I never game on my computer, but I do do some music editing sometimes, so I've been looking for ways to quiet my machine without spending a lot of $$... I think I read somewhere that you could get away with just a heatsink and no fan... Is this true?

ya if you have an intel p1 133-166mhz. but since p3 run simi hot i would leave it on since that 40/60mm fan isnt making that much noise

I wouldent run my comp with no fan... ummm.. Try looking at water cooled systems. There are kits you can get at a pretty good price. I dunno if $100 to $150 for the cheapest kit is too expencive for you. But look at it this way... You will have a state of the art cooling system * minus the freon systems* and your friends will give you good praies*

This place below is unbelievable in terms of quieting expertise. http://www.silentpcreview.com/ http://forums.silentpcreview.com/ There is a huge cooling difference between going fanless and using a very quiet slow fan. Just a little airflow goes a long way. Totally silent and almost inaudible are both very quiet but to achieve complete silence you'll have no way to remove heat. With no airflow even the best sink gets hot and stays hot. If you want the cheapest quieting of your current machine I would do this. Take out the fan inside the psu and your case fans. Then get three low rpm Top Motor 80mm fans for $1.50 each at bestbyte.com. Then try running the fans at 5 volts or 7 volts or 12 volts to see how you like the cooling and quietness of each level. To run at 5V you switch the plug positions of the red and yellow wires on the molex connector of the fan. To run at 7V you switch the plug positions of the red and the black wire which is adjacent to the yellow wire. A search on 7V Mod and 5V Mod at the link above will give more details. Here are the fans to get http://www.bestbyte.net/Product.cfm?ProductID=280&CategoryID=8&Keyword= then get this 60mm-80mm fan adapter for $2 http://www.bestbyte.net/Product.cfm?ProductID=1122&CategoryID=8&Keyword= then get a nibbler just because bestbyte sells 'em and they are cool to have. http://www.bestbyte.net/Product.cfm?ProductID=1186&CategoryID=28&Keyword= and replace your pIII 60mm fan with the adapter plus one 80mm fan and the psu and case fan with the other two fans and give it a go at 12v, 7v, or 5v. Also try cpuidle or vcool which will shut off voltage to your cpu when it is idle which is 95% of the time. Makes a big difference on temps.