Lately my computer has been making a lot of noise. My computer case is pretty large, it's a full-ATX sized desktop case and has lots of fans. So I'm generally used to quite a bit of fan noise, but it has been peculiarly loud of late. I had some friends over the other night to play some board games and they mentioned that it was really loud. Actually to quote they said, "It sounds like it's going to explode!" That was the last straw. No longer was I going to let my computer ruin my social gatherings.

After observing the computer while it was running I was able to determine that the sound was coming from the fan on my processor's heatsink. I tried to think of why it would be running so loudly and and came to form a speculation.