Checking CPU temperature

[Aotrs Commander]

What would be a safe program to use to check/monitor the CPU temp on win 10?

I have over the last couple of days, had abrupt power-offs. The problem appears to be intermittent; yesterday, after I unplugged and replugged the power cable, it booted up normally, displayed nothing in the Event Viewer (being at the end of my rope at the moment, I panic-called my techie mate who told me to check) and played several more hours of BATTLETECH without issue. It then did the same thing this morning when Dad was using it for email/Waterfox. We took it into a local shop, as it would not power-on and it worked for him straight away. He told us to log the time between crashes (so he would know how long to test it for). It seems possible it is either the motherboard or the PSU. (Both my techie mate and the gentleman seemed to think PSU failures tend to be more binary, rather than intermittent, though, which would suggest motherboard. (The board was brand new Jan 2018, those of you with long memories might recall this very board helped me select it.)

However, I also changed the power lead itself from one from Nanny's (we brought her computer back with us as an emergancy back-up (she died last week, which is a major contributing factor to the aforementioned rope-ending)), as while I tried a different plug socket this morning, the gentleman in the shop did not use my power lead, so that might be an outside possibility.

I also gave the interior a solid clean with compressed air as best I could, and cleaning out the CPU fan with cottonbuds and compressed air. There as a modest amount of gunk in there, so it MIGHT just be CPU overheat, so I am thinking it might be worth finding a low-impact app I can have running in the background to see what it's doing. (Looking in the bios is not helpful, since it needs to be in full operational capacity).

[Keltest]

Ive had success with Coretemp in the past when my laptop had that issue. Just be aware that any and every program like this is going to try to sell you on crapware, so be very careful what you download and agree to.


Having said that, if youve cleaned out the fans already and they work normally, and that didnt fix the issue, pretty much the only other likekly cause of sudden overheating where it wasnt before would be degraded thermal paste (a toothpaste like substance that lives on the CPU and helps transfer the heat away into your heat sink of choice). If you pull it apart and it looks dry and brittle, or otherwise like its been out in the desert for 8 years, you need to put some new paste on.

[Aotrs Commander]

Ive had success with Coretemp in the past when my laptop had that issue. Just be aware that any and every program like this is going to try to sell you on crapware, so be very careful what you download and agree to.


Having said that, if youve cleaned out the fans already and they work normally, and that didnt fix the issue, pretty much the only other likekly cause of sudden overheating where it wasnt before would be degraded thermal paste (a toothpaste like substance that lives on the CPU and helps transfer the heat away into your heat sink of choice). If you pull it apart and it looks dry and brittle, or otherwise like its been out in the desert for 8 years, you need to put some new paste on.

Unfortunately my computer physical hardware skills are limited to "can occasionally open case and attempt to clean it out without completely fracking system." Doing stuff like that is beyond my abilities. (Under normal circumctances, I would have grovelled to my mate to come and have a proper look (he's the one that assembled it and is an IT chap by profession and thus knows what he's doing while I really don't.))

System has not crashed yet, but that's the problem with the intermittent failures; like I said, it ran BT for some hours yesterday and crashed out worse this morning (making it more than a simple one-off inexplicable failure) after an hour of basically doing nothing.

[Keltest]

Unfortunately my computer physical hardware skills are limited to "can occasionally open case and attempt to clean it out without completely fracking system." Doing stuff like that is beyond my abilities. (Under normal circumctances, I would have grovelled to my mate to come and have a proper look (he's the one that assembled it and is an IT chap by profession and thus knows what he's doing while I really don't.))

System has not crashed yet, but that's the problem with the intermittent failures; like I said, it ran BT for some hours yesterday and crashed out worse this morning (making it more than a simple one-off inexplicable failure) after an hour of basically doing nothing.

This is a desktop computer right? not a laptop? You didnt actually say in the first post, and that might matter. Laptops, especially gaming laptops, run hot even when everything is working fine just because of the compact size. If its a desktop tower, where you physically locate it might matter as well. If you have it stuffed in a corner with poor airflow, youre also going to see it running hotter than it might otherwise do. Make sure the fans have access to more air than just what is being run through it.

[Aotrs Commander]

This is a desktop computer right? not a laptop? You didnt actually say in the first post, and that might matter. Laptops, especially gaming laptops, run hot even when everything is working fine just because of the compact size.

