HOW TO: Monitoring CPU and GPU Temperatures In-Game/In-Benchmark with On-Screen Display

A lot of us really like our Windows gadgets and tray utilities. Our inner geek often drives us to monitor every aspect of system performance, and understandably so on machines as expensive as our Alienware beasts. But, as much as we love those gadgets and tray utilities, they are not very helpful when the temps and clock speeds matter most, because you simply cannot see them. And, it's the times when you cannot see the gadgets and tray utilities that you are most likely to encounter issues. In particular, while running full-screen games and benchmarks.

After posting screen shots, I often receive private messages asking questions about my in-game/benchmark monitoring tools that are displayed on-screen. I have decided to post the instructions for all that are interested. So, let's get started.

First off, if you don't already have them, you will need MSI Afterburner [download] and HWiNFO64 [download]. Both are free utilities. Once you have them up and running, you will need to configure them. Afterburner's OSD program, while very good, does not have any CPU monitoring features. This is where HWiNFO64 comes into play.

Note: I am using HWiNFO64 3.92-1515. I prefer the portable version that uses no Windows installer. A newer version is available. I am using this older version because I know it works without issues. You can give the latest version a go if you wish, but this tutorial is based on the version I am using at the moment. There could be some minor differences.

Once installed and running, HWiNFO64, MSI Afterburner and Afterburner OSD will have icons in your system tray. To access them, simply double-click the tray icons.



Set up HWiNFO64 to launch with sensors-only, run minimized, and start when Windows starts. Use the settings shown in the screen shot in the spoiler below. (If you do not use all the of the settings exactly as shown, you may have issues with Windows hanging during shutdown or random freezing.
I am posting the screen shots so you can get all of the settings right and hopefully will not have to deal with those issues.)

Maximize HWiNFO64 using the system tray icon and configure the monitoring tools by clicking on the "Configure" button. Follow the series of screen shots in the spoiler below to set up the CPU clock speed and temperature monitoring for Rivatuner's OSD plug-in (which is part of HWiNFO64 - no need to download Rivatuner).





NOTE: Should you ever need to change the initialization configuration of HWiNFO64 to stop it from launching when Windows starts and running minimized, you need to edit the INI file. See the screen shot in the spoiler below for what needs to be changed...

Finally, we need to set up Afterburner OSD. The first step is to enable the GPU monitoring features that are built-in. The second step is to create a custom profile that uses HWiNFO64 CPU monitoring values through its Rivatuner plug-in. Follow the series of screen shots in the spoiler below.
First Step: Enable Afterburner OSD GPU Monitoring

Launch Afterburner using the tray icon (the white jet without the pink numbers on it).

Click on the "Settings" button in the lower right corner of Afterburner, and go to the "Monitoring" tab.


Second Step: Create an Afterburner OSD Profile for HWiNFO64

Launch Afterburner OSD using the tray icon (the white jet that has the pink numbers).



Click the silver plus sign (+) and browse the the HWiNFO64 executable and click the Open button.


At this point you should be all set. If you follow all the steps correctly, your on-screen monitoring tools will look like the examples below. (The live action screen shot and video were captured using Afterburner.) Be sure to play around with the Afterburner OSD and HWiNFO64 monitoring tools to tweak everything to your personal preference. You can add additional sensor readings to the OSD, change fonts, font sizes and colors, screen placement, etc. In order to get your formatted fonts and colors to stay as you want them, apply the same settings to the HWiNFO64 profile and the global Afterburner OSD profile. (Thanks to steviejones133 for reminding me of this step on the font colors.)

Being able to actively monitor CPU and GPU load temps and clock speeds on-screen is very valuable for troubleshooting, preventing damage by heat and/or overclocking, or people that just feel a compelling need to know how their system is doing at all times. I hope all that read this find it helpful. Happy gaming and benching, my friends.

