboard is returning 46/ 47c.

That seems very hot. Under 100% load (at stock speeds) my CPU tops out at 54C and the Mobo around 34C. When they're idle you can knock about 10C off the CPU and 8C off the mobo temp.

Too hot by far. That's hot for load temperatures.

Check some other monitoring software to confirm and check the temps in the pc health status seciton (or equivalent) in the BIOS.

Sounds like it needs reseating and your case airflow sorting out. Either that or maybe it's an issue of misreporting that was sorted out with a BIOS update?

I've tried two pieces of software and both report the same. I have a BIOS upgrade ready to go next time I have some spare time.

Thanks for your thoughts guys, appreciated.

Aye, worth checking the tempertaures in the actual BIOS itself.

Not sure if that board has/had issues with temperature reporting that may have been sorted out with an update. Maybe worth checking temps with the side panel off and so on to see what they go too. It may just need reseating and having a good clean out.

Let us know how it goes anyways.

My Q6600 reported temp when I first bought it went down a lot with a BIOS upgrade. I suspect it was being reported incorrectly.

Sorry, I was being thick.

If the bios upgrade does nothing, check out your HSF - I had one break a retention clip. The remaining clips held it in place but, with little or no pressure to conduct heat away, the temps soared.

Grab hold of it and give it a wiggle - pref when the pc is off - if it moves, remove it, re-TIM and re-fit.

Cheers guys and thanks for all your feedback. Now all I have to do is pluck up enough courage to flash the BIOS.

BIOS reporting same sort of temps as software tools are.

Wouldn't flash BIOS as it decided the new BIOS wasn't suitable, I've double checked and it is correct !

Hi,use usb stick or cd to update your bios, never trust ASUS windows bios updater been known to kill boards.

This.

Never flash bios from within windows, it's like Russian Roulette.

While I agree about not flashing from within Windows, Asus built in a feature years ago that forced boards with a failed/corrupt BIOS to attempt a CD boot. Whereby the user can insert the motherboard cd and flash the board back to it's earliest post-release BIOS version; ready to accept updates.

I've used this several times, to recover "dead" boards.

It's still a ball-ache, and obviously much simpler to flash from USB in the first place though.