I am not a guy who looks at or cares about the temperature rise inside my Computer CPU unless its too hot.  I never tried or even cared about the temperature issues till now. May be I was lucky as I never needed that while using my system. But some users, it may be a major concern sometime and they need to keep a watch on the temperature’s inside their CPU.

Today we will talk about some of the utilities which can help you keep track of your System CPU temperatures.

1. SpeedFan

It monitors voltages, fan speeds and temperatures in computers with hardware monitor chips along with hard disk temperatures. It does so by accessing the digital thermal (Temperature) sensors available inside processor cores etc.  It can also let you change fan speed depending on the condition of your system’s temperature which in turns minimizes noise.

I always avoid doing any Hardware tweaking unless its absolutely necessary and recommend the same to everyone. Don’t try to change something about which you got no idea.

SpeedFan supports SCSI disks too. SpeedFan can find almost any hardware monitor chip connected to the 2-wire SMBus (System Management Bus (trademark belonging to SMIF, Inc.), a subset of the I2C protocol) and works fine with Windows 9x, ME, NT, 2000, 2003, XP, Vista and Windows 7. It works with Windows 64 bit too

2. Real Temp

This utility is designed for all Intel single Core, Dual Core, Quad Core and Core i7 processors except Pentium IV. Each core on these processors has a digital thermal sensor which helps it determine the temperature. It also provide high temperature alarm and shutdown feature based on CPU or Nvidia GPU temperature.

It require no installation or registry modifications.Supports Windows 2000 / XP / Vista / Windows 7 (32/64 bit)

3. Motherboard Monitor

It will display information from the sensor chips on your motherboard in your Windows system tray.

It can sense temps from CPU, HDD (Hard Disk Drive), GFx (Graphics Card) ,Mobo (Motherboard) along with Fan speeds. It can even shut your system hardware by shutting it down in case its overheated. You can even record all temps and fans speed data for later viewing which comes handy if you want to overclock.

4. Intel Active Monitor

Intel® Active Monitor is an alerting utility created by Intel and available exclusively on Intel® Desktop Boards.

The Intel Active Monitor works with specialized sensors on your Intel Desktop Board to constantly monitor the system’s temperatures, power supply voltages, and fan speeds. If temperatures become extremely hot or a system fan or power supply fails, the user is immediately notified.

In addition to displaying cooling information, Intel Active Monitor makes it easy for a user to identify the processor type and speed, look up desktop board, chipset, and memory information, and customize the alerts that may begenerated and their thresholds.

CONCLUSION

Frankly speaking, I have not tested these much as I am not so good when it comes to tweaking hardware. If you want to play with things like overclocking, then these tools may come handy for you. If you are clueless about what I am talking about (Overclocking), you should stay away from things like these. You can use these utilities just in case you are curious about whats the temperature inside. These utilities are good in case you need to diagnose issues like heating, overheating of your system.

Also, The utilities may not work with every system as it requires a load of database of each and every motherboard which keeps getting updated both in terms of hardware and software.

Some tips to Avoid Overheating of your Laptop/ Desktop

If you own a laptop and use it heavily, you may have noticed it getting heated sooner or later. To minimize the heating, Avoid putting your Laptop  directly on surfaces like your Bed (with mattress obviously). The reason – it will reduce the heat transfer area and no air flow will happen between the surface of your laptop and bed, which is need for cooling it. Try putting your laptop on a hard surface. These days, laptops do come with a better design to avoid overheating, which includes shapes to maintain constant airflow.

For desktops, keep it clean inside and outside so that the air flow is maintained. Keep it in open space instead of in a tight corner.

Apart from these, check if you need a heat sink if you are using a graphics card with your system. Do some research on which heat sink to buy depending on your Graphics card and System Hardware specifications.