(If you do not see a screen shot and a video below, refresh this web page)



Using Android and iOS Phone to Monitor and Overclock GPU​

As an additional tweak for those that are interested, MSI Afterburner now has an Android and iOS app that allows you to monitor and overclock your GPU using your phone!
Check it out here:

http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/app02.htm
​

The setup instructions are not all that clear. To get this working, I had to find the IP address of my laptop, enter that in the Windows app in the system tray and also enter the laptop IP address in my Android phone in the MSI app on the phone. I also had to manually configure my Windows 7 firewall to allow the communication. Once configured, it's awesome.

Enter the IP address of your computer in the Afterburner Remote Server app as shown here.

Open the Afterburner app on your phone and enter the IP address of your computer. If necessary, configure your Windows firewall.



​

Edit: Thanks to johnksss for pointing out that EVGA Precision X will do the same job as MSI Afterburner. +1 Rep to Brother John.

Edit 07/14/2012: see attached JPG for setting up a new version of HWiNFO64.

Edit 02/23/2014: HWiNFO64 has been updated many times and the UI is slightly different now. Refer to the image album below if the new UI has you confused on setup procedures.

Edit 03/07/2015: Updated guidance...

Just download RivaTuner Statistics Server as a standalone and use HWiNFO64 portable version for output. Works better than anything else and give you a lot more options than Afterburner does.

Rivatuner Statistics Servers v.6.2.0 | guru3d.com

HWiNFO64 Diagnostic Software Download and follow the simple pictures here for HWiNFO64 Setup Steps

You configure the output on the RTSS tab, like this...

 

Note: at the suggestion of Ryan_23, I moved this thread into the main Alienware forum for greater exposure, as the information may be of interest to a broader group. These instructions may work on any system, but the settings in the first post have been tested on the M18x. If you have any issues with your model, you may have to change some of the HWiNFO64 configuration settings to achieve ideal results.Clarification: props to residualvoltage for clarifying a couple of things for us. Brother RV is knowledgeable about many things, and he is a real wiz at HWiNFO.Optional: If you experience stability problems, try this alternative configuration to use the Dell EC:

Spoiler

For those that are using a custom fan profile: To ensure that custom fan controls remain implemented, add "OpenFanCtrlMin=1" as a new line at the bottom of the HWiNFO64.INI (or HWiNFO32.INI if you are using that version). When launching the minimized app from the tray, it will open with fan control maximized as well. (See examples below. If you are not using a custom fan profile, this is not applicable.)

Spoiler

With this INI configuration tweak, HWiNFO will maximize from the tray with fan control open and active, as noted in the example below. Should you happen to encounter an issue with DPC latency, see this post for the HWiNFO settings that will correct the DPC latency.

I also want to thank steviejones133 and johnksss for providing feedback on the guide before I posted it live on the forum.Brother Steve noted difficulty getting his fonts to stay the bright green color. The default is the purple color, which is sometimes hard to read depending on the screen background color. In the initial post I did not mention that you should choose a font color for the HWiNFO profile in Afterburner OSD and apply the same font color to the Global profile for your preferences to take effect. (See example below.)

Spoiler

Edit: 08/29/2012 - Newer HWiNFO64 Configuration Settings

Spoiler

 

Awesome! I've had Afterburner for awhile and never knew it had an OSD (shows how little I explore, lol). You can stop running FRAPS since it does framerates as well

Thanks brother Fox! +rep when I can again Stop being so helpful!

 

Great work again, Brother Fox....as usual! - like blink_c, I will have to owe ya some NBR luuurve (honestly, there shouldn't be a limit on handing out rep. if you are as helpful a guy as you are!)

Followed your "recipe" above and all went fine and works without issue - nice and straight-forward, clear, concise and accurate. Couldnt have asked for a better guide to setup this nice little monitoring gadget.

WELL DONE!

 

And I was just thinking to myself a couple days ago ~ "Man.. it would be really nice to have a step-by-step thread on how to monitor CPU and GPU temps while in-game/in-benchmark with on-screen display". My 'prayers' have been answered! YIPEE!

*Bookmarked*

 

NIce man! It'll be nice to see where I'm CPU bound in benchmarks. Thanks. I"ll have to set this up on my benching drive as well. +1 once I spread the love a bit.

