Hardware Monitoring of Temperature and other sensors

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Grand Master

DevTech

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For a while now I have wanted to monitor all my computers in the house (about 10) to a central display for temp so I can spot early warning signs of issues such as failing cooling fan...

 

Some interesting stuff here:

https://www.hwinfo.com/addons.php

 

How Monitoring Works

 

Looked at HWINFO forums.

 

Suspect only a handful of monitors actually exist and everyone else licenses something like the HWINFO SDK:

https://www.hwinfo.com/sdk.php

 

Device Driver:

 

https://www.hwinfo.com/forum/Thread-Common-Q-A

 

"Both HWiNFO32 and HWiNFO64 require a kernel mode driver to work, as this is the only way how to access hardware. This driver is used only to obtain precise hardware information for HWiNFO and Administrative rights are required to install it."

 

"There are several models of hardware sensors available. Most of them are currently supported. However, every particular motherboard model usually has the sensor inputs connected a different way. This requires motherboard-specific sensor support. Since there are thousands of motherboard models available, it's not possible to support all of them properly. HWiNFO32/64 currently features support of many of them, but of course not all of them. Since there is no widely supported standard available, every motherboard requires specific handling. Notebooks usually have monitoring handled by an Embedded Controller (EC) microprocessor, which has a proprietary designed firmware, thus it's much more difficult to support monitoring advanced parameters on notebooks. Only few ECs are supported by HWiNFO32/64. There are some industry-wide standards for hardware monitoring that are also supported like Intel QST (Quiet System Technology), IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface) available mostly on servers"

 

https://www.hwinfo.com/forum/Thread-IMPORTANT-Fan-Control

 

 

"The main reason for such limited fan control support is that almost all notebooks use proprietary methods (closed Embedded Controller firmware), that are kept secret by manufacturers."

 

https://www.hwinfo.com/forum/Thread-CPU-Core-Temperature-Measuring-Facts-Fictions

 

 

@adrynalyne

Open hardware Monitor

 

Open hardware Monitor can read most of that stuff (and is open source) with exception to Kaby Lake I think. That said, speccy, speedfan, hwinfo, and a few others do it for free as well. They aren't ad supported so it seems like the cost is either non-existent or so low it doesn't matter.

 

http://openhardwaremonitor.org/

 

http://openhardwaremonitor.org/documentation/

 

https://github.com/openhardwaremonitor/openhardwaremonitor

 

 

Please Help Out

 

If you would like to help with this topic, here are some ideas:

 

- post a link to something I've missed. For now, I'm trying to focus on "FREE" and "WORKS ON WIN 10-64"

 

- comment on any positive or negative experience you have had with monitoring tools

 

- I am particularly interested in any experience or configuration ideas for end-to-end accurate low-level monitoring of multiple (non-enterprise) computers on a LAN with a graphic aggregate display

 

- hit the "Follow" button for this thread so you can comment on any updates

 

 

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Grand Master

DevTech

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CPU-Z

 

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

 

Speccy

 

http://www.piriform.com/speccy

 

Cuda-Z

 

http://cuda-z.sourceforge.net/

 

CrystalCPUID

 

http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalCPUID/index-e.html

 

AMD64 CPU Assistant

 

https://www.foxylab.com/AMD64CPUAssistant.php?en

 

WinAudit

 

https://winaudit.codeplex.com/

 

Spiceworks

 

https://www.spiceworks.com/

 

WMI Tools

 

https://www.adremsoft.com/wmitools/

 

CAM

(web based)

 

https://camwebapp.com/

 

GPU-Z

 

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

 

PC-Wizard

 

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/pc-wizard.html

 

Corsair Link

 

http://www.corsair.com/en-eu/landing/corsair-link-dashboard#page=system-panel

 

CPU Thermometer

(uses Open Hardware Monitor)

 

http://www.cputhermometer.com/

 

 

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Grand Master

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AIDA64

 

https://www.aida64.com/

 

HWMonitor

 

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

 

Compact Tray Meter

 

http://dennisbabkin.com/ctm/

 

Core Temp

 

WARNING - some sites indicate the installer has a crapware payload - There are safe downloads of this program (TODO: verify and add link)

This program is repeatedly mentioned in overclocking forums as the most accurate.

 

http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

 

 

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Grand Master

DevTech

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9 hours ago, Mando said:

Great idea mate! and all the ones ive used you have listed hehe dam :p 

 

Oh wait no...:P

 

Motherboard Monitor

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/motherboard_monitor.html

 

 

 

Thanks for contributing to this thread!

 

I remember using that software a long time ago but unfortunately the author has not maintained it which is why I did not include it on the list.

 

(I already had one from 2014 that I was hesitant about and Motherboard Monitor is 2004)

 

Monitoring software has to play a cat and mouse game with undocumented mobo interfaces in a constantly changing update landscape. Open Hardware Monitor for example is having trouble finding the manpower resources to keep up with it, leaving various proprietary (but free) solutions in the lead.

 

I seem to recall from other forum posts that you are managing computers in a corporate environment. If that's right, have you tried to do LAN monitoring of temps?

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