A computer system's components produce large amounts of heat during operationincludingbut not limited tointegrated circuits such as CPUschipset and graphics cardsalong with hard drives. This heat must be dissipated in order to keep these components within their safe operating temperaturesand both manufacturing methods and additional parts are used to keep the heat at a safe level. This is done mainly using heat sinks to increase the surface area which dissipates heatfans to speed up the exchange of air heated by the computer parts for cooler ambient airand in some cases softcoolingthe throttling of computer parts in order to decrease heat generation.Overheated parts generally exhibit a shorter maximum life-span and may give sporadic problems resulting in system freezes or crashes.