 

Great Work... Once Again Mr. Fox! I plan on setting this up ASAP.

Looks like I need to take out an "I.O.U." on some "Rep" as well.. LOL!!
This may come in handy when an Alienware Tech remote connects to your machine to run a benchmark like Unigine Heaven in window-mode.

 

Great Job!!

Side note:
You can also add
cpu speed on all 4 cores
cpu fan speed
cpu watts
cpu core temps on each core

 

Great post Fox!!!!!!

 

I will be looking into this OSD. It is nice for if you don't have a 2nd monitor to leave HWinfo running in while gaming

 

i use both of them but love the IOS app!!! will be great REP Man!!

 

Great Mr.fox ! i will try to use it tonight ! thanks mr.fox again

 

Plus rep Bro Fox! Nice guide thanks also for the headsup. Glad to retire fraps lol. Also thanks John for that info too... no more guessing on my part till i exit a game or bench. Its nice to see no need for rivatuner I had previously avoided Afterburner when it caused crashing on launch on AMD gpu i had. Cant wait to try this out... thanks.

Edit: for those using HWiNFO fan control referring to your first pic of HWiNFO config Mr. Fox there is small issue with the pic.

If you use the Compal EC for fan control you check "LPC & EC Support" and "EC-ACPI Synchronization" and uncheck "SW SMI"

If you use DELL EC (Mumak HWiNFO maker suggest it as the most stable on Alienware Laptop models M18x/M17x R3 etc.) you then check "SW SMI" and uncheck "LPC & EC Support" and "EC-ACPI Synchronization"

in both scenarios you use one or the other... do not use both as it may cause conflicts or fan drops or system instabilities and lockups.


Second thing to note is if you are using a laptop "GPU I2C Support" and "GPU I2C via NVAPI" should be unchecked as they are unused for a laptop and only pertain to Desktop GPU's

Thanks don't want any confusion

Edit #2: In configuring HWiNFO for this in the section above about HWiNFO's .ini file if you actually want sensors and main window to minimize leave the two mentioned with the one next to it and additionally if you want your automatic fan control to start with HWiNFO at logon configure as above and add the following additional line at the end of HWiNFO's .ini file. If still having trouble starting with Windows i don't use the start with windows option and instead I make a launch HWiNFO at logon entry in Windows Task Scheduler as there is also a way to guarantee relaunch of it upon sleep and wake cycles where as it wont relaunch if you start HWiNFo via its own "autostart" option.

If you put "OpenFanCtrlMin=1" at the end of HWiNFO32.INI (or HWiNFO64.INI respectively) that should automatically activate the fan control window in minimized mode too

Spoiler

again I hope I have helped clarify those additional functions of HWiNFO

 

Thanks for the additional info on HWINFO64 configuration.

 

Your welcome Brother Fox I love your guide got it all installed and setting it up now to try out. Thanks again Bro its the FOX OSD

 

Thanks for the compliments from everyone. I'm very glad so many are finding this information useful.

So, Brother RV, using your suggestions, this should be a more stable configuration, correct?



And, by adding the "OpenFanCtrlMin=1" to the HWiNFO64.INI (or HWiNFO32.INI if you are using that version), when launching the minimized app from the tray, it will open with fan control maximized as well. Cool! (see example below)

 

exactly Mr. Fox looking good btw lol glad its working yes what that does is not maximize fan control but instead automatically opens it and minimizes it which is all thats needed for a auto fan control profile you set to initialize and therefore when HWiNFO opens everything is minimized yet immediately fans turn on and now HWiNFO's fan profile is active... Win win

 

Excellent. I am going insert a post #2 to clarify for those reading this thread for the first time from the starting post. Thanks so much.

I am also going to add a screen shot for a tip with respect to configuring the font colors that Brother Stevie pointed out, which was not specifically covered in the guide.

