Which one shoould I trust its readings?

videopho

Diamond Member
Apr 8, 2005
4,185
29
91
In my rig #2 (see sig#2)
My mobo bios reads 39c and PCwizard read 29c (which is almost too good to be true).

Also when I clicked on the Nvidia graphic card details, Vista shuts down PCwizard (System Analyzer).

Has anyone experienced this sort of readings?

It looks like PCwizard needs to clean up its act for Vista 64, IMO.
 

nullpointerus

Golden Member
Apr 17, 2003
1,326
0
0
Yeah, huge differences in temperature readings are quite common.

The thermal sensors used in computer equipment vary based on location (i.e. in the core, on the mobo under the chip, in the heatsink, etc.), brand and model, and of course calibration. The latter has been known to be greatly affected by BIOS updates, causing huge apparent temperature drops. Moreover, different software programs read different kinds of sensors and then provide no way of knowing what kind of sensor they are reading, so you really have no way of knowing for certain what the actual temperature is just by running a program like PCwizard.

Apparently, the only way to get a very accurate reading is to buy and use an infared thermal sensor.

Personally, I would trust your BIOS reading. If in doubt, put your hand in back of the computer near its exhaust fan and feel the air. If the air is cool or somewhat warm (relative to the room's current ambient temperature), you are probably very good. If the air feels hot, you probably have a real case airflow problem. But this is only an informal test.