Q: How does an Asus motherboard monitor CPU temps?

janas19

Platinum Member
Nov 10, 2011
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I have an Asus P8H61-M motherboard and a G440 Celeron processor. In the EFI BIOS Utility I see a temp sensor that displays the temperature of the CPU. However I'm not sure how it does this? The manual says nothing about a temp sensor nor do I see one when looking at the circuits on the board. The only thing on the CPU's heatsink is a stock heatsink, so would the temp probe be through one of the CPU's pins?
 

Idontcare

Elite Member
Oct 10, 1999
21,110
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Q: How does an Asus motherboard monitor CPU temps?

A: Poorly. Very, very poorly.

Seriously though, near as I can tell my Asus mobo has a thermal probe in the socket. Its not measure CPU temp, nor is it measuring TCase, but more of a measure of how hot the socket itself is getting.
 

janas19

Platinum Member
Nov 10, 2011
2,313
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A: Poorly. Very, very poorly.

Seriously though, near as I can tell my Asus mobo has a thermal probe in the socket. Its not measure CPU temp, nor is it measuring TCase, but more of a measure of how hot the socket itself is getting.

Ok. So there is a thermal probe in the socket? Well that answers HOW they measure temps, but I don't know how effective it is...
 

Idontcare

Elite Member
Oct 10, 1999
21,110
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Ok. So there is a thermal probe in the socket? Well that answers HOW they measure temps, but I don't know how effective it is...

Effective? Depends on what you want it to reflect.

It is very effective in measuring socket temperature. Not effective at all in measuring CPU temperature.
 

ViRGE

Elite Member, Moderator Emeritus
Oct 9, 1999
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Why would the BIOS utility be returning the socket sensor? Shouldn't it be returning the temperature from the CPU itself?
 

Idontcare

Elite Member
Oct 10, 1999
21,110
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91
Why would the BIOS utility be returning the socket sensor? Shouldn't it be returning the temperature from the CPU itself?

For my MIVE-Z, the BIOS utility that operates within Win7 reports the socket temp but labels it the CPU temp. I have no idea why.

I confirmed this when I was curing my Indigo Extreme, a process which requires you to run a CPU stress tester like LinX while disconnecting your fan on the HSF so the CPU heats up to 98C and throttles.

Watching temps with RealTemp while watching my CPU clocks with CPUz, and simultaneously monitoring the reported CPU temp with my Asus BIOS utility showed that RealTemp correctly identified the CPU temp (CPU started throttling right when RealTemp said it was at 98C) but the ASUS bios utility was reporting the CPU temp was a mild 50C.

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice; however, in practice there is.
 

Grooveriding

Diamond Member
Dec 25, 2008
9,147
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Something is not right with Asus mobo reporting. Core temp, real temp and Aida all report the same temps for all cores while my mobo reports a single temp only for my cpu which is about 7 degrees cooler usually.

I am not sure where the probe would be on the mobo though?

rampageiv-8-1280x1024.jpg
 

tulx

Senior member
Jul 12, 2011
257
2
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A: Poorly. Very, very poorly.

Seriously though, near as I can tell my Asus mobo has a thermal probe in the socket. Its not measure CPU temp, nor is it measuring TCase, but more of a measure of how hot the socket itself is getting.

I have an Asus Sabertooth and have found that that the Asus software (AI Suite II - a royal pain to install) is pretty much the only one that measures the CPU temp correctly. All other programs I tested show about 10 degrees C less. I suspect this might be related to the fact that the 960T I use is unlocked to X6 - I've heard that unlocking it messes up the temperature readings. The idle temperature is about 30 and it climbs to ~40-41 under Prime95 when OC'd to 3,8 GHz (cooled by a NH-D14).
I can't agreee in saying that Asus motherboards were bad in mesuring the CPU temperature.