 

looks like if you add this info too everything will be covered
There is a DPC Latency issue to note when HWiNFO is configured a certain way on certain models if fan control is used or not if the DELL EC is enabled and fan rpm sensors are enabled there is DPC latency... Seems an easy enough fix to disable the "fan speed CPU", "System/Gpu" and "GPU Fan RPM" readings in the sensor config. Even though Compal EC didn't exhibit same latency the Dell EC is more dependable

with issue
DPC latency Dell EC



DPC latency Dell EC 2 system gpu fan speed reading


DPC latency Dell EC 2 cpu fan speed reading






without issue

DPC latency fine Compal EC


dpc latency fix HWiNFO Dell EC cpu fan reading


dpc latency fix HWiNFO Dell EC system and gpu fan reading



so too clarify Compal EC Fan Control has no latency showing fan rpm readings ie... "LPC & EC Support" and "EC-ACPI Synchronization" checked and "SW SMI" unchecked

the much much more stable Dell EC shows dpc latency when fan rpm sensors are enabled (even gpu) ie... "SW SMI" checked and unchecked "LPC & EC Support" and "EC-ACPI Synchronization" so hiding and disabling all noted sensors in HWiNFO's sensor config fixes the noted DPC Latency

just when you thought you were done Brother Fox Cheers

 

Your post explains it clearly enough. Thank you again for the useful information. The collective intelligence is what makes our forum awesome.

 

Thank you though The props should really go to HWiNFO's creator Mumak or Martin Malík HWiNFO
I learned from the real guru on that

 

Agree, and it's a great little app.

 

Question.

I have all the HWiNFO64 settings as per the guide.....Afterburner/RivaTuner OSD launch upon boot (as they are marked to do that, just like HWiNFO is) and they DO launch, but HWiNFO wont start at boot. (settings checked for it to do so)....

Any thoughts ?

@Mr. Fox - Fox, you may recall I had issues with launching your .bat's for DPC Latency Fix (even though I had shortcuts placed in the startup folder).....maybe same thing again here....(I recall we joked that my Raid SSD's were just too fast on booting and were "missing a beat" possibly) - I tried placing a HWiNFO shortcut in the startup folder, but again, no joy at auto launch on boot.

I wonder if Brother John has any problem with this, with his Raided SSD's....its no big deal, guess I will just have to start it manually for now....

 

Hi, just a problem here, I have installed HWINFO 64 , but I can't config Rivatuner page it is just display N/A. Could you give some advises? Thanks and

 

Take a look at Mr. Fox's second spoiler on his first post. Check your settings for HWiNFO to make sure they are the same as his (2nd, 3rd and 4th pics)...you will see that bottom right of the HWiNFO pic, there is a section that relates to the Rivatuner plug-in.....you need to make sure that all those boxes are identically checked and match Fox's settings along with the changes stated in blue text at the bottom of each HWiNFO picture for the cores clocks/package.

 

I had this same problem last night. On the first post, 2nd spoiler, 2nd pic I had "N/A" under the Riva Tuner column. In the RivaTuner OSD box, in the lower right hand corner, it was greyed out and said "Unavailable". Then it hit me... install MSI Afterburner first LOL! You can also start the RivaTuner OSD Server from this directory:

C:\Program Files (x86)\MSI Afterburner\Bundle\OSDServer\RTSS.exe

Start HWiNFO and take care in setting all checkboxes as steviejones133 just stated.

I hope this helps.

 

Good call Zero, +rep!....Basically, I installed ALL the relvant app's first and then did the tweaks - that's just how I interpreted Mr. Fox's guide said it should be done.....

 

Thanks Stevie... I had read the post back to back twice and interpreted the very same thing. I already had HWiNFO64 installed. I came home to a very busy household last night. I started glancing through the steps again, downloaded Afterburner and then I was interrupted. I sat back down to finish my mini-project and totally forgot to install Afterburner. Good thing it was a mental lapse of about 2 minutes when I realized what was happening.. LOL!! +Rep back.

Tonight, I hope to make the corrections noted in Post#2 without interruption.... fingers crossed.

 

That worked Thank you very much.

