Web Temp has been created for that purpose. It is compatible with several Windows temperature monitors, including the previously mentioned Speedfan, but also HWMonitor, CPUCool, and several tools that monitor the temperature of the graphic’s adapter. It makes use of the temperature monitoring options of those applications to provide in depth statistics about a PC’s temperature levels.

The statistics software is offered as a freeware and paid version. Some options are not available in the freeware version, including the ability to save statistics, use the text uploader, configure an emergency power off, or a Web Temp gallery, which offers storage space to host temperature images on the web.

Web Temp scans the computer for installed temperature monitoring software, and will automatically use the information if a compatible program is found. The developers suggest to run one cpu temp monitor and one video card monitor max at the same time, to avoid conflicting temperature reports.

web temp

The program displays statistics about the computer in its core interface. On top are the temperature levels in a graph, below that temperatures for each cpu core, and system voltage readings.

The lower part of the program window contains fan speed information, allocated memory and cpu usage. Additional graphs can be enabled in the program’s options. It is for instance possible to display network traffic of up to four network adapters, or the hard drive capacity of selected partitions. The graphs are highly configurable. It is possible to remove information from the graphs; The application displays information about ten fans by default for instance, which can be reduced so that only the active fan speeds are reported to the user.

The options are also the location where a ftp server can be configured, which can then be used to store temperature images. Temperatures can be reported in Celsius or Fahrenheit.

Web Temp is configured to automatically start SpeedFan during program start, this option can be disabled, if SpeedFan is not the temperature monitor of choice.

temperature monitor

Web Temp Basic Features

• WebTemp reads temperatures, voltages and fan speeds from several hardware monitoring tools
• it can read RAM and CPU usage, CPU frequency, network traffic, hard disk memory and battery capacity on its own
• it creates an image which enables you getting an overview of all the values and their condition in the past few hours
• furthermore there is a display mode for the past 24 hours
• a banner-style display which only displays temperatures or network traffic over time
• another small display called “Light” which just shows you current temperatures and fan speeds
• both of these images can be displayed transparently on top of your desktop
• additionally they can be uploaded to any FTP server of yours
• it is possible to customize the colors and names of statistics and sensors
• there is an extra window which provides you with system information like real time CPU frequency
• WebTemp consumes very little processor time and memory
• you can choose to get notifications when new versions become available
• setup does not copy any files into your windows or system directory nor does uninstall leave behind any of WebTemp’s registry settings

Web Temp is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system.

Additional information and tabs are provided at the bottom which display information about a hard drive’s work time, model, temperature and health status. The first tab which is the active tab after selecting a hard drive will display detailed basic information about the selected drive including serial number and the firmware version. The next two tabs contain information about the S.M.A.R.T. status of the active hard drive and a temperature graph that displays the hard drive’s temperature changes over time.

The fourth tab can be used to scan the selected hard drive for bad sectors. The very same menu offers to schedule disk scans. A viable alternative is Speedfan which combines all of the possibilities offered by Active Hard Disk Monitor with advanced information and options including the display of all relevant system temperatures and fan speeds. The information and options are however not presented that clearly as in Active Hard Disk Monitor.

Active Hard Disk Monitor is compatible with many Microsoft operating systems including 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003 / 2008.

Update: Active Hard Disk Monitor is no longer freeware. Users who visit the developer page will note that only a commercial version of the program is available. I suggest you use Speedfan as an alternative, which remains free to use. Users interested in the Hard Disk Monitor application can download a free trial version at the developer website.

F.Lux

I reviewed the computer monitor lighting solution a while ago and it is actually one of the few applications that run all the time on my main computer system. Flux changes the brightness color temperature of the computer display automatically. It uses a 24 hour graph to visualize the changes. The color temperature will be normal throughout the day and be lowered automatically as the day passes to adjust to the real world. You will love this application if you have to look at (to) bright computer screens especially in the evening and at night.

2. Speedfan

Speedfan is an interesting application to monitor system temperatures and control fan speeds. Users run usually in two scenarios. The first group thinks that their computer system makes to much noise while the second has to fight high temperatures that can lead to crashes and data loss. Speedfan can help both groups. It can lower the fan speed of connected computer fans automatically to reduce the overall noise level of the computer system. It can also warn the user if temperatures are reached that can cause damage and problems.

3. Drive Namer

Drive Namer is an excellent application to add names to optical drives such as DVD or CD drives. Windows is blocking the name changing on those drives by default which gets confusing if more than one optical drive is installed or virtual drives are used. All of the drives will be named DVD Drive or CD Drive. Drive Namer can change that name to something practical that helps identifying the drive at first glance.