Yes, sorry, it's a desktop. Specifcally a Razon 5 processor on an Asus Prime B350 Plus motherboard (which I only remember off the cuff because I checked my Amazon order this morning to ascertain I was correct in it being only just over two years old).

(Which Nanny funded. Well, that's even more depressing, isn't it?)

[Keltest]

Right. Anyway, like i said, Coretemp helped me when my laptop had that issue. The poor thing is old enough it struggles now for other reasons, but it did what i needed to pretty clearly and cleanly. I never noticed any issues with the program itself.

[Aotrs Commander]

CoreTemp seems to currently want to install some sort of didgy-sounding game in the .exe, so I have avoided it for the moment. I did locate, though, while looking Ryzen Master, which is at least an official package. According to that, CPU temp is about 38-48ºC doing nothing, which from looking around specifically on Ryzen 5 1600 (I tried CPU-Z, which didn't tell me temperatues, at least told me what I was looking at) is well under point of concern.

Guess only thing for it is to fire up BATTLETECH at this point and see what happens. (And save more paranoidly often than I normally do, which is pretty often...)

[factotum]

Not to disappoint you, but a total shutdown is very unlikely to be CPU overheating. Modern machines will automatically throttle their clock speed down if the CPU starts getting too hot, so you would expect the performance of whatever application or game you're running to suffer somewhat, but not black screen of death. It's worth doing the experiment, and CoreTemp is capable of showing the CPU usage and temperature in real time onscreen as you play so you should be able to immediately spot any problems, but don't get your hopes up.

[monomer]

What would be a safe program to use to check/monitor the CPU temp on win 10?
(Both my techie mate and the gentleman seemed to think PSU failures tend to be more binary, rather than intermittent, though, which would suggest motherboard. (The board was brand new Jan 2018, those of you with long memories might recall this very board helped me select it.)

While a total PSU failure would be pretty binary, an overloaded PSU, or one with a capacitor flaking out can result in all kinds of weird time-dependent errors.

AMD Ryzen Master seems like a good choice for checking your temperatures since it comes AMD themselves, and it looks like it can chart temp and clockspeed over time. If it can output a CPU voltage histogram that would be pretty helpful to see if anything weird is going on with your power.

Additionally, your motherboard should have come with its own monitoring software. I would check out their website to see what they have, since you may have an issue on a voltage rail that isn't supplying your CPU, such as to your memory or GPU. If they don't have anything that works for you, one of my perennial favourite programs is SiSoft Sandra which can monitor pretty much anything on your computer. It looks like the menu has gotten a little complicated, but going to Tools >> Monitor Environment, then clicking just Next for all the choices brings you to a real-time report for every temperature, fan speed, and voltage on our system (note that you might get some erroneous results if your mainboard doesn't have a particular sensor installed, like it is saying my memory controller temperature is a rock-steady 96 degrees C).

[Aotrs Commander]

Ryzen Master seems to be saying the temp is pretty stable at around 60ºC with BT running.

I did see someone on te wbe who'd ha d aproblem a bit like mine using the same procesot whose otherboard switched it off it the temperature hit 70ºC, so it's maybe possible? But if nothign else, what it isn't narrows down what it is.

Will look into the motherboard monitoring software, maybe give that a stab tomorrow after bascially seeing what happens over today (seeing if we have a third occurnce; it might be, with my luck, just as daft as the actual power cable (frack knows how old that power lead is). I'd be hopefully, but reality is never nice and especially not at the moment, so...)

[Keltest]

Ryzen Master seems to be saying the temp is pretty stable at around 60ºC with BT running.

I did see someone on te wbe who'd ha d aproblem a bit like mine using the same procesot whose otherboard switched it off it the temperature hit 70ºC, so it's maybe possible? But if nothign else, what it isn't narrows down what it is.

Will look into the motherboard monitoring software, maybe give that a stab tomorrow after bascially seeing what happens over today (seeing if we have a third occurnce; it might be, with my luck, just as daft as the actual power cable (frack knows how old that power lead is). I'd be hopefully, but reality is never nice and especially not at the moment, so...)

Have you had more shutdowns since you got it all cleaned out then?

[Aotrs Commander]

Have you had more shutdowns since you got it all cleaned out then?

Not yet, but as I say, it ran for hours yesterday after the first one, so... *shrug* I'd like to hope is was something as stupid as the power lead or gunk in the heat sink, but with the way my luck has been running in the last couple of weeks, I absolutely dare not.