 

Thanks for the rep Bro! - making the post #2 changes doesnt take long at all....just edit the HWiNFO.ini so you can re-enter the configuration of HWiNFO, make the changes and you should be golden once more! (The .ini changes to be made to be able to re-enter HWiNFO's configuration window can be seen by opening the spoiler at the very bottom of spoiler #2 on the first post...scroll to right at the bottom of the .ini file itself)

Good to hear that you got it working - as Mr. Fox pointed out initially, you need to have ALL the relevant apps installed prior to making the changes, otherwise it doesnt go smoothly.

 

in one of my above posts i mention how HWiNFO's start with windows function hasnt worked for me. I use windows task scheduler.

Going on memory but basically

Open task scheduler

On left tabs click on Microsoft

On left tabs click on microsoft sub directory Windows folder

On right hand side of window click create basic task

in the folowing screens select open app at logon as task, name the task, point to the program hwinfo.exe, check the box that says "open settings dialog" or something hit okay

A new window opens with a few tabs available in the first check "run with highest priveleges"

Go over to the tab that shows the task and open its properties tell it to run anytime ie uncheck the option to not run when on battery

Go to second to last tab uncheck option to end task if run over 3days etc, make sure it says if running do not open a new instance,

hit okay

If you used the command in the .ini of HWiNFO and selected the proper boxes in HWiNFO it should now start up upon windows logon and minimize itself upon start up and start the fans on your active automatic custom fan control profile been using max fan for months during any use of the system and this saves having to open anything myself.

Ill dig out the info on adding another activation of this task that by doing so when system sleeps and wakes HWiNFO is no longer open and fans active and adding the additional sleep event launch reactivates it all flawlessly ill dig out the info

 

or you could just put it in the startup folder with the ini entries in place....

 

if you put the system to sleep and start it up is it still active and fan control still actively monitoring and changing the fan speeds?

 

Brother Steve, I'm not sure what's up with the launch with Windows feature not working. If it is still not working, using Brother RV's suggestion to run as a startup task will most likely work. It is an odd coincidence that the batch file experience was the same.

One thought, long shot perhaps, but open the startup folder for "All Users" and at a shortcut there. That should make it apply globally. It appears that something was keeping shortcuts in the startup folder for your user profile from working, and that same something may be stopping HWiNFO from launching.

I always run Windows with UAC totally disabled. Everything I do on my computers is with elevated admin privileges and full control permissions. Maybe that is having an effect if you don't have UAC disabled.

 

Thanks for the responses guys.

I will have a play around with it today to see if I can get it launching automatically. Although I havent edited the .ini to enable the fan window launching too - not currently using custom fan control, but, I wouldnt think that NOT having edited it would stop the main HWiNFO from running on startup.

I did try dropping a shortcut into the startup folder but no joy there either.

As Mr. Fox knows, I had issue trying to get the Latency Fix shortcuts to launch on startup - even when they were in the startup folder - I tried then to put them in the "all userss" which made no difference. I also tried Brother RV's approach of scheduling a windows task with no success - the ONLY thing that actually DID work was dropping 3 identical shortcuts into the startup folder...that did the job but was just a rather odd method of getting it to launch properly.

I will try out all that was suggeted above and let you know what gives.

Thanks for the help guys!

Just a quick update.

Got it working at launch - hurrah! LOL - I loosely followed Brother RV's advice (thanks mate, +rep!) and created a scheduled task to launch HWiNFO64 at boot. Works fine now......

One thing I was wondering about is which HWiNFO app you guys run? (I was looking at the HWiNFO site and there were multiple versions available) - Is it the portable .zip or the self installing .zip? - only asking as initially I had installed the self extractor but then found I could not alter the .ini for some reason - kept coming back with "access denied".

So I uninstalled that, cleaned up the registry for all HWiNFO entries and decided to give the portable .zip a go....no problems editing the .ini with that....

 

What Windows gadgets do you guys use to monitor GPU temps and CPU temp/frequency? I've seen some nice ones in Mr. Fox's screenshots in some other threads and I'm not sure what they're called. Thanks in a advance.

