[Fineus]

Gotcha, and I'm inclined to agree - but what about this:

http://www.coolercases.co.uk/aerophantomdetails.html

Looks damn fine as far as I can see, and moves air better than any other that I've come across...

[Stealth]

there's a lot of heatsinks that'll work and are effective.

i don't have an XP1800 or whatever you've got,i've only got a 1.4 but anyway

hehehe, some of those heatsinks nowadays are so damn complex, they look like rockets or something, they look like they're about to take off the ****ing motherboard.

that one you posted Thunder: who wants a fan that has lights, who really cares what the fan looks like unless you have a transparent side or something  also, dust will make it look even worse, cause the lights will show all the dust and stuff up

[CP5670]

I have a one of the Vantec six-inch "Iceberg" fan units for the processor (which is a Athlon TB1400 running at 1475), which works very well and allows for some nice overclocking, although it is extremely loud compared to most other models (sounds just like the ventilation system inside a commercial airplane; I personally like the noise ). However, these are over a year old now, so there are probably newer ones available out there today.

[Redfang]

I've got an Athlon XP 2400+ (2GHz), and I've got this as my heatsink+fan. While it's not the best, it's pretty quiet and keeps my system cool enough. With case closed, CPU temperature is around 46 degrees celsius when on Windows, and hasn't went over 50 yet (though I haven't done anything that loads the CPU much). With case open, the temperature is around 41 degrees celsius.

[Thorn]

I have the volcano 7+
It sounds like theres a little man inside my case screaming.....

[CP5670]

I did have a dead spider in my case last time I cleaned it out...

[Fineus]

Cheers guys, I think my problem is case ventilation, not fan ventilation.

At the moment my 1.4 T-Bird runs at about 50 degrees without load and 55 with load. Thats with the case side off, put it on and you can add another ten degrees to both of those marks.

However I am adding several additional case fans and modding things somewhat, hopefully I can get some kind of combination going here.

Either way, I've really taken to the idea of the one I posted in my last post...

[Petrarch of the VBB]

Put an indutrial extractor fan in the side of your case, or an A/C unit.

[Thorn]

You can get air exchangers that fit in one of the expansion slots on your case.. useful as hell if you dont have a lot of extra cards...

[CP5670]

I am using four main fans for the case cooling, two intake and two exhaust. (all are of the six-inch delta variety) This combination has worked very well for me so far.

[Vertigo1]

Thunder: Be warned.  The ammount of fans doesn't matter as much as how they are arranged.  50 bazillion fans won't do you any good if they don't do their job properly.

What would probably do you the most good is cutting a hole in the top of your case and mounting a fan there.  A single 120mm intake, and two 80mm exhaust fans would do you more good than 5 80mm fans thrown about the case would.

[Levyathan]

Wouldn't it be easier just to put the whole thing inside a fridge? Pretty practical, too.

[Thorn]

sure... except for the moisture....

[Fineus]

Vertigo, cheers - I've got vague ideas about what I want to do to the thing... there's automatically space for another 80mm and a 40mm in the case that I'll have blowing, adding in a blow hole and cutting the front of the case so that the front suck fan actually...sucks.

That and hopefully the side is going to have one blowing as well, cleaning out all the air that seems to be sitting in the CPU area (when the sides on you can feel it getting warm after a while... that's sure as hell not supposed to happen!)

[Shrike]

Water cooling!  Do it!  

[Top Gun]

Originally posted by Thorn
sure... except for the moisture....

Yes, but then you can just either use chemicals to combat it. It's also a problem when you use peltiers or non-water liquid cooling systems for the cpu, you have to put silicone in the centre of and around the cpu socket.

[Fineus]

Originally posted by Shrike
Water cooling!  Do it!  

NO

I've come across a local computer fair that has the X-Dream fans from Coolmaster (rated to 2800+) for about £20. That's pretty good, but I'm still open to ideas from anyone with "teh knowlege"...

[Ryx]

Just checked some prices on AXP2100+ (and above too, of course) and got the upgrade itch. Curse You!

If I do I'll need to upgrade my cooling too.
This one looks promising.
http://www.thermalright.com/slk800.html

[Top Gun]

If you have a metal case with not too much decorative plastic cladding then you could just cut a circle out of it with a dremmel (or something simmilar) and then buy a mains fan from a DIY shop to fit in which will mean you never have cooling problems again. That won't cost nuch in excess of ten pounds but it will take about an hour and a half to do.

[Fineus]

I'm guessing this fan would be going on the side of the case?

In which case - would it be blowing (out of the case) or sucking (into the case)? Bearing in mind that I've got one fan at the front sucking, the PSU at the back blowing and the CPU and graphics card fans both blowing as well.

See, I don't know much about air dynamics - I get the basic "through flow" theory but the particulars aren't as clear to me...

Edit, and Ryx - looks nice! But seems to only be rated at 2000+ "and above" which makes me a tad dubious...