Support for Temp/Volt monitoring

[Gandalf2041]

I'd like to start monitoring the CPU temp on my machine. I'm assuming that the mobo needs to support this but, I'm a little fuzzy. I see that I'll need to d/l lm_sensors (I think that's it) but how do I determine if my HW supports this functionality? Finally, How do I know what an acceptable CPU temp is for my machine?

[nowonmai]

if it does support this, there's a strong chance that it'll be the bios somewhere... usually you get into the bios setup program by holding F1, F2 or DEL (depending on the manufacturer) during the initial stages of boot (around the POST)
if the hardware is supported, you should find a menu option that'll allow you to see the cpu temp, fan speed etc.

[Gandalf2041]

I know the options aren't currently there but, then again, I haven't looked for an upgrade in quite a while. Do you know of any mobo tools (win or linux) that will probe the board and let me know?

[andysimmons]

What motherboard do you have?

[nowonmai]

'fraid I don't know any linux tools that'll do it for you, but SiSoft's Sandra is about as good a h/w diagnostic tool as you'll find... shame you need win to run it ;)

[Gandalf2041]

Not sure of the exact mobo. I'm at work now and can't look up the bios sig until I get home tonight. Dell's site only says that it's an Intel 850 Chipset w/64 bit data bus (PCI/AGP) and RDRAM.

Once I've got the sig, I can look it up on motherboards.org. In fact, they may have the information on that site now that I think of it.

[Hayl]

my system runs at 26 C and my CPU (P4 1.8GHz) runs at about 30 -35 C depending on the weather.

i asked on a foum a long time ago and was told those were good temps.

i think some overclockers have temps up in the 40s and 50s.

yes - you need lm_sensors.

you can use GKrellM to monitor the temps. that is what i use - i think most people use it. you don't even need a plugin for GKrellm2 - it comes with it.

so - as long as you get lm_sensors to work, you should be fine.

oh and in your kernel - and you need to have:

Character Devices --> I2C Support:
- I2C Support
- I2C Device Interface
- I2C /proc interface

i have them all as modules

lm_sensors will give you the other drivers you need.

then, you run sensors-detect - it is a script that will help you figure out what modules you need loaded. the modules will need to be loaded on boot in some script. Gentoo (luckily for me) provides a nice script for this that works automagically. :)