I have a crummy machine, and the fan is pretty much constantly spinning, however it's not always pumping out warm air. Is there any way to disable the fan to only use when it needs it? other than sticking a pencil in it? Cheers PA.

sure you can unplug it if you want to kill your system, otherwise, leave it alone and let it run.

I can't beleive you stated that you stick a pencil in your FAN...WTF...the cooler your machine is the longer it will last yup!

If it is your CPU fan, leave it the hell alone. If it is a case fan, you *could* erplace it with a variable fan. There are different types. The more features, the more expansive it will be. There are some that you can manually adjust the fan speed while there are some that will automatically adjust depending on the case temperature. Even with the automatic one's, if you do not set it up correctly you could run your system too hot and have potential hardware problems. I'd suggest you just replace the noisy fan with a quality (always run, non variable) fan that is built for quiet operation. Michael J

Actually this should be moved to the HARDWARE FORUM. Rule #1 Good computers don't go down. Rule #2 There is no such thing as a good computer.

Don't touch the fan. If you stop CPU fan, system will probably shut down automaticaly, if you stop power supply fan, you may burn your house down. Take out all other fans and throw them away (exept the one on the video card if there is one). tralalala

You can buy fans with internal thermostats that will turn on and off at a preset temperatures. They are used mostly in laptops for conserving power. They are however a little on the expensive side. But I'm with the above posts... a cooler system is a better protected one... with a fan that runs full time.