this never happened prior to the new patch. the PC does nothing of the sort during any other game. recent (last 6 months) games played:

all of the KOTOR series
all of the Jedi Knight series
Empire at War
Civ 4
AoE 3
RTW w/expansion
Battlefield 2
Europa Universalis 3
Battlefront 2


i used a dust free spray on my system about 2 months ago when i was trying to upgrade my video card (which was unsuccessful without reinstalling my entire PC). my internal temp stays between 80F and 85F degrees, because i do have one fan that went out (previously it stayed between 77F and 80F).