Dimension 4600 Use Of The Green CPU Attachment With A New CPU Fan

Hello. I have a Dimension 4600 which I took from the town recycling center several months ago. I frequently find parts at the recycling center when my family brings garbage to be disposed of. The PC originally contained an 80 gig stock segate HDD, 1 GB of RAM, 2.8ghz P4 and the stock DVD drive. After about 3/4 of a year several recycled parts were made,and it's current specs are-

ATI All-In-Wonder 9800 Pro AGP Graphics Card

160 Gb Segate EIDE HDD

3 Ghz P4 HT Northwood

250 Gb Western Digital WD2500 Series EIDE Drive

Lite-On DVD DL Burner

3 GB's of RAM (2 x 512MB Sticks, 2 x 1Gb Sticks)

Generic 3 Port FW400 PCI Card

ATI Radeon 9250 PCI Graphics Card

I also have modded the side of the case to fit a 80mm fan with a molex power connector which blows air into the PC. In front of the PC, under the plastic case, there is another 80mm fan in front of the HDD's which is blowing air into the PC. I just took off the original dell heatsink, and installed a heatsink and CPU fan from a compaq. It required a 3 prong fan connector, but I cut the adapter off and wired the positive and negative wires to a molex connector, so the fan can't be controlled, but runs fine. The HDD's get very hot very fast when in use, and it frightens me. I've seen the WD2500 get up to 58C. As I added the CPU fan, I wondered if I needed the green dell plastic piece that covers the CPU heatsink that helps air flow trough the PC's back (and only stock) fan. I think that the piece should be removed because then air from the side fan can flow through the PC and out the back fan without anything interfering. When the green piece is on, air from that side fan can't be pushed through easily, because the CPU heatsink is in the way. So without the piece over the CPU, air can get in and blow over the CPU and then out the back, which would hopefully cool the processor more efficiently. Do you think this idea is good, or should I keep the green cover over the CPU?