Alternative computer cooling

[audioguru]

My Pentium4 2.93GHz pc has fairly quiet fans and doesn't heat my room much.
Maybe your air inputs to the case or the fans themselves are gunged-up with dust and are running at high speed to try to force some air goes through. Clean them.

 

[bloody-orc]

either you have VERY shitty fans of your air flow is totally messed up. this ain't normal, that you have so many fans in the case in the first place. more isn't always better. i have a 4GHz 64 bit "monster" and a reasonably good graphics card and only have 4 FANs in the case. 1 huge 16cm one in the back, 1 for the CPU, 1 for the PSU and one for motherboard something (chipset). all runs quiet even when PC runs on full power. And i live in the same climate as you do probably. (0 C here right now, 20 summer -20 winter).
so buy yourself new fans with better bearings and a better case (selfmade isn't always the quietest).
Also clean the dust out.

If you still cant get it right use peltier elements to transfer the heat from the box to the outside and cool it there using running water (water fountain, nice also... add some RGB LEDs etc). then you have the coolest box in the west. both by looks and temp.

 

[Marks256]

Marks did you get the solution? How much capacity of your video card? I think its more than 256 MB.

It is a crappy little nVIDIA geforce 6600 (256mb, but it gets fairly hot when playing games... i wonder why... [now since i know people will take that seriously, that was a rhetorical question. i do know why... ])

Marks, there's a program called speedfan that will monitor your PC's temperature and automatically adjust any fans in your PC that are capable of being adjust (usually the CPU fan)

There is a problem, though. Two of my fans connect directly to the molex connectors. Sure, my CPU fan and my third case fan might work with it (connected to the mobo), but the other two won't.

Did you say your machine is pushing 100 degrees F when loaded? No wonder it's so loud, you're massivly over cooling your machine =O

That could very well be... I did notice a slight increase in room temperature when the third fan was added... I honestly don't remember why i added the third fan... Oh! I remember! My old video card didn't have a fan on it, so i added the third fan so my vid card didn't overheat while doing some intense gaming...

So it could be that i am "over cooling" my computer? That sounds pretty odd... It kinda makes SOME sense, though. Basically, the more heat i take out, the more it is able to produce? Yes? No? I think i may be confused... care to explain so i don't hurt myself?

either you have VERY shitty fans of your air flow is totally messed up

Well, they aren't the greatest fans (the one that connects to the mobo is a very nice fan, however... The two fans that came with my case are crap, though. I have had to make repairs on them (the LEDs were just kinda soldered where the fell..., so i had to mod them so the LEDs wouldnt rub...))

 

[Sceadwian]

Considering what you have in there you could probably disable all the fans inside the case except the CPU and power supply fans and be fine. If you're going to disconnect the video card fan make sure you remove it so the heatsink gets exposed to whatever airflow is available inside the case.
You have to remember, heat is relative to a human being, especially when you're conciously paying attention to it. Just because something is hot to the touch doesn't mean it's bad. With processors (video cards count) they're going to get hot because of the transistor count and operating speeds involved and the increasing smaller die sizes. Basically as long as you can touch the heatsink for 5 seconds or so without having to pull your hand away reflexifvly or get burned you're fine. This is one of the reasons I'm seriously thinking about purchasing a decent quality non-contact IR thermometer. What I really want is a thermal cmos camera, but I'm just that kinda guy =>