Motherboard Monitor

[Guest Cantousent]

Friends, I was wondering if anyone had any idea of some windows xp utility other than Motherboard Monitor that would show my system temperature. Motherboard Monitor doesn't work and I'm keenly interested in knowing how hot or cool my system is running.

[Darque]

Not a clue

 

But I'm sure one of our tech guru's can help

Edited May 26, 2006 by Darque

[Cantousent]

Okay, there has to be some computer geek in these parts who knows something about this. Come on, people, dish out the dirt.

[Llyranor]

SpeedFan is a freeware program that monitors voltages, fan speeds and temperatures in computers with hardware monitor chips. SpeedFan can even access S.M.A.R.T. info for those hard disks that support this feature and show hard disk temperatures too, if supported. SpeedFan supports SCSI disks too. SpeedFan can even change the FSB

on some hardware (but this should be considered a bonus feature). At the lowest level, SpeedFan is an hardware monitor software that can access digital temperature sensors, but its main feature is that it can change fan speeds (depending on the capabilities of your sensor chip and your hardware) according to the temperatures inside your pc, thus reducing noise. Several sensors, like Winbond's and the AS99127F support fan speed changing, as well as others from Maxim, Myson, Analog Devices, National Semiconductor and ITE, but the hardware manufacturer must have connected the relevant pins to some additional, yet trivial, circuitry. This means that if you have, say, a Winbond W83782D on a BP6 then you're ok, but not every motherboard with such an hardware monitor chip will be able to change fan speeds. From one of the very first hardware monitor chips that could be found in standard PCs, the National Semiconductor LM75 (and all of its clones, like the Philips NE1617 and the Philips NE1618 or the Maxim MAX1617) or the Analog Devices ADM1021, such chips have been greatly improved, both in their precision and in their capabilities. Current chips can monitor fan speeds, voltages and change fan speeds bu using PWMs (Pulse Width Modulation). Some chips can even be programmed to vary fan speeds without any additional software intervention. If your BIOS was programmed to setup such chips this way you can still try to use SpeedFan's Advanced Configuration to revert to manual (software controlled) mode. Winbond W83697HF, Analog Devices ADT7463, SMSC EMC6D102, ITE IT8712F, National LM85C and Maxim MAX6650 are very good candidates. Some SuperIO chips include temperature sensors too. SpeedFan can automatically detect them and use their features. SpeedFan can find almost any hardware monitor chip connected to the 2-wire SMBus (System Management Bus, a subset of the I2C BUS) Serial Interface and to the ISA BUS and works fine with Windows 9x, ME, NT, 2000, 2003 and Windows XP. It works with Windows 64 bit too. It can be minimized to the tray and is compatible with Motherboard Monitor 5.

 

SpeedFan monitors temperatures, through available hardware monitor chips which expose their temperature sensors connected to different places inside your computer, and, according to your setup, does its best to keep them at your desired value. You can even change a fan speed according to the temperature of your hard disk. When choosing parameters for the minimum and maximum fan speed, try to set them by hand (disable all the VARIATE FANs checkboxes) and listen to the noise. When you hear no noise from the fan then you can set that value as the minimum fan speed for that fan. I suggest to use 100 as the maximum value, unless you hear so much noise from it. In such a case, you might reduce the maximum speed to 95 or 90. Obviously, nothing says that you can't set 60 as your maximum value and, sometimes, I myself set it that way. Consider that when the WARNING temperature is reached, the program sets the fan speed to 100, whichever maximum speed you set. One last word should be spent over the USE FAN x listbox. In my pc, when a fan runs faster, more than one temperature changes. You can say on which fan every temperature should rely. On my system, TEMP1 and TEMP3 are both influenced by FAN1.

