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guyladouche · #2 (**permalink**) 01-13-2007, 09:26 AM

Well, hello again. Hmm...here's the deal.

First, are you sure the noisiest part is the CPU fan and not the fan in the power supply? Those are often the noisiest part of a computer, not the CPU fan. However...

The fan that is on the heat sink for your processor (the big metal mesh with fins that the fan blows on) is designed more-or-less specifically for the heat sink it came with. So switching the fan might not be the best idea because it might not blow enough air on the heat sink to sufficiently cool off the CPU, and then you have a fried CPU.

Okay, given that, I'd recommend buying a quieter heat sink/fan (they come together) from your local computer store. the thing is that this is very very tricky sometimes--you have to buy the heat sink specific to your processor type and motherboard. This is a bit too difficult to communicate through the forum. This process involves safely removing the heat sink, cleaning the residual thermal conductive paste from the processor, applying fresh thermal paste on the processor, and correctly seating/fastening the heat sink/fan to the motherboard. Basically, it's not a small deal if you don't have a whole lot of hands-on experience with computers and computer hardware.

But, there's only one way to get hands-on experience, and if you're thinking about building a new computer, you might as well use your current one for experimentation (note--you'll eventually have to be able to do this if you want to build your new computer yourself).

There are quite a few guides online regarding how to do this, for every different processor imaginable--just google it--replacing CPU heat sink and fan.

But like I said, the specific heat sink/fan (abbreviated HSF) will depend on your processor/motherboard.

CAUTION--should you choose to switch the fan only, make sure that the direction the air blows is onto the heat sink and processor, not away from it.

When choosing fans and looking at specifications when concerning noise, choose the one with the lowest dB (decibels). However, you want to have the highest airflow (cubic feet per minute--CFM's) as well so you can push as much heat away from the CPU as possible. It's a tradeoff between noise and throughput.