 

The ones you see can be found here: OrbLog - its a German site so you may need to translate the webpage. You can download them and use the following settings (which can be adjusted by clicking on the little spanner icon on each gadget when you hover your mouse pointer over each desktop gadget) to acheive the same monitoring as per Mr. Fox.

Spoiler

 

Thank you +1 Rep

 

Your welcome. Thanks for the rep!

Also, another question for anyone to answer (maybe Fox or RV or Johnksss) but I just looked at Brother RV's HWiNFO config and noticed that "persistent driver" is checked.....would this be a requirement or not? - maybe RV can chime in on this one with his vast HWiNFO experience....

I changed my HWiNFO settings to match RV's settings for Compal EC (as that is what shows in my HWiNFO64 configuration window) and latency is not an issue.

 

Compal EC shows no latency when Fan rpm readings are shown in sensors. Dell ec shows latency when those are shown... disabling and hiding them in sensor config fixes that. For fan control using the Compal EC you can see slighlty higher rpms, and can set rpms between 4k and 0 but some people over a period of time have fan drops, system lockups in sensors window etc,, and or shutdown issues but using ACPi-synch helps that a little. Mumak recomend for our M18x to use the Dell EC as its 100% stable. Drawbacks of Dell EC are 0rpm,2krpm and 3.8k rpm are the only speeds available but has proven to be much more dependable. Above i typed how to use DELL EC ("SW-SMI" checked and both "LPC & EC Support" and "EC-ACPI Synchronization" unchecked) or Compal ("LPC & EC Support" and "EC-ACPI Synchronization" checked and "SW-SMI" unchecked.

For "persistent driver" it loads the HWiNFO "driver" permanently and is always installed if thats unchecked i think it initializes the HWiNFO driver on launch. Only thing i know of about that is that if you install a new version of HWiNFO over an older one and you were using persistent driver and choose different set of options some options from previous install stick and in HWiNFO's option hit "reset preferences" after new install to fix this but if had custom fan profile you may need to set that again or rehide sensors etc but you dont need to hit reset unless having issues to begin with. that's because the driver saves preferences not all most are in .ini file. To simplify in hwinfo config press the reset preferences button that will save the uninstall needed upon conflict.

I quote Mumak on his description of the two fan controls:

"Now you have 2 choices depending on the value of "LPC & EC Support" setting:
"LPC & EC Support" Enabled (default) -> direct Compal EC access. This will work as earlier.
Pros: More precise fan control (fan speed setting limited only by EC/fan min/max limits)
Cons: On some machines this can cause lockups or shutdown problems (on some it doesn't)

"LPC & EC Support" Disabled and "SW SMI" Enabled -> a new DELL SMI Method used
Pros: I expect this should not cause so many issues on certain machines
Cons: Allows only 3 fan speed levels - 0, low, high. Exact values are determined by EC (should be displayed)."




How to have HWiNFO and fan control correctly resume from sleep


Use a system information event [resuming from sleep] as the trigger. Here's how:


1. Open task sheduler [press windows key, type task, click on task scheduler at the top of the menu list]


2. In Actions [menu or right pane] click 'new task'


3. In General tab, give your task a name


4. In Trigger tab, click 'new'


5. Choose 'on an event' in the top drop-down list.


6. Choose 'custom' radio button


7. Click on the 'new event filter' button that now appears.


8. For event level, choose 'information'


9. In 'event logs' drop-down menu, choose windows logs > system. Put a tick next to 'system' only


10. Click on the text 'All event ID's' [the text will clear] and insert 1


11. Click ok


12. In the 'Actions' tab, choose the program you want to start by clicking 'new'


13. In the 'new action' window, use the browse button to navigate to the .exe of the program you want to run. If you have a shortcut on your desktop for the program, you can simply choose that and scheduler will extract the path from the shortcut.


14. [optional] Add -fullscreen to the 'arguments' box if you want your program to start full screen and it supports this switch [argument] (not really necessary for how we use HWiNFO)


*So