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Monitoring Your Laptop's Health?

Posted by Cliff on from the digital-vitals dept.

paulius_g asks: "I have an eMachines laptop running Windows and I would like to know how today's geeks monitor their laptops caracteristics (CPU temperature, fan speeds, SMART, etc.) There are software to monitor normal motherboards, but laptop motherboards are usually unsupported on these kinds of software. I am in desperate need in such a software as my laptop overheats a lot while the fan is running at a low speed. So, what do you use to monitor your laptop?"

18 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. duh by Bin_jammin · · Score: 3, Informative

    blow out the dust from the heat sink over the processor, and the one over the video card it it has one. dust makes for a great insulator, all the fan activity in the world won't help you out if you don't blow it out.

  2. My Monitoring Method by randomiam · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well, as a 12" PB user, I just monitor my left wrist for minor burns.

  3. Speedfan by Wooo · · Score: 2, Informative

    I use Speedfan

    Not sure how it will work on a laptop but give it a try

    --

    When life gives you lemons, you squeeze the lemon juice into your enemies eyes and steal his apples.
  4. GKrellm by brilinux · · Score: 2, Informative

    I do not normally boot my laptop into windows (I usually use Debian and NetBSD), but GkrellM is a nice tool: http://www.redbog.com/products/gkrellm.aspx. Like I said, though, I do not use it too much, so I do recall exactly how capable it is on Windows, but it ought to be useful. Good luck; my laptop has similar problems.

  5. Sensors by digitalchinky · · Score: 4, Informative

    gkrellm for windows. http://www.redbog.com/products/gkrellm.aspx It also monitors fan, hard drive, and other temps, though you have to get an external program similar to lm_sensors - the name escapes me at the moment though.. I'm not running windows right now to check.

  6. motherboard monitor by supersuckers · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ok, everyone knows on linux you use gkrellm, but on windows it's gotta be motherboard monitor http://mbm.livewiredev.com/

  7. How do you know it's overheating? by JacquesPinette84 · · Score: 2, Informative

    It may seem like your laptop is a little warm, but most laptops are designed to throtle the fan speed so that the cpu is cool enough and to conserve the battery at the same time. Most CPUs are designed to stand 70 - 80 degrees celcius temperatures and still be safe.

    I wouldn't worry about it.

  8. Re:Generally I use... by BrokenHalo · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Fair points. But my impression is that if the original poster is aware that his machine is overheating a lot, that sort of indicates to me that there is already something wrong (e.g. as one poster mentioned, dust on components) which he should get fixed before he loses the thing.

    It's better to fix the problem now than to wait until the thing fails, which Sod's law tells us will happen at the worst possible time.

  9. Po' Man's CPU Thermometer by XsynackX · · Score: 5, Funny

    Step 1) Take your laptop off your lap.
    If Step 1 cannot be completed because it is melted to your legs, the temperature is too high.

    --
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    I'm not a vegan because I love animals, I'm a vegan because I hate plants!
  10. SMART by DustMagnet · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There have been lots of good replies here, but so far no one has talked about SMART. SMART has warned me of serious hard disk problems before a crisis a number of times. I did a hard search and the only SMART monitoring program I could find for Windows has been spammed on USENET. I won't buy from spammers.

    --
    'SBEMAIL!' is better than a goat!!
    1. Re:SMART by confused+one · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Most manufacturers have a SMART monitor utility. Otherwise, look for smartmon tools.

  11. MobMeter by thomasdn · · Score: 3, Informative

    I use MobileMeter. It works perfectly for the three laptops I've owned and every one of my friends's laptops.

    --
    thomasdamgaard.dk.
  12. 2 words: by epsilon720 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Smoke detector.

    Yes, my laptop is fine now, but it was a rough couple of weeks.

  13. The question is not how, but why? by fm6 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Why do you even worry about your laptop overheating? Standard consumer and business systems are designed to be OK provided the environment doesn't exceed 85 degrees F. (At least that's what it says on the A+ exam.) The only people who need to worry about their systems overheating are people who customize -- case modders, overclockers, or people who've replaced fans and power supplies with quieter versions.

    I once considered doing that last thing myself, so I did a little Googling and found a couple of gadgets that let you stick a temperature prope through a case slot so you can check for overheating. You'll have to find them for yourself.

    In any case, suppose your laptop is overheating. What are you going to do about it?

  14. Re:You would admit to buying emachines and Windows by barzok · · Score: 2, Informative

    We purchased an eMachines Athlon64 laptop about 6 months ago with no internet access contract even offered...just went in, picked the machine out, paid for it and that was it.

  15. I've heard that... by bergeron76 · · Score: 2, Funny

    ... iBooks are a great solution to eMachines (and most other x86) issues.

    Flame Disclaimer: I don't have an iBook, yet.

    --
    Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
  16. maybe he lives in texas by dj_virto · · Score: 2, Interesting

    where it's above 85 half the year. :)

  17. eMachines laptops have a known overheating problem by Jemm · · Score: 3, Informative

    eMachines laptops have a known overheating problem which causes these machines to simply power down when they reach a certain temperature.

    Overheating is caused by two factors on these machines: First unsufficient air flow through the cpu heatsink and fan caused by poor engineering. Second, dust buildup behind the heat sink.

    The issue with dust buildup and system overheating is well known, see [http://www.dexplor.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=171 ].

    The solution to your problem involves periodicly clearing the heat sink of dust, and running a freeware cpu throttling program such as speedswitchxp. There is also a patch from Microsoft here [http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?f amilyid=2898f8dd-10f8-4107-9f7b-16c5a525de1e&displ aylang=en] for XP which provides some cpu scaling support for AMD Powernow processors.

    If you can get support from eMachines, send them your laptop and have them install a more powerfull fan for you.

    eMachines did not manufacture these laptops. They were designed and manufactured by a company in Taiwan called Arima and were branded eMachines in North America. In Europe they were sold under the Medion label, and in Australia under TPG Online.

    If I remember correctly, these machines do not reliably provide sensor data to any programs including MBM5. I don't think that has ever been fixed by eMachines.

    As a further annoyance, eMachines' stock bios is full of errors, the most significant of which is that the cpu tables are incorrect. You will notice this if you try to install ACPI under linux.