CPU cooler + GPUFan + 4 case fans = vacuum cleaner?

The GPU fan is probably where most of the noise comes from. My old system had 11 fans total (7 cas fans, GPU, CPU and 2 on the PSU) and its still quiet. I hear a hum but not enough to bother me.

My current rig has 10 total (6 case fans, CPu, GPU and 2 PSU fans) and its normally quiet unless it gets hot in my room and the GPU fan goes into overdrive.

That still sounds louder than it should be though. My system has 10 fans as well, and is pretty quiet at idle. I wouldn't think the GTX 260, which is fairly low power at idle, would have trouble with high fan noise except under high load conditions.

my 9600GT screams before the windows loading screen gets to a point and loads the nvidia drivers   the highest pitch whine you have ever heard...

check the fan speed in evga precision.

Ok, I downloaded EVGA precision and it's not my GPUFan making the noise! When I turned it to 100% I noticed a new fan noise and when I went back to about 40% it disappeared. So that must be the GPU fan lost in the other noise.

I think it might be my CPU cooler. It's a Zalman, came with Fanmate. I didn't install Fanmate, but I just plugged the pin directly to the motherboard cpu_fan.
I have ASUS P5Q mainboard and it shows the CPU cooler running at 2500 rpm all the time. It comes with a utility to change the fan speed, but when calibrating it insists on having the cooler run at 2500rpm. The CPU temperature is 18C...I think it might break soon because it is too cold lol.

How on earth can I change the CPU fan speed? Is fanmate the only way? Then I have to manually adjust it? Cant I have it automatically adjusted according to temp?

you could try speedfan but that doesnt even work for me. it worked on my old CPU heatsink.

and trust me, its not gonna break at 18C. have you heard of LN2 cooling before?