there are a lot of ways.
check your motherboard cd if you got one and that usually has the software needed to view this piece of info.
also look in the bios for system stats and that might contain the cpu/system temp.
a search on downloads.com found me this
http://download.com.com/3000-2344-58...l?tag=lst-0-10
Win Monitor 1.0a
WiN Monitor is a System Information monitoring Bar with lots of additional useful features. WiN Monitor provides a real-time display describing hardware usage and system-service activity, such as HPC Time, Free Disk Space, CPU Temperature, CPU Load Level, Mouse Position, etc, on local or remote* computers with Windows 98/ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000 or Windows Whistler operating systems. I know you are thinking there are a lot of them out there and probably already have one installed on your computer. I am telling you that this one is different. With this powerful toolbar you will not only monitor any interesting system information, you are able to use many additional features (CalendarBar, Event editor, QuickPad with date stamp, Magnifier, etc) in one program. Additional features: Very small size, skin system, very suitable users interface.