Yes, they are loud, especially some of the mid-late IONs that use the ASUS motherboard with the high speed blower style CPU fan. And they only get louder as fans collect dust bunnies, the machine runs longer and speeds up the variable-speed fans, etc.

I've been rebuilding and selling Megatouch games for over a decade, and these days I usually gut them entirely and rebuild them with newer parts that put out less heat, which means greater reliability and less fans which means less noise. They go from sounding like small vacuum cleaners to sounding like a proper desktop computer (and as dependable as one) but it's a bit of work. Not trying to drum up any sales here, just saying that like many things with enough money/time it can be done.

It has already been cracked but AMI (parent company of Merit) is still quite protective of their IP and will not allow free distribution of hacked software.