Core Temp plugin

[DDY]

Hi,

I currrently use the speedfan plugin to monitor my Q6600s CPU temp but these readings are about 15?C off, can anyone make me a plugin to display core temp readings on LCD Smartie? (Or if such plug in already exists direct me to it).

Many thanks,
David

[caesar]

don't know of such plugin, but you can set speedfan in the configure>advanced tab under INTEL CORE to show 15C more for your core temps! Don't forget to check the "remember it" box so it will retain settings.

[DDY]

Thanks for your reply,

I've already set a +15 offset but I prefer Core Temp, it's more 'compact', more to the point if you know what I mean.

To me, using speed fan is analogous to carrying having a Swiss Army Knife when only a bottle opener is needed. Both do the job equally well but one is heavier then the other. (i.e. speedfan uses more memory)

[mattcro]

The problem with writing a Smartie plugin to detect temperatures, fan speeds, voltages etc, is that there are many variations between motherboards and the plugin would either have to have a database of known systems and reliably detect which one you happen to have, or you would have to manually configure it correctly. It would be a big job to write such a Smartie plugin and keep it updated.

Speedfan (and the older Motherboard Monitor) have this database and detection built in, so it's much easier to simply write a Smartie plugin that gets the appropriate data from Speedfan/MBM, relying on Speedfan/MBM to do all the hard work.

One possibility is to integrate the Speedfan plugin into Smartie itself, in the same way that Smartie has built-in support for MBM.

[DDY]

Thanks for your reply,

Looks quite time consuming .

Anyone still willing to do it?

Only kidding, looks like my search ends here, oh well - life's too short to complain

[mattcro]

Yeah, Smartie+Speedfan is about all you can do for now...

Incidentally, how do you know that there's a 15 degree temp offset in the readings you're getting? Is that compared to some other temp monitor utility? And could it be that there is another sensor that gives similar temps to the true CPU temp. If so, you could be looking at the wrong sensor in Speedfan.

[DDY]

According to most people Core Temp has the most reliable readings.



As you could see; with a 15+ offset, SpeedFan matches the temperature values of Core Temp.

[caesar]

According to most people Core Temp has the most reliable readings.

I do not agree with you on this one!

For my water system and waterblock I know (and tested) that my CPU is max 1-4C (1C for Conroe, 4C for Prescott) higher than my water temps when idle and 11-14C (11C for Conroe, 14C for Prescott) higher when under full load. This was tested with many CPU's, including a special heat source assembly. So for me Speedfan reads fine (15C less than coretemp).

[mattcro]

I didn't realise that the Core Temp you are talking about is a CPU temp utility (still making do with an elderly AthlonXP here...)

How do the Speedfan and Core Temp readings compare with the BIOS readings? I would expect the BIOS readings to be correct (you never know, though). It sounds like there is some controversy over the validity of the Core Temp readings for various processors...

[DDY]

It's difficult to get load temps from the BIOS so I never do it that way.

Core Temp gets it's data direct from the internal CPU sensor which is on die or very close to it. The data Core Temp reports is identical to the data reported by Intel's own Thermal Analysis Tool. Because of this (and other sources of information) I believe Core Temp to be the best at temperature reporting for the Core 2 series of CPUs.

Here is some more info from the Core Temp website: http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/howitworks.html

[Havok]

I would like to second the request for a Core Temp plugin. Core Temp is a great little utility that displays the temp for each individual core. It would be nice to see accurate core temps scrolling by on the lcd!

Here is a link to the free utility:

http://www.thecoolest.zerobrains.com/CoreTemp/

[mattcro]

It sounds like external program/plugin support is being added in CoreTemp, so there is probably no way to make a Smartie plugin until CoreTemp gets this feature added.

In the meantime, you can use the $LogFile Smartie command to extract the last line from the CoreTemp log. You might need some more Smartie processing to extract the temp value from the log file lines. I don't use CoreTemp so can't give a specific solution, but you can do some experimenting and see if it'll work.

[Havok]

Thanks, I'll give that a try!

edit: well, that was quick and easy but Core Temp crashes while it's log is being read. I'll play with it and see if that stops.

Again, thanks for the suggestion.