Hey I'm getting a Athlon XP2600 fsb333 mhz . How many fans should I use in my case?? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I have an AMD Athlon 2500+ fsb333mhz. I have a Dragon case which has 4 fan spots. At first i had only 1 fan in there and i thought it was fine. Then when i moved my machine to a different spot in my room.. it went up in temp around 10* (I moved it away from the window that apparently leaked cold air in gotta love dorms) so i added 3 more fans and it went back to about the normal temp. The thing is now my machine is a bit louder. So i say it depends on if you care if your machine is loud or not. If you dont mind it getting louder... i say add as many fans as possible and if you do so, go for fans around 21db... they are rather quiet compared to the rest. I hope all that helped!

I ditched the std heatsink/fan that came with my 2500+ & bought a Thermaltake silent boost which dropped the idle temp by about 5degC. then I downloaded the CPUIDLE free 30 day trial and it's now sitting on 41degC as i type this (I don't type fast!!!). my CPU runs at 2140 Mhz (196fsb) - I'm cautious....

Try cpuidle, I'm gonna buy it once the trial finishes

like Lalaji said, it depends on if you care about your computer being loud or not. Personally, I think if it helps extend the life of something I'm paying thousands of dollars for, then who cares about how loud it is. Especailly today, computers are quieter than ever stock. But it also depends on if you have fan mounts in your case. If it's an older case, you might not, but new cases are fairly cheap too, $30-100 USD. Also, if you browse the AMD website, they have a few PDF files on thermoregulation and airflow that might be helpful and just good to know. And for your processor, I'd recommend a Volcano 10+. Can't go wrong with the best, and it's AMD approved. http://www2.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/1,,30_182_869_4348^4356,00.html?1082485552