20 months ago!! Crikey it's a stoneage computer You need a nice AM2 system or one of those grubby core duo things.

You're better off leaving the sides on as this actually helps airflow through the system, so that it hits the right spots. If you take the sides off, most of the fans do jack-s**t!

That's true, leaving the sides off makes it worse unless up aim a big desk fan at it. I must admit before comming to Oz, I was convinced heat would be a problem, but turns out not to be, well no more than back home anyway. I'd lay money on the CPU cooler not sitting flush.

Now is a good time for buying components though, I've never seen, CPU's, Ram, MB's and GFX cards so cheap!