[Lord Torath]

Not to disappoint you, but a total shutdown is very unlikely to be CPU overheating. Modern machines will automatically throttle their clock speed down if the CPU starts getting too hot, so you would expect the performance of whatever application or game you're running to suffer somewhat, but not black screen of death. It's worth doing the experiment, and CoreTemp is capable of showing the CPU usage and temperature in real time onscreen as you play so you should be able to immediately spot any problems, but don't get your hopes up.

I had a Desktop I bought about 5 years ago that did just that. The heat-gel-goop stuff connecting the chip to the heat sinks broke down, with the result that the computer would shut down without warning. At least, that's what the computer-repair-shop told me.

[Keltest]

I had a Desktop I bought about 5 years ago that did just that. The heat-gel-goop stuff connecting the chip to the heat sinks broke down, with the result that the computer would shut down without warning. At least, that's what the computer-repair-shop told me.

Ditto. The software to throttle the CPU might work if its legitimately overheating itself after prolonged use when everything else is fine, but if theres failure in the heat dispersion somewhere else (fans are broken, degraded thermal paste, extreme ambient temperature, etc...), that may not be enough to stop the overheating.

[Fat Rooster]

Don't rule out peripherals. I had a keyboard that rapid stopped my PC dead when I pressed INSERT.

[Aotrs Commander]

Don't rule out peripherals. I had a keyboard that rapid stopped my PC dead when I pressed INSERT.

I probably ought to remember to disconnect the defunct SD card reader, actually, now that you mention it, when next the idiot gets shut down (at the moment, the plan as per the gentleman was that we should leave it on overnight), since I don't think I did when it died a few weeks ago (because of course it did); I fortunately have a USB-stick back-up, at least for that. (I did manage it disconnect it the LAST time I had one of the particualr drives ago, which was only about eight months ot something ago).

[gomipile]

You should probably test your system's RAM. If you're running Windows, run the Windows Memory Diagnostic utility that comes with it.

[snowblizz]

I would bet money on it being the PSU.


2 summers ago I had my computer displayed all the signs of overheating and no matter how much I monitored temp and voltages I could never pin it down, as ofc logs fail before critical moment.
Basically, it can't show a sudden loss of power as that in itself causes the system to go down.

I could play for hours in some lighter games (which what I was mostly doing as it was *hot* outside) but then it'd crap out on anything heavy quite quickly. IIRC even managed to run stresstest for a while with no appreciable effect until it suddenly cut off power.

Eventually I diagnosed it by borrowing a PSU unit from a friend and after 30 minutes playing ARK Survival Evolved I could conclude it was defo PSU.

PSU failure is absolutely not binary.

Odds are that on the installation CD for your motherboard there are monitoring software included. But like I say, based on my experience I'm willing to bet on PSU softfailure.

[Aotrs Commander]

Okay, so it ran all yesterday with no problems. Left it on overnight, as the gentlemen had said - came down this morning (at just before haf-past ten) and it was off.

Would not restart until I'd pulled the plug out from the surge suppressor.

Checking emial and event viewer, it appears to have gone down sometimes after 6:49am. (Perhaps of note, MS started inhstalling an update (and I had to tell MS to frack off, if I want Edge, I have used it,dont' fricking slap it on the toolbar and try and make it the default browser) at that time.)

Stupid question, could it be the surge supressor? The plug is in the same socket. (When it next keels over, I'll change plug socket.)



Edit: Remebered to turn off and disconnect the defunct SD card readee while installing SiSoft Sandra as monomer suggested (couldn't see an obvious system monitor on Asus).

As I don't really know what's good and bad, screencap here:

Spoiler

Show

Everything else seems to be fairly lecvel excep that as I can see. Is that normal, I honestly don't know.

(Ah, dammit, forgot to switch the plug then...)

[Keltest]

Question: When you tried to turn it on before switching it out of the power strip, did you notice if it was giving off any beeps? Frequently, when a computer cant activate for whatever reason but still has power, it will give off what is known as a "beep code", which explains what it isnt able to do that it needs to in order to start up. If it was giving one of those, its probably a hardware failure, most likely a power supply failure of some kind. If it didnt, it probably is still a power supply failure, but you might be on to something with the surge suppressor too.

[Aotrs Commander]

Question: When you tried to turn it on before switching it out of the power strip, did you notice if it was giving off any beeps?

No, it was completely dead.

Asus got back to me and said basically to remove the CMOS battery when unplugged and hit the power button, so while that's not something I'm confident I can do myself, it is something I can suggest to the tech gentleman.

