Help with these readings

[steve09]

I just finished setting up a new Vista Home Premium PC but not for use with Steam as it has crap on-board graphics. Anyway I decided to install CPUID HW Monitor and I was surprised by the amount of readings. Can you help me figure out what some of these actually are. Please note that there are no system fans installed so that is why there is no reading for that.

Screenshot of the CPUID HW Monitor

[z0th]

just at first glance, these dont look to be all that out of the ordinary. are you noticing problems?

[[ anyone can correct me here if im off on something, im just going on memory for the most part. ]]

first off, dont let the numbers scare you.

• the Voltages section are what are often refered to as power supply "rails". there are 3.3V, 5V and 12V rails. normally they should not change much and be as close to the 3.3/5/12 marks.
• the Temperatures section looks like it might be the various temperature sensors on the mobo. usually one of these sensors is under the cpu socket, thats probably the one thats at 34C. the rest are probably measuring other areas of the mobo.
• the Fans, likely the fan on the HSF. the number seems a bit low to me, however, this may be a larger fan, and therefore does not need to spin all that quickly to move air through the heat sink*.
• the ACPI, or Advanced Confirguration Power Interface, is a vastly complex standard that has to do with very basic computer functions, many related to the BIOS/CMOS. im assuming this is just monitoring the temperature of the chip.
• then you have your Intel CPU core temperature. this is pretty straightforward cpu temperature. the numbers dont seem unusual here.
• lastly you have your Hard Disk temperature, again, its not unusual.

* the rule of thumb here is that large fans are able to move more air (typically refereed to as CFM) than small fans given the same RPM.

edit: added some links, fixed some bbcode.

[steve09]

I'm assuming that under "Temperatures" is at least 1 system temperature, I would have said that there would have been a CPU temp there but thats seperate. I was really wanting to know what the ACPI temperatures actually relate to hardware wise. The mobo has onboard graphics and one massive heatsink presumably over both the CPU and the GPU chips & a fan tht sucks air in from the side of the case keeping it cooler than normal I would've said. But even with this massive heatsink and the way it is set up I am still wondering why the CPU is at 40C. In my XP Pro PC I have 3 system fans replacing the air inside the case constantly and obv a heatsink & fan on the CPU, & thts at 40C idle as well.

[z0th]

I'm assuming that under "Temperatures" is at least 1 system temperature, I would have said that there would have been a CPU temp there but thats seperate.

there are ususally several temperature sensors on a motherboard. usually one of those is under the CPU. the rest measure ambient temp inside the case. the temp under the CPU is (obviously) always going to be higher than the rest.

I was really wanting to know what the ACPI temperatures actually relate to hardware wise.

IIRC, the BIOS/CMOS is warmest at boot, since thats when its doing all the work.

The mobo has onboard graphics and one massive heatsink presumably over both the CPU and the GPU chips & a fan tht sucks air in from the side of the case keeping it cooler than normal I would've said. But even with this massive heatsink and the way it is set up I am still wondering why the CPU is at 40C.

just unsure if im reading this correctly -- are you saying that this system is passively cooled? in other words, there is no fan unit attached directly to the heat sink over the cpu/gpu. i dont have any experience with shared cpu/gpu cooling. i imagine this will change the equation of cooling a bit. it seems like an unusual setup. being that i dont know much about this cpu (celeron 430) or the method they are using to cool it off -- i cant really tell you what the operational temperature should be. you will need to look up the min/max acceptable temperatures for that model of cpu.

is this some sort of OEM pc (dell, hp, gateway, etc.) or something you got from a mom and pop shop?

if the cooling is indeed passive, and you want to bring the temp down, the most obvious solution would be to add fans to the heat sink to move more air across the fins. keep in mind that this will draw more power from your PSU, and you will need to ensure that you actually have pinouts for more fans on your motherboard. you can also consider replacing the fans already in the case with ones with a better performance rating.

[steve09]

Attached to the heatsink is a fan with a ducting that comes to the side of the case which sucks air over the heatsink from outside the case.

[z0th]

Attached to the heatsink is a fan with a ducting that comes to the side of the case which sucks air over the heatsink from outside the case.

ok. you could look at a replacement fan for the duct, or replacement HSF unit of some sort.

any info on the proper operating temps of your cpu?

[steve09]

tbh I think the temperatures are all within very safe limits, theres no O.C. and I'm not planning on doing any. Out the box it can't play Full HD video and I'm not gonna try making it able to play, it does have a PCI graphics expansion slot but I see no real point in expanding it as the CPU is slower than in my "Gaming" PC, and tht badly needs upgraded. I'm not worried about the temperatures as the PC doesn't really get used that often and when it does its just internet browsing and MS Office stuff.

[captainAngry]

My CPU gets to 212F when I play intense games. All my fans in my computer stopped working, every single one.

I now have a house fan sitting on my desk right next to my computer to keep the air moving around. It's annoying but my shit doesn't overheat anymore.

One of these days i'll have to finish building my new computer. I have almost everything I need *sigh*

[PhrozenFlame]

Haha cap, that's pretty fail. Then again, my laptop can't have any other program running while playing TF2...

[steve09]

Hey, you guys are lucky you can play TF2. The desktop I play TF2 on for some reason has decided to slow right down so much that it stopped playing HD vids and put TF2 down to 1 FPS. I would say this is a video card problem and during TF2 it got up to 90-100C even with 3 system fans and a fan directly on the card. All I need is £500 to get a whole load of new equipment.

[PhrozenFlame]

Hey, you guys are lucky you can play TF2. The desktop I play TF2 on for some reason has decided to slow right down so much that it stopped playing HD vids and put TF2 down to 1 FPS. I would say this is a video card problem and during TF2 it got up to 90-100C even with 3 system fans and a fan directly on the card. All I need is £500 to get a whole load of new equipment.

DAAAAAAAAMN Your comp sucks.

[steve09]

Yup it does. Tho I'm now able to play TF2 again for some reason, maybe there was a bug in the version I was playing idk but I cant even update my video card drivers cos they require IRQ to VGA to be enabled in the BIOS, which my BIOS doesnt have, otherwise I would have had better play in HL games. All I need is around £500 (about $700 I think) to get a new mobo, CPU, video card, power supply, everything else I have I can reuse (sound card, hard drives (one of which I'm going to change to a 500Gb for C:\ and keep my current C:\ hdd as a backup in case my upgrade to Vista Ultimate from XP Pro doesnt work)).