Can I trust the temps in my mobo's temp- and voltage utility?

[bovinda]

I'm going to be OC'ing soon, but first I want to check that I'm stable at stock voltage/settings.

1. Can I trust Abit's uGuru to read my CPU's temps correctly? I know Graysky says not to trust your mobo's utility, but I feel like I've heard good things about uGuru.

2. It also gives readings for system and "PWM" temperatures. Are there any other temperatures that I should be reading? What are goal temps for these three elements (CPU, system, what I presume is PSU), both at stock and OC'd?

Thanks guys!

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: bovinda
Can I trust Abit's uGuru to read my CPU's temps correctly?

Yes, for everything except your CPU. For that, you need to download CoreTemp 0.95.4.

It also gives readings for system and "PWM" temperatures. Are there any other temperatures that I should be reading? What are goal temps for these three elements (CPU, system, what I presume is PSU), both at stock and OC'd?

PWM doesn't stand for PSU, it stands for pulse-width modulation. It's what motherboards use to regulate voltage.

 

[bovinda]

Gotcha...is uGuru not known to read CPU temps well? I'll download CoreTemp and give it a try, thanks for the link. Thanks for the info about PWM as well.

 

[bovinda]

Oops...Core Temp won't load up (says it can't load the driver?). I'm using Vista 64 Home Premium...maybe it's not compatible? Is there an alternative?

 

[BlueWeasel]

Originally posted by: bovinda
Oops...Core Temp won't load up (says it can't load the driver?). I'm using Vista 64 Home Premium...maybe it's not compatible? Is there an alternative?

Some instructions in the Readme.txt might work for you:

IMPORTANT:
In Vista you may have to go to Core Temp.exe properties and select the "Run this program as an Administrator" option under the "Compatibility" tab for Core Temp to work properly.

 

[bovinda]

Good thought, I hadn't noticed that. It still wouldn't open even after I enabled "Run as administrator" just now, kept giving a "Driver has failed to load" error message every 3 seconds or so. Does anyone have any other ideas? Maybe it's not compatible with Vista 64 specifically?

 

[bovinda]

Bump! Still need a utility to help me get CPU temps accurately. I don't trust 23 deg under load.

 

[myocardia]

You'll have to use the newest SpeedFan, then add 15C to the cores' temps.

 

[bovinda]

OK, I figured out how to use Core Temp in Vista 64. You have to hit F8 at start-up, select "Disable Driver Enforcement" or something like that, and then you can run it once Vista starts up (with selecting "Run as Administrator").

Now that I've got it going...my idle temps were around 30 dec, and all cores are running at 46-48 dec under load. Does that sound about right for pre-OC'd temps?

EDIT: it's just weird that uGuru is so off for the CPU temps! Any idea why that is? Anyway, thanks for getting me Core Temp, Myocardia.

 

[myocardia]

You're welcome. uGuru, and all of the other temp monitoring apps, are off because they are calibrated to the older cores. Intel uses a "degrees before throttling" way to measure the temps in the C2D's/C2Q's, and the older cores throttled 15C sooner.