Those pathologically averse to vacuuming probably handcuff themselves to their machines with wrist straps....

Just stop wearing that favourite vinyl Jumpsuit...and you'll be fine...

Here's another trick....

Get yerself a nice long Monitor cord ....and wireless mouse/keyboard...and stick the machine in your rug-rat's bedroom....claim the 'noise' is soothing whale-song to keep the kids calm....

I have been blowing my PC out with my vacuum on "blow" for years..never hurt a thing...

a compressor .. now thats another story.. the oils and compressed water can do damage...

Phoon might be on to something there....

However, if you are not having any true problems other then just the noise then I would say get some different fans. My new pc has 6 (counting the power supply, cpu and vid card fans) and I never hear a one so there are quite fans out there (and yes they do run when 'called upon' to do so, I just don't hear them).

BLOW BABY BLOW!

This may be way off base but check to see if any wires are rubbing against your fans. I had this problem once where a wire was rubbing the fan and you would only here it when the fan was at a higher speed.

Sorta reminds me of two brothers I know...one mechanically minded, the other not. The non-mechanical brother used to take his car to the other whenever it needed work, and this particular time had it there for a noise that only occurred at higher speeds.

Yeah, the mechanical brother had clipped a piece of thin plastic to a stay holding the radiator in place, so that when the fan kicked in at higher revs/speed, so would the plastic....clank clank clank clank.

Dunno how many times non-mechanical went back with "I thought you fixed this " before he realised he'd been had.

Maybe vStyler's PC had a similarly minded techie strategically place that wire.

Just buy a new fan, if it's loud too (then you are way too sensitive to noise). Mine is quiet, I replace mine every 6 months due to dust and all. They are not very expensive and it just might help, could have been a bad one to start, with a problem, who knows. Like a car, maybe it should have been on recall. I would not however ever change the speed, you want every bit of cooling you can get to keep everything in good running order. Good Luck.

Its just a cheap noisy fan but it looks like its specifically built for this dual core, I wouldn't wanna mess with it myself and it'd probably cost more than it's worth to have someone do it.

Turns up music again*..  

WELL WELL....   

The noise finally got so bad my fan was waking me up in the middle of the night when my PC was IDLE.. so.. I took the initiative to try clean out the dust today...hoping that may be the problem as some of you have suggested....

There was about 1/4 inch of dust\crap\nicotine etc etc jammed in between my fan and the cooling fins, underneath and into the fins that sit above the CPU.. also my two other fans were pretty dirty... Took me about two hours to figure out how to get the damn thing off my mobo\processor , clean it all and most difficult.. snap it back to where it was on the board...

... but NOW... it is S I L E N T ! ! ! ! I can actually hear my HD clicking away!!... Doesn't even make a noise when I render!.... plus my PC is definately running faster...  

Thanks for the suggestions.. I am ONE HAPPY CAMPER !!!       

Shudder to think whats in my lungs      

My fans were going crazy for a few weeks. I just had too much crap on my computer. I tried uninstalling stuff, but I think the damage was done. Friday, after 2 years, I just dumped the entire drive and reinstalled Windows. Running real sweet now.

To a computer - Heat = Death plain and simple. Dust acts as an insulator and at some point no amount of fans will keep the CPUs safe. I have preached on this issue for years but then as you found out it is no fun doing it but the old saying "pay me now or pay me later" applies here.

Its smoking fast now.. and smoking cool... Unfortunately i broke one of the little snap pins on the fan putting it back on, Its holding to the board solid with three fortunately though...next time i may be buying a new fan..   oh well.. good for now !

Just stay aware of anything weird in regard to fan noise or temps with that clip broken.

I am sure there are overclockers like me on here and they can tell you stories of what heat does and how fast. Also the seating of the fans, heatsinks, and CPU seating are all critical - to the point it drives you crazy as to the lack of tolerance of these things in regard to CPU cooling.

At least you should sleep good tonight!

Anyone unfortunate enough to be using Inspirons like I am can download I8kfanGUI and SpeedswitchXP. Both the I600m and the I5150 run hot, and yes, Dell knew all about their bad designs. You can get these little apps there WWW Link.

Don't need them on the I600m but they work wonders on my I5150. I disabled Speedstep in the Bios on this one too.

I also use ZM-NC 1000 notebok coolers. They look and work great WWW Link.

Glad you got all the gunk out of your fans. Now how about the cigs? Doh!