4. Deltacopy

Windows Backup Software Deltacopy is a sophisticated backup software program that uses a client server approach which makes it ideal for computers located in a network.

SpeedFan is well known program in the category of system monitoring. It is a very good tool for controlling CPU and case fans (kinda obvious from its name) and was mentioned here on ghacks numerous times. However it has an interesting secondary function of analyzing hard drive health by reading and processing SMART data.

SMART (short for Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) is set of values that roughly expresses the amount of working time, load and errors hard drives have experienced since leaving the factory. Unfortunately for humans SMART is bunch of hexadecimal numbers that are hard to read and even harder to understand. In addition drive manufacturers are using different attributes and values that are not helping either.

Without leaving interface SpeedFan can show (on SMART tab) the values themselves and is trying to mark meaningful ones and calculate two indexes – performance and fitness:

• failing performance index means drive no longer performs its best;
• failing fitness index means drive is preparing to die with all your data.

Since one of the attributes is drive temperature SpeeFan can tie (as it can other temperatures) it to case fans speed and control airflow depending on its value.

Deeper and better analysis is hidden behind the "Perform an in-depth online analysis of this hard disk" button. It unchains you from local interface and submits data of your drive to hddstatus online service. In seconds your browser is forwarded to an automated report on your drive.

Why the need for an online service at all? Big advantage is that the online tool has access to SMART data of all hard drives of all models ever submitted to it. Instead of vaguely guessing it compares your drive with numerous similar drives and gives evaluation that fits exactly the hard drive model.

The report itself is formatted using understandable words like "good" and "not good" plus nice graphical bars showing how far your drive's values are from optimal ones. Interesting extra is the number of drives of that model tested and min/max/average temperatures for them. Sample report.

Core Temp concentrates on the cpu, the central processing unit of the computer. It can read the temperature of several cores if the cpu is a multi-core cpu. While this is not a unique feature Core Temp does its best to display the temperatures in the best possible way. The software provides an easy interface that displays all information in one screen.

One great feature for overclockers and new PCs is the logging feature that logs the temperature of the CPU and its cores so that it becomes easy to analyse the temperature changes over time. I still prefer to use Speedfan because it provides additional information that are important to me. If you just want to analyse and check the cpu you are best of with Core Temp though.

Another reason might me memory usage. Core Temp uses a third of the memory that Speedfan uses when running. (3MB compared to 9MB).

It is also possible to control fans that are connected to a supported motherboard which means that you could reduce the noise of your computer by reducing the speed the fans rotate in your system. The temperature levels will eventually rise if you reduce it to much but it is relatively easy to find a level that reduces the noise and keeps the temperatures at a good level.

I’m mainly using Speedfan to reduce the noise in my computer but it can also be used to monitor temperatures and find out detailed information about your hard drives, if they support S.M.A.R.T. Speedfan also reports voltages such as Vcore, 12v and 3.3V.

I did write about some of them here at ghacks already but I guess only the die hard ghacks readers will know about this. I would like to start with a tool that I have been using for some time now. It is called Hamachi and the main benefit is that it is able to simulate a lan over internet. This is great if a game only offers lan play for instance. I do not suggest you use it for the following purpose but it is possible. Many games require serial numbers and those numbers are checked when you connect to a game server on the internet. They are not checked if you create a lan game.

System Tools:

Please insert the CD into the drive and restart the application. I hate this message. Forcing legit users to have the CD / DVD in drive to execute the program is something I never understood. Pirates crack those protections in seconds and legit users have the problems with methods that are supposed to make it harder for pirates. Something is wrong here. I do like Daemon Tools which emulates CDs on your hard drive. Create an image of the CD, mount it in Daemon Tools and you may use the software without the Cd.

That shitty movie is not playing. I don’t see a picture, I hear no sound. Have you ever witnessed something like that ? This could be due to a missing codec on your system. Gspot analyzed a movie file and displays the codecs it is using. Did I say that I hate the fact that there are billions of codecs out there ? Waste of time and energy.

Notepad 2 replaces Notepad which ships with every windows installation. It offers more features than Notepad like syntax highlighting.

Rbtray makes it possible to minimize every window into the system tray instead of the task bar. If you are like me and dislike crowded task bars this tool is for you.

I like my computers as silent as they can be. One method to achieve this is to use a software that is able to control the speed of the fans in your pc. Speedfan is my choice. It displays temperatures for important system components such as processor, motherboard and hard drives and lets you change the fan speed if that is supported on your system.

