Where does software get System/CPU temperatures?

[Phisherman]

I wanted to know how software takes CPU and system temperatures. Is
the software specific to a particular CPU or motherboard brand? If
not, can anyone tell me about a good utility that monitors CPU/System
temperatures?

 

[J. Conners]

I wanted to know how software takes CPU and system temperatures. Is
the software specific to a particular CPU or motherboard brand? If
not, can anyone tell me about a good utility that monitors CPU/System
temperatures?

It's sensor specific.

--
__________________________________________
Jack Conners

ubuntu 6.10
'I am because we are'

 

[JAD]

I was always under the impression that most software is just projecting the
bios hardware monitor totals.
MBM5 (Mother board monitor v5) was a good stick for this but I am not sure
if it works with the latest and greatest hardware.

 

[Rod Speed]

I wanted to know how software takes CPU and system temperatures.

It interrogates the part of the chipset that measures those.

Is the software specific to a particular CPU
Nope.

or motherboard brand?
Nope.

If not, can anyone tell me about a good
utility that monitors CPU/System temperatures?

Really depends on exactly what you want to do, just watch those
temps in the short term when you are wondering whether the
heatsink is adequate and the case fans are adequate, or whether
you want to have those temps displayed in the systray over time
with alarms etc if they go outside reasonable values etc.

Everest is pretty decent and very easy to use for the short term.

For the longer term MBM is much more powerful,
but isnt trivial to setup on some motherboards.

Speedfan is somewhere in between, very easy to
use but not as powerful as MBM with alarms etc.