u are right.. altho they arent exhaust holes, they may just help dissipate heat...the area above my GPU is hot, so is the area above my CPU... i can feel it emanating from the keyboard.
first step: reformat, reinstall, and try wow with everything stock. Im pretty sure that wil be fine..
then u can start doing all the oc step by step, and find out which one is teh culprit...