AMD Phenom II X4 955 is running to hot

50C is perfectly fine. Especially with stock cooler. Could be a sign of old thermal paste that has dried a bit. Action only needed if it starts to get to the top 50's or 60's. 63C is the thermal limit of Phenom II's.

has room temperature risen?

when was the last time you cleaned out your case?

I know 50°C isn't a worryingly high temperature but the fact that it's only started doing it recently (by which i mean a couple of days) does worry me. I am used to it only getting that hot while doing something big while gaming.

I would give the case, fans, heatsink and heatsink fan a good cleaning. I would also wipe off the old thermal paste and re-apply new thermal paste.

Room temperature is a bit high right now but i don't think that's the cause, just not helping. As for cleaning it, that was done 2 days ago.
Let me give some more details, For some reason if I start using the computer to fast after start up be it for games or internet browsing, it seems to go to about 50°C even after i shut all the programs down. If I wait a few mins then it normally does stay below 40 when idle even in this hot weather. As I said this has only been going on for a short time.

In regard to the thermal paste I don't know enough about the internals of computers to do it myself so it would have to wait for a while...

If you don't know enough about the internals you probably didn't clean it out as good as you think. Dust doesn't just get on the fan and heatsink it gets caked in there. The best way to clean it is take off the fan/heatsink, seperate the fan from the heatsink and blow out both with compressed air.

There is nothing I would like to do more, I simply don't know how and I don't want to damage anything  

I would try to find someone who does know how to do it or bring it to a computer repair shop and let them do it. How old is the computer and what program or programs are you using to monitor the temps?

The computer is about 2 years old, I am using Piriform speccy for the temps.

2 years old would certainly be time to reseat your heatsink with new thermal goo.

It's absolute piece of piss to perform.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prcd2wqIgVQ

Thanks, that's a handy video.

Real fast before you do anything else download core temp or Hardware Monitor and see what those temps read.

No worries, if you are keen on saving a few bucks and having the satisfaction of knowing you fixed the issue yourself, you will still need some thermal paste, may I reccomend Arctic silver 5. It's quite cheap and should last many years.

for removing your existing heatpad from the stock heatsink, you will need to carefully scrape it off using a blade and some isopropyl alcohol (Or nail polish if you don't have iso.) on the the tip of a cotton bud. Bear in mind you're only really dealling with the lid of the CPU, rather than the die itself, so whilst you should be very gentle, a small amount of force to get stubborn heat pad off will not harm the CPU.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Core temp is reading the same temps as speccy.