Why is your computer loud all of a sudden?

Some computers are just loud. Cheaper fans make more noise, and some systems don't make any attempt to reduce noise by throttling fans down.

If, on the other hand, your system -used- to be quiet, but has for some reason gotten louder during recent months... there is a possible solution.

Most new computers have a temperature sensor on the CPU (and on other heat-sensitive bits) a special circuit keeps track of this temperature and when it rises, increases the fan speed.

What happens is the heatsink (and fan) get clogged up with dust, so it dissipates less heat, the sensor detects this & cranks up the fan to compensate. Cleaning the dust out of your heatsink and fan may go a long way to quieting your computer.

You can get a can of compressed air at any office or electronics supply store. With the machine turned off & unplugged, open up the side panel & blow everything out.

Note: DO NOT use compressed air to blow inside your floppy, cdrom or DVD drives.