My computer is normally quiet except when in use for long period of
time and/or it's hot in the room. I don't play games or overclock or
anything like that. I've seen the water cooled chipset stuff online,
but I don't think I want to get into that. Is there a device that
could produce cool air and blow it inside the air intake?

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Request for Question Clarification by sublime1-ga on 02 Jul 2006 21:48 PDT

mark...

A larger heatsink won't really do you much good, since the heatsink
matches the size of your CPU. A bigger one won't provide any more
surface-to-surface contact area.

Since your question title focuses on 'quiet', in addition to your
interest in coolness, let me suggest something that's worked quite
well for me.

After cleaning the dust from your current heat sink (caked dust
decreases air flow and cooling efficiency), once your current 
fan has been removed, add an adapter such as this one that lets
you mount a 120mm case fan onto the 80mm heatsink and CPU:
http://www.svc.com/fa-80120.html

The case fan operates at about half the rpm of the normal 80mm
fan, so is much quieter, yet the effective cooling is better than
that provided by an 80mm fan.

A regular case fan dropped my temp by about 10 degrees F less
than the 80mm fan, running at twice the rpms, that I had previously.
If you want to use a 120mm fan with higher rpms than a normal case
fan (~2500rpm), there are some out there, but if you don't need the
speed for cooling, use the regular for quietness.

Additionally, the cost of a 120mm fan is about half the cost of
the 80mm fans, and they last longer since they're not running as
fast. The initial investment of $4 for the adapter is quickly
offset by not having to buy a new 80mm fan every year or so.

Let me know if this satisfies your interests...

sublime1-ga

You need a bigger heatsink/fan..., it's very important to keep your
CPU running as cool as possible.. Just adding more air won't help,
heatsinks are specifically designed to cool CPU's --just get a better
one.

I'll wait for the techies to come around and say which one, all I know
is more air is not the answer, a new heatsink IS.

How do we even know its the cpu?  What if it is a hard drive or dvd
drive spinning up?  What does it sound like?

Personally, the noise can come from various components in your case.

If I were giving an official answer, I'd want to know exactly what
components you were running, and what case you had it in. The things
you want to look at are the case fans (which are closest to the
outside of the case), the CPU cooler, VGA cooler (or what video card
you are using), Chipset Cooler, and HDD.

You may want to pop the side of your case off and do an ear test
(CAREFULLY! Don't hack off an ear!). That way you know exactly what is
causing the noise. I would put my money on the CPU and case fans
first, but in my case the loudest components are the video card and
that blasted north bridge cooler. I have a DFI LanParty SLI-DR and the
chipset fan whines like crazy.

You might also want to check your temps. You can get programs like
SpeedFan and Motherboard Monitor to see those. I suggest SpeedFan
personally (Motherboard Monitor doesn't support my board). If you are
in the 50c range, you might have a problem with your thermal paste. In
this case, you may want to purchase some thermal paste (I use arctic
silver 5) and reseat the Cooler.

I know about AMD's mostly, so if you are using an AMD 64, I recommend
the Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro with Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste.
Also, for quite case fans, look for Scythe's new liquid bearing Fans.
They come in 3 different speeds. Depending on how many fans your case
supports, you may need faster or slower fans.

Also, if you REALLY want to get quiet, you can look for sound
dampening products. You can find silicon fan mounts as well as actual
sound dampening materials for this. Keep in mind, sound dampening
material raises your case temperatures so that may be
counter-productive in the long run. If you're looking for a quite
case, I suggest Antec's Performace One series. I personally have a
P-180 Case. I recommend them because it's a super quiet case with
awesome performance, and they sent a LOT of replacement parts for
free.