It does seem odd that it seems to need to be unplugged; though yesterday, it seemed to need longer before it would start up, since trying a different plug socket (on the nearby extension cable) it power it up again.

[Fat Rooster]

No, it was completely dead.

Asus got back to me and said basically to remove the CMOS battery when unplugged and hit the power button, so while that's not something I'm confident I can do myself, it is something I can suggest to the tech gentleman.

It does seem odd that it seems to need to be unplugged; though yesterday, it seemed to need longer before it would start up, since trying a different plug socket (on the nearby extension cable) it power it up again.

It is super easy; easier than changing a watch battery easy. It is the thing that looks like a watch battery (because it is a watch battery), and is usually in a fairly simple fixture. It will be a case of flick a catch and it will lift out. No tools required (though a thin bit of plastic can make it easier if your nails are not up to it).

[factotum]

Presumably they also said to *refit* the battery at some point, though? Without that your system's real time clock won't run and your BIOS will forget any settings you've changed.

[snowblizz]

First I'd remove as many in-betweens between wall poweroutlet and computer. You don't want extra failure points in extra cables or other stuff.

Also I'd download not just the monitoring software, which I suspect unless you monitor it 24/7 might not help (because it won't write to the log at the point of failure), but also get a stresstesting software. That will let you run memory tests, but also put the system through it's paces as letting computer sit on baseline or almost no load might not bring out the failure. It also gives a you a controlled environment for the load you are applying so you know you are testing the same time if changing stuff up.

Naturally as I write this am not at the computer where I used all those programs so can't quite remember the names.

[Aotrs Commander]

Hasn't crashed out (touch wood) for over 24 hours, don't think there's any further point running SiSoft, haven't seen any obvious changes in reported stuff.

(Didn't do anything with it other than do Waterfox and Outlook yesterday, thought that doesn't mean anything, since it crashed while doing nothing at all sometime yesterday morning...)

Until there is another crash, it remains possible the SD Card reader could have been the factor, since it's now been disconnected.

[GrayDeath]

As someonw working in the IT branche, let me tell you, finding the flaw is far far more difficult at times than it has any right to be.

Assuming it isnt your defunct reader, and it happens again, do the following:

Unplug EVERYTHING but your main SSD/Hard drive, your Graphics card and the required calbes to deliver power to Mainboard, CPU and Graphics card.

See if everything works.

Then replug your peripherals one at a time (with restarts in between of course) until you experience a problem.

Usually this means thats it.

(as an example: I set up my ne PC half a yearish ago, it was the 7th i built privately, and after I got everything in, it would randomly not do ANYTHING when pressing the power button, found out after doing the above that the cuplrit was, of all things, an SATA Energy Delivery Cable, whichw as brand new....).


Good Luck.

Also, CPU-Z shows you all the temps, you just have to go to the "Sensors" rider. Can even show min/max temp since you started it, if you want to try letting it run for a while and see what might be the problem.

[Aotrs Commander]

As someonw working in the IT branche, let me tell you, finding the flaw is far far more difficult at times than it has any right to be.

Assuming it isnt your defunct reader, and it happens again, do the following:

Unplug EVERYTHING but your main SSD/Hard drive, your Graphics card and the required calbes to deliver power to Mainboard, CPU and Graphics card.

See if everything works.

Then replug your peripherals one at a time (with restarts in between of course) until you experience a problem.

Usually this means thats it.

(as an example: I set up my ne PC half a yearish ago, it was the 7th i built privately, and after I got everything in, it would randomly not do ANYTHING when pressing the power button, found out after doing the above that the cuplrit was, of all things, an SATA Energy Delivery Cable, whichw as brand new....).


Good Luck.

Also, CPU-Z shows you all the temps, you just have to go to the "Sensors" rider. Can even show min/max temp since you started it, if you want to try letting it run for a while and see what might be the problem.

I have zero ability (or willingness) to attempt hardware stuff, I'm afraid. That stuff has to be handled by urks (or mates, outside of Virus Apocalypse).



That said, at the moment, the last shut-down was 11am on Thursday, where I changed the plug socket on the surge suppressor and the PC has been on continuously since then (something that it wouldn't be even under normtal circumstances).

This leads me to strongly suspect the surge supressor (and that particular socket of the surge supressor); replacement has been ordered. At the point tomorrow morning, if there has been no shut-downs (touch wood) when it's been running continuously for a week without a shutdown, I will start turning it off again tomorrow night,