CPU Overheat

I might be wrong (it has happened before), but it seems my CPU is overheating. When running Speedfan the CPU temp rises to appox 59 degrees celcius. At this stage my PC locks up and there is a loud continous noise.

I have removed alot of the dust from around the CPU fan, this did seem to bring the temps down a bit, but it recently crashed again.

Firstly am i right about this being the problem??

Secondly what can I do about it?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

My PC is a little on the old side now....

Mainboard : Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000-G
Intel Pentium 4 @ 3000 MHz
2048 MB (4 x 512 DDR-SDRAM )
Radeon X1950 Pro

First things first, is dust ingress a common occurrence? If so your gonna have to keep your heat sink vanes clean regularly. Check and then double check that your heat sink is securely and I mean securely connected to your motherboard. Those motha's have a habit of one corner not connecting properly. If in doubt, take the heat sink off and have a good look at the securing pins, sometimes they splay apart when you try to secure the sink. Thirdly, use a good thermal compound (i.e. Arctic Silver 5) on your heat sink, remembering to clean off all the old goo with alcohol. Once you've done all this, get back to us and let us know how you got on!
Oh, and by the way, 59 degs doesn't seem very hot for this type of cpu. You may have another problem

59 is not very high, but it may be the case that this isn't actually the temperature that your chip is experiencing. I always like to mention that speed fan found a temp colder than is possible, -341*C

Just as a thought look at this article madhyena posted a while back, http://www.devhardware.com/c/a/PC-Cooling/Measuring-Temperatures-with-Thermal-Probes-and-External-Sensors/

(Hope he doesn't mind)

I found it useful just making sure I was getting the right temperatures. Then you can form a plan of action.

and I must agree with Python, since I have had/heard of machines reacting pretty much however they like when they over heat so if it is always locking in the same way every time, it may be a different problem.

hope that helps!