retail p4 3.2G fan+heatsink combo REAL LOUD?

[eastvillager]

Are these supposed to sound like hovercraft? I'm using one in an old system till I can replace it with something decent and it makes more noise than the 2 machines next to it.

 

[RalfHutter]

Yes, they're pretty darn loud. Intel designed a new HSF for the 3.06 (533MHZ) CPU and they're using the same one for the 3.0C and 3.2C. It's got the copper insert in the base and redesigned fins along with that faster, noisier fan. All this is designed to cool the 70+ watt output of these CPUs. It does cool the CPUs but it's not as elegant a solution as the earlier version of the P4 HSF.

You can undervolt the fan (with a Zalman Fanmate or whatever) to knock off a bit of the highest pitch noise and still have fine cooling while you wait to replace it with a higher performance HSF.