Vippy the writer friendly cursor changes the cursor into a eye-friendly one. This is great if you have troubles finding the cursor in a text document. Vippy changes the color of the cursor to red for instance.

Internet:

Ghacks is running on a dedicated server and I have to make the connection using a terminal program. I do use Putty for this, it is fast and clean and does exactly the things that I need it to do. I do use WinSCP to connect download backups that I made from the dedicated server. SFTP means secure file transfer.

I have a Skype account to talk to my friends and see who is online at the moment. There is no charge if both users are connected to the Skype network. I do prefer Teamspeak while gaming. Teamspeak has the advantage that more users may chat and talk at the same time while Skype has that limited I think. When I was playing WOW we were using Teamspeak with more than 40 people in one channel. Don’t worry, you can moderate everything.

If you want to view tv on the internet you should take a look at tvu player which offers some interesting channels to choose from. To name a few: ABC, ESPN, Comedy Channel, CBC, Fox and more. All free, with relative good quality. You need a broadband connection for good results.

You need some additional tools if you want to save video streams. Most providers hide the real url to the stream making it impossible to detect it by normal means. Url Snooper comes into play and detects the real address by analyzing all network traffic.

I need a local test installation of ghacks to test new features before I make the upgrade on the running site. XAMPP offers everything I need to have a local Apache installation with PHP and MYSQL support. It is great for learning and testing upgrades.

Security:

You might remember the Sony rootkit incident. They planted a rootkit on some of their CDs and users had a hard time getting rid of it. Rootkit Revealer is one of those tools that helps detecting and removing rootkits.

Other:

I do not buy lots of new CDs but sometimes I buy some used ones on Ebay or Amazon. I don’t have a CD player at all so I have to get the songs from the CD on my computer to be able to play them and transfer them to my Ipod. CDex is the tool I use for that purpose. It is fast, pulls all relevant information from the internet (author, title, songs..) and adds them automatically to the songs.

Speedfan scans your system and detects fans automatically. It also shows temperature levels for system devices, for instance hard drives. To controll a fan you reduce the value of that fan from 100% (fastest rotation) to a lesser one. The changes take effect immediately which means you can hear that it becomes more silent. Mine was close to being complete silent by 50%.

Speedfan for Deep Hardware Monitoring

If you have a PC with a particularly noisy fan, there are several approaches to remedy the problem. You could refurbish the hardware if you want. You could alter the speed of the fan manually by going into the hardware itself, should you be so savvy. If there were a program that could monitor hardware components and control the speed of the fan, that would be fantastic. As it turns out, there is. It is called Speedfan.

Speedfan will monitor your system and show temperature levels for various hardware components and the speed of the fan(s). In addition, you can modify these components. For example, you can reduce the speed of the fan with this utility and reduce that noise from the fan without digging into the hardware. Please note that this is not entirely without risk. Reduction of fan speed could result in overheating of the core processors. Speedfan keeps track of component temperatures and this enables you to monitor those temperatures and make adjustments as needed.
The latest version of Speedfan 4.4 can be downloaded from the following link: http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php

Speedfan provides a deep view of computer status. Though most computers are already equipped with hardware monitoring, this utility gives a thorough and comprehensive overview that can assist you in determining the causes of certain problems. A poor power supply can cause a computer to lag after it has been heavily used for many hours. This can also occur because of heatsink issues. These instances can mimic operating system issues when the operating system is just fine. This is where Speedfan comes in and identifies the real culprit. The utility searches the hardware monitor chips, revealing voltages, fan speeds, and temperatures. In the event that the BIOS do not activate these monitoring features, Speedfan will enable them safely. All hard disks, the motherboard and some video cards are searched too. It will access status information from SATA, EIDE and SCSI drives. This allows for clear indication of internal data. This can be utilized to troubleshot present and future failures of the hard disk(s). Speedfan refers to this monitoring as S.M.A.R.T. This acronym stands for Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology. The main feature is the control of fan speeds, hence the name. The automatic fan speed setting will adjust fan speeds according to component temperatures and keep fan noise at a minimum but it won’t allow the fans to slow to the point at which components overheat.

Under the S.M.A.R.T. tab, you will find the tools to perform an in-depth online analysis of the hard drive selected. You can also perform basic tests, either extended or short, depending on the perspective required. Charts and other information can be accessed as well making diagnostics clear and simple.

Speedfan has been in use since 2000 and there are reportedly many satisfied users. The designer does leave a disclaimer at the download site stating that Speedfan is a powerful tool and uses many motherboard resources. This may not agree with your computer hardware and, if damage occurs as a result, he cannot be held responsible.