 

First of all, you have to identify which temperature sensor is which. SpeedFan strictly adheres to available datasheets for each sensor chip. Please remember that hardware monitors are chips that do have some pins (small connectors) which should be connected to some additional hardware (temperature probes, thermistors or thermocouples) in order to be able to read temperatures. Only a few hardware monitor chips do label their connectors with "CPU", "System" and the likes. Most of them use labels like "Temp1", "Local" or "Remote". The hardware manufacturers connect available pins to different temperature sensors basically according to the physical placement of components on the motherboard. This means that the same chip, an ITE IT8712F, for example, might be connected to a sensor diode measuring CPU temperature on Temp2 and, on a different hardware, it might be connected on Temp1. If you have a "Local" sensor and a "Remote" labeled one, this usually means that "Local" is the temperature of the monitor chip itself and "Remote" is the temperature read from a "remote" probe.

When you have properly identified which temperature sensor is which, try to lower the speed of each fan and look at reported speed and temperatures. If you do not allow SpeedFan to change any fan speed and set all the speeds too low, then SpeedFan won't be able to avoid overheating.

 

Actually, I have no idea what Speedfan is.

[jaguars4ever]

And you can find it here:

 

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download337.html

[Cantousent]

Many thanks. Okay, the CPU runs at an alarmingly cool 37 degrees. That's inline with the bios readings at idle. It idles just a degree hotter, which is normal in my experience. It heated up to 40 running FEAR at 1600x1200 at virtually maximum settings. (I lowered a couple settings to ensure I got a min. frame rate of 37fps.) I started City of Heroes at 1600x1200 resolution with everything maxed and the same thing. The highest temperature the CPU has posted, ever, was 41C idling.

 

The Motherboard is pretty solid at 43C. That weird because the CPU usually runs hotter but I don't know with the huge assed video card I have in there and whatever the hell they stick on motherboards these days. Nevertheless, I'm not complaining about a max of 43C. Once again, that's not with these system hogs running. That's idling off the Bios. Go figure.

 

Now, here's where I need just a bit more info from my fellow geeklings. For the first time I've been able to see the alleged temperature of my HDD. It shows a whopping 52C. It's maxed at 54. Speedfan has given me the first look at my HDD temperature. 54C seems waaaay excessive, however all the tests on the HDD show its fitness at 90%, which is very good, and its permormance at 100% which damned good. How worried do you think I should be over those temperature settings?

[Deraldin]

Now, here's where I need just a bit more info from my fellow geeklings.  For the first time I've been able to see the alleged temperature of my HDD.  It shows a whopping 52C.  It's maxed at 54.  Speedfan has given me the first look at my HDD temperature.  54C seems waaaay excessive, however all the tests on the HDD show its fitness at 90%, which is very good, and its permormance at 100% which damned good.  How worried do you think I should be over those temperature settings?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Don't be alarmed at all. Your system is amazingly cool. My system idles a few degrees hotter than yours, but under load it peaks at around 50.The only time I would be worried about system temperatures is if they start pushing above 65...

[Cantousent]

Good Lord, now that I fixed the Paralel port problem, I'm running City of Heroes, FEAR, and this browser at the same time. Everything is running at 1600x1200 and my CPU and MB are 40 and 43 respectively. Incredible. Awesome. ...And no more wonkines not that the PPP is fixed.

[213374U]

Also, AIDA32. It's an excellent system monitoring program. I believe the site closed down, so I'm not sure if the thing supports the latest hardware, though. Should be pretty easy to find the last version in download pages anyway.

 

Right now, my CPU is running (burning?) at a potentially dangerous 63

[metadigital]

From memory, you don't want your HD temp to raise above 55ish ... at 60

[Cantousent]

Yeah, that's with a new fan in the front. It's right in front of the HDD. In fact, I removed the toolbox from it's place in the case to get max air flow. The bios idle temps dropped for the motherboard and CPU. I didn't get HDD readings until after I installed the fan.

 

If it weren't for the damned FEAR wonkiness, which I'm beginning to suspect is the copy protection, I wouldn't have a single complaint about the system, temp or performance wise.

[metadigital]

You can buy temperature probes and an auto-fan speed kit for the box.