Newby ignorance...please cure me of it

[dommer]

I have a question about cooling. Why not just leave the case open an use a honking huge box fan to move air through, aside from the noise? Woulndn't this essentially ensure that the system temp would be ambient temp, and all heatsinks would have be surrounded by a relative heat void? Anyway, I'm asking because I've just gotten into OCing, and have my Duron700@900 open with a box fan blowing through it. I did a lot of no-no's, such as using Radio Shack thermal compound, etc, the thing won't even POST at 950. Oh, I'm at 1.725 V. Any advice on potential improvements?

[Murphy]

One thing: Increase voltage, you can go all the way to 1.85, as long as your temp. stays below 50°C. Higher temps decrease your odds on a stable system. Most of the durons take 1.85 easily, just check around in here!

[fireball_87]

I leave my case open and use a gint floor fan on it. works perfect aside from the noise. :)

[Vector]

I have another no-no for you...BOX FAN BAD FOR SYSTEM
The reason being that the big-ass magnet that is stirring that fan can potentially produce a hell of a lot of EMI
EMI is bad and I can assure you that the system will not run as stable as it was originally running

[instanoodles]

I always leave my case off, but in the basement it is usually 7-10C so I dont need a big ass fan. I have a duron 700@900 but stock heatsink and fan. CPU temp is around 40C always.