Monitoring the temperature of PC components

Today we will look at the PC temperature. Having a lower PC temperature will result in a longer life of your computer so it's essential to keep an eye on it. First, we will need a software to check the temperature.



SpeedFan is a freeware software that you can use to check your PC temperature. There are 3 important devices that you need to check - the processor, the video card and the hard disk drive, but before you continue, let's do a little change in the settings. SpeedFan will show everything you need to know as soon as you launch it, but if you see a thing called AUX in the temperatures window, you need to remove it.

AUX is just an unassigned spare input that shows values up to 127 and it has nothing to do with your PC temperature so let's remove it so we don't get confused. Simply press Configure and click in the checkbox of AUX to remove it. Now we can continue.

Processor - the temperature for your processor will be shown as the CPU temperature. SpeedFan does a good job warning you if the temperature is going to be too high, but for a list of max temperatures for processors click here

Video card - your video card temperature is shown as GPU. Speedfan will also warn you here if the temperature goes too high. If the temperature raises too high, the video cards performance will drop to reduce the temperature. The threshold for that is pretty high, somewhere around 110-120C° but keep in mind that a hot video card can make the air in the case too hot and overheat other components.

Hard disk drive - the temperature for your disk drive is shown under HDD. Since HDD's usually don't come with cooling fans, you might be in some trouble if it goes too high, but don't worry, click here to find out what you can do to reduce the temperature of your PC.