Since87:
Yes there are two PCs: the desktop PC with the rigged CPU, and my notebook that is connected to the maxim reader via a parallel port. At the moment, I have the maxim's power going though the desktop box, so my temp monitoring loses power upon shutdown. I can easily enough add another PSU into the mix to supply 12V and 5V. For reference, here are the CPUBurn test results from last night:
See how tight and how little variance with this code? So my guess is that the erratic temp swings when Prime95 is running are NOT just noise and rather representative of very rapid fluxes in temps.