Monitoring Tools for Checking CPU and System Temperatures

Today's PCs comes with many built-in sensors for checking the temperature inside the device.
Such sensors reside in the system's CPU, Motherboard, Graphic Card (GPU), Hard-Disk and more.

I'll list some useful tools I'm using for monitoring the system temperatures.

1. Speedfan

Features:

• Temperature monitoring
• Fan Speed Control
• Voltage Reading
• Hard-Disk SMART Checking
• Event-Notification including Popup & E-mail alerting
• Supports 32/64bit

Tips: 

• Use the /s switch to do a silent install for mass-deployment.
• On warm systems set the min/max fan speed to 100% so that the fan would be in full-speed all the time.
• Use the options to "Start Minimize" and "Minimize on Close", than copy the Speedfan shortcut to the Start Menu Startup folder.
• Make sure you choose the relevant temperature sensor to be shown on the system tray.

License: Freeware
YaronMaor Rating: 5/5 *****

2. HWMonitor

Features:

• Reads the CPU Temperatures only but seperates the results for each CPU-Core.
• Identify the running hardware make and model (i.e. which CPU, which Graphic Card...)
• Portable (single EXE file that runs without installation)

Tips:
Check the Maximum temperature values column to see the peak values since last boot.
Export the results to a text file (.txt) using the File menu.
License: Freeware. Has an extended paid version called HWMonitor Pro

YaronMaor Rating: 3/5 *** 

You can't control the fan speeds... I'm missing some background-monitoring functionality.

3. CoreTemp

Features:

• Reads Temperatures, Voltage and fan Speeds
• Portable (single EXE file that runs without installation)
• Fully Supports XP/Vista/Windows7 32bit & 64bit
• Can run in the background for monitoring & alerting

Tips:

• 
  
  
  
  Set the Overheat Protection parameters for alerting while running in the background.
• 
  
  
  
  Use the Screenshot option in the Tools menu to save a picture file of the current window.
• 
  
  
  
  Supports Add-Ons to extend functionality
• 
  
  
  
  Developers can use a shared-library to communicate with the program

License: Freeware. 

YaronMaor Rating: 3/5 ***

You can only see the CPU temp... 

4. NextSensor

Features:
Temperature & Voltage monitoring.
Control for fan speeds
Advanced GUI with support for seperate icon on the system tray for each sensor.
Tips:
Set the sensors you want to monitor and run minimized while enjoying up to three dynamic notification icons for each sensor.

License: Freeware. 

YaronMaor Rating: 2/5 **

Too graphically advanced so the functionality and quick-learning of use gets damaged...

5. SensorView

Features:

• 
  
  • Notification at critical values.
• 
  
  • You can set a threshold of concern and correction.
• 
  
  • Sending email.
• 
  
  • Graphs.
• 
  
  • Showing chosen parameter in the tray.
• 
  
  • Showing CPU usage.
• 
  
  • Showing physical memory usage.
• 
  
  • Showing HDD usage.
• 
  
  • Showing NIC usage.
• 
  
  • Log file for events and warning messages

License: Shareware. 19.95$-24.95$ (Used to be free until Dec/2005)

YaronMaor Rating: 3/5 ***

Not portable, Not freeware/Not Cheap...














Conclusion:
If I could get the functionality of Speedfan in a portable version with the development toolkit of CoreTemp it would have been the best.
One important feature I haven't yet found is the ability to run as a system-service for Windows-Servers and 24*7 running PC's.
I usually install Speedfan for permanent solution and use HWMonitor for quick glance using my USB-Disk.


Do you know any other tool that's worth checking? comment me and I'd be happy to share a review.


Cheers,
Yaron Maor