Making sure your computer is properly cooled is very important. Your components have tons of circuits and tiny wires and parts in them that eat up hundreds and thousands of watts every day in use. Today's computers and devices use more and more energy to run faster, and perform more functions for you. 

Learning how to keep your components cooled will increase the lifespan and performance of your computer components and save you money in the long run! This guide will help you make sure your computer is properly cooled without being too noisy. Cooled systems can prevent crashing and last longer!

All components that use a lot of electricity, they need to be properly cooled. This isn't a task you should to leave to computer manufacturers unless you pay $2000 for your machine. Many consumer PC's today are made with weak and low-quality fans to keep the machine from being too noisy or because the smaller fan would fit neatly inside the case. It is also to cut costs. You can be certain that the company that made your $400 computer did bend over backwards to give you the extras to make your computer outlast the warranty. Many manufacturers have been using a tunnel-like device over the cpu for years. If you open up the case you will see that a plastic tunnel gives direct access from the cpu fan to the rear ventilation holes in the back of the case. This is great for the cpu, but what about the rest of the components? A hard drive also runs very hot and today's videocards have gigantic fans that need their own ventilation holes themselves (check out those ATI & NVIDIA videocards that take up 2 PCI slots). If you don't cool your components, several things can happen. Your part will die or mal-function. Many computers nowadays will turn off or restart once they over-heat. Hard-drive may never boot up to Windows again. The effects of an improperly cooled system are disastrous!

Here is some basic knowledge that you must understand. The ONLY thing a fan can do is circulate the air INSIDE your computer with the air OUTSIDE your computer. Meaning if you have a billion fans inside your computer but it's still sitting in a hot room, it won't do you any good. You should have your computer in a cooled room. Another theory is that the air should flow through your computer from the front to the back. So the fans in the front of your computer should be blowing IN to your computer, and the fans on the back of your computer should be blowing OUT. Fans are usually measured by their CFM and dBA levels. CFM refers to how much air they move. dBA refers to how loud the fan is. Generally, a fan shouldn't be louder than 30 dBA and definitely shouldn't be louder than even 25 dBA if you have your computer on the table. Of course how much of the fan noise you hear will be related to the material of the case and the quality of the fan. Some fans have a humming noise which is quite bearable even up to 35 dBA; other fans have a whining noise which will annoy you even at only dBA. Generally, a big fan that spins slow will still carry more air than a smaller fan running at higher speed. A higher speed fan means louder noise, so get a big fan! The only time you shouldn't get a big fan is if the ventilation hole is too small, so buy the fan that fits the size of your ventilation hole.

Some questions you may have:

Will buying a case that holes for 6 fans keep my system cool? - Actually 1 fan in the front to suck cool air in, and 1 fan in the back to blow hot air out will do just fine! There is no need to put a million fans in your system, this will just make it more noisy and not help you too much. Remember that a fan doesn't cool your system, it just pushes out air inside your tower and replaces it with the air outside your tower. A cool room and 2 fans will do much more than a hot room with 10 fans.

Should I buy a hard drive cooler? - This is recommended if you use your computer 24/7. Don't wait for your hard drive to fail one day to learn this lesson. Hard drives are constantly in use and run at very high speeds and temperatures. A slight error means loss of data. You don't really need to buy a hard drive cooler if the fans at the front of your tower are already blowing at your hard drives.

Should I buy memory heatsinks? - This is another lousy invention of heatsinks for ram. All it does is make your ram look cool and artificially boost the price. You don't need this.

Should I use water cooling? - I highly discourage this for many reasons. Water cooling was supposedly the better way to cool your system because it cooled better than air, and was quieter. In fact, most water cooling systems under $200 are hardly better cooling or quieter than a decent $35 fan and heatsink combo. In the end, a decent water cooling will cost you nearly $400 and that is just too extreme for cooling. Most hardcore overclockers need that high level of cooling so that they can run their computer at higher than specification speeds. Being an ex-overclocker myself I will tell you that there are many people who are able to over-clock easily, inexpensively, and stable with air-cooled solutions. You should have to spend that much money for cooling, it's overkill. If you want it for the looks then fine, but it won't do you any good. Worst of all, water-cooling is clunky to work with, makes your system so much heavier and you have to refill the coolant liquids periodically. Liquids and computers don't go well together and the risk of you making a mistake is just too much with water-cooling.

A great website to buy cooling accessories is www.svc.com I've been using them for years and they have a great selection, price, and service.

I hope this guide helps and if you need more information, feel free to check out the forums.

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