Temperature, Fan speed and Voltage |

Temperature Monitoring It is possible to monitor, graph and log the temperature of some hardware components while running BurnInTest tests. Temperature values are displayed and graphed on the Temperature tab and included in BurnInTest reports. Temperature values will also be stored in the log files at periodic intervals if a periodic logging interval is specified. Temperature values can also be logged to a CSV (Comma Separated Variable) file, a statistics report. When using the 3rd party HMonitor software, Fan speed and Voltage values can also be displayed and logged during testing. Automatically select temperature sources When this option is selected BurnInTest will be selected as teh temperature source and up to 6 temperature sources will be automatically at the start of each test run. This allows for portability of configuration files across systems with different temperature sources, as well as reduced configuration time. BurnInTest will determine the number of CPU, Hard disk and GPU temperature sources supported (i.e. sources per temperature type) at the start of a test run. BurnInTest will attempt to select at least one temperature source from each type of temperature source (e.g. at least 1 CPU, 1 HDD and 1 GPU) supported. BurnInTest will also attempt to use as many temperature sources as possible (up to 6), e.g. 2 x CPU, 3 x HDD, 1 x GPU. Temperature thresholds are set to the value of 90C and are not based on the hardware type. Monitoring application BurnInTest can monitor CPU, HDD and GPU temperatures for certain systems, or you can use a 3rd party Temperature Monitoring Application with BurnInTest. To select the application that monitors temperature, select one of the following options:
• | No Monitoring
• | BurnInTest
• | Intel Active Monitor and Intel Desktop Utilities (Hardware Monitor)
• | Hmonitor or
• | SpeedFan
Temperature scale The temperature scale of either Celsius or Fahrenheit should be selected. Temperature sources / Event thresholds Up to 6 temperature sources may be selected for monitoring, depending on the Monitoring application selected. Up to 200 temperature sources can be detected by BurnInTest, depending on the system. All detected temperature sources will be logged to a file when a periodic logging interval is specified. It is possible to raise a temperature event (error), "Temperature threshold exceeded", on a user defined temperature threshold being exceeded. For each temperature source a maximum temperature value can be specified. If the temperature exceeds this value, a temperature event will be displayed and logged. Stop testing on temperature threshold exceeded Select this option to automatically stop testing on the temperature threshold being exceeded event. This could prevent system shutdown or in extreme cases prevent hardware damage from over temperature (e.g. due to a CPU fan failure). Sample every x seconds The frequency that the temperature sources are checked for the temperature values can be configured by specifying the frequency in seconds. Auto Thresholds These fields allow you to enter a default maximum temperature threshold value for CPU, GPU and Disk sources when using the "Automatically select temperature sources option". When BurnInTest automatically selects a source it will use the matching threshold value from these fields. Additional information about the monitoring applications BurnInTest If you are using BurnInTest, you can select up to 6 temperature sources, including certain Intel CPUs, AMD CPUs, Hard disks and nVIDIA and AMD GPUs. BurnInTest provides the following temperature sources: 1) Intel CPUs. Temperature average of CPU cores or a specific core. e.g.
• | "CPU 1 average": the average of the CPU core temperature values (e.g. the average temperatures of core 1 and core 2 on CPU 1);
• | "CPU 1 core 1": the temperature on core 1 of CPU 1;
2) AMD CPUs. Temperature average of CPU cores or a specific core. e.g. "CPU 1": the CPU 1 package temperature values; 3) Hard Disks that support S.M.A.R.T. e.g. "HDD 0 (ST3160827AS)": Physical hard disk drive number 0 (model in brackets). 4) Newer nVIDIA GPUs. Please ensure you have the latest graphics card device drivers installed. 5) Newer AMD GPUs. Please ensure you have the latest graphics card device drivers installed. Most modern CPUs include a thermal monitoring capability for fan speed threshold triggering and CPU protection purposes. These are not highly accurate temperature sensors. CPU temperatures can generally be sourced directly from the CPU or from an external component on the Motherboard (e.g. a SuperIO chip). In all cases, the CPU temperature reported by BurnInTest is sourced directly from the CPU and this may vary from externally reported CPU temperatures. These values should be treated as approximate values. In general the CPU temperature is more accurate at higher temperatures (as this is when the CPU mainly utilizes the temperature monitoring), and less accurate at lower temperatures. Some Intel CPU temperatures less than 50C may mean little more than just that, the temperature is less than 50C. While the temperatures may have a high degree of error at lower temperatures, the values can still be quite useful in determining differences between temperatures, such as determining whether a different cooling solution leads to a higher or lower CPU temperature. The CPU temperature calculation is specific to each type of CPU. The current version of BurnInTest supports the following CPUs:
• | Most Intel Core2, Atom and Core i3/i5/i7 CPUs,
• | AMD K10 and K11 CPUs (Opteron and Phenom).
