Cheap temperature monitor for your PC (simple hack required)

[Rockhammer]

This one is a little involved, so if you're not comfortable wielding a soldering iron, you better leave it alone. If you are, then for $2.75 you can get a nice little thermal monitoring kit on close-out from:

computernerd.com

It was made to monitor the temperature of a Socket 7 CPU, but can be modded to monitor almost anything with this hack (by yours truely):

bunkerMENTALITY

It plugs into your joystick port (with a pass-through) and then displays the temp of what ever you stick the thermistor to on the screen. You can add a second thermistor and monitor two things in your box (hard drive, videocard, northbridge, cpu heatsink, whatever). The hack is quick and easy and the thing actually works very well.

 

[fallenoncrack]

*bump*

 

[loup garou]

That's a nice guide you wrote there. Very easy to follow. If I needed temp monitoring, I'd definitely do this.

EDIT: Also, have you posted this in Cases & Cooling? Lots of people might be interested there.

 

[2336]

Bump for a neat idea/setup!

 

[shiznut123]

whoa, cool. im gonna try it for my k6-2 system since it doesnt have any probes

 

[hevnsnt]

thanks got 2 of them..

 

[Rockhammer]

Glad you liked it guys...thanks for all the kind words! I thought about posting it in case and cooling too, but I didn't want to cross post and hack off the mods. Cheers!

 

[TBP]

Can I use it to monitor the water temperature in my aquarium? The fish are keeping dying.

 

[Rockhammer]

Monitor your fish? Seriously? No reason why not, actually that's a kinda cool idea. You'll have to run a wire long enough to reach from your PC to your aquarium, but it should work fine. You'll probably want to give the thermistor and wires a good coat of silicone sealant, or something similar, to waterproof them.

You could also run a thermistor wire outside the house and have your own version of weather bug, lol. One thing I didn't mention in the guide is that the software places a little icon in you system tray. When you mouse over the icon, it displays the temperature readings on both thermistors. Kinda cool.

 

[Rapier]

Pretty Slick. Especially good for you crazy guys with the watercooled PC's. Free bump for ya.

 

[Rockhammer]

Heh, heh, yeah, if you watercool your PC, you are never short of things you'd like to monitor. What has surprised me is how stinking hot that video card gets. I may have to water cool it next!

 

[Rockhammer]

^to the top^

I checked with computer nerd and they still have about 50 of these little babies, in case you missed it the first time.

 

[Herbman]

Nice read Good Job

 

[TheOverlord]

very cool hack, nicely written guide too

 

[Rockhammer]

Thanks guys!