How to check CPU temperature

Here is a small guide which basically explains how you can check the temperature of the CPU.

There are many ways to do this. I will explain a few. But, first lets see why do we need to monitor CPU temperatures ?

High Processor temperatures can have the following effects:

• Reduced Life of the processor
• System instability/ Random Freezing/Reboots (often sign of overheating)
• Permanent damage (rare but can happen in extreme cases)

You can read the CPU temperature in the following ways:

• Using BIOS
• Motherboard Software (or motherboard monitors)
• 3rd Party software

Well, the first way is through the system BIOS. I know many people do not like that blue screen in the BIOS and will probably avoid this method. But this is an easy and fairly accurate method to find the temperature of the processor. You can also find additional information about the CPU fan speed, aux fan speeds. You MAY also have options to change the speed of the fan. To access the BIOS, you may have to press a specific key on the keyboard to enter the BIOS during booting up the PC. Its usually F1 or del, you can find it in the motherboard manual. It would generally look somewhat like this:




The other method is through motherboard software. This will generally be provided with most new motherboards. This can be found on the driver disc provided with the motherboard. You can also find it on the manufacturer's website. It may look like this:




The final method is by using 3rd party software. There are many utilities that do it, but i will recommend the following.
Everest Ultimate : Provides a ton of information apart from the temperatures. It has many benchmarks too. Pretty useful. Sadly not free. But you can try the trial version which will have some features locked.

Speedfan : A light application, it lets you know the temperature of each core and some extra information too.


In some cases, you may get incorrect temperatures (or really odd numbers). This may be due to the fact that the temperature diodes of the processor itself are defective. If that is the case,you cant do anything about it (no, don't ask about warranty please).