The Hard disk drive (HDD) temperatures are sourced from the disk S.M.A.R.T. attributes. As such the disk needs to support S.M.A.R.T. - most modern HDDs do. Both nVIDIA and AMD support temperature monitoring from a number of their GPUs, where they support GPU temperature monitoring, BurnInTest will display the results. Temperature monitoring requires BurnInTest be run with administrator privileges. In Vista (and later), this means "Elevated administrator" privileges are required. About Intel Active Monitor Versions tested with BurnInTest: 1.19 Intel Active Monitor monitors CPU temperatures, motherboard temperatures, voltages and fan speeds. It contains some system information and supports programmable alerts. The first 3 valid sensors available are used by BurnInTest. By default these are typically CPUs, the case or hard disks. Intel Active Monitor is available from http://www.intel.com/design/motherbd/active.htm About Intel Desktop Utilities Versions tested with BurnInTest: 2.1, 3.0 Intel Desktop Utilities monitors CPU temperatures, motherboard temperatures, voltages and fan speeds. It contains some system information and supports programmable alerts. It is compatible with most newer Intel motherboards. The first 3 valid sensors available are used by BurnInTest. By default these are typically CPUs, the case or hard disks. Intel Desktop Utilities is available from http://www.intel.com/design/motherbd/software/idu/ About SpeedFan Versions tested with BurnInTest: 4.08, 4.32, 4.35, 4.37, 4.43 SpeedFan monitors CPU, motherboard, memory and HDD temperatures. It also monitors voltages and fan speeds. It allows the user to alter fan speeds to aid the over clocking enthusiast. It reports system information - in particular SMBus info and SMART attributes. The first 3 valid sensors available are used by BurnInTest. By default these are typically CPUs, the case or hard disks. SpeedFan is available from http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php About Hmonitor Versions tested with BurnInTest: 3.1.2.5, 4.0.1.2, 4.5.2.1 Hmonitor Pro monitors and displays hardware parameters collected by the several sensor chips, installed on certain motherboards. The program can monitor voltages, CPU temperature, Motherboard temperature and cooler fans RPMs. It is fully customizable with alarms that can be set to go off when the temperature goes too high. In addition to this there is a built in "thermo control" function, that kicks in when the CPU is idle. Hmonitor can be used under XP/Vista/Windows7 operating systems on Intel-based personal computers. If you are using Hmonitor, you can select from a range of Hmonitor provided temperature sources, such as CPU1 and CPU2. The temperature labels are configurable in Hmonitor. Fan speed and Voltage values can also be displayed and logged during testing. Hmonitor is currently available at http://www.hmonitor.com. PassMark also maintains a Web page that can tell you where to get Hmonitor. http://www.passmark.com/products/temperature.htm General comments about using the 3rd party applications In the case of each temperature monitoring application…
• | Check that your main board supports temperature monitoring. This can be done from the documentation that comes with the board / computer or from the manufacturers web page.
• | Ensure that the third party monitoring application is correctly installed. See below for a list of supported applications.
• | Check that third party monitoring application supports your motherboard. Each application comes with a list of supported boards. See below for more details on the supported applications.
• | Check that the third party monitoring application is a compatible version. See below for a list of compatible versions.
• | Run the third party monitoring application, then Run BurnInTest.
• | Make sure temperature monitoring is turned on in BurnInTest (from the Test preferences Window) and if required, the temperature source value is selected. For Hmonitor, up to two sources can be selected for display and logging in BurnInTest.
• | Start testing.
BurnInTest reads the CPU temperature values from the third party monitoring application, displaying them on the screen and writing them to disk if logging is turned on. Please bear in mind that the accuracy of the temperature values in BurnInTest depend entirely on the third party application in question. Battery monitoring Please see Battery testing for a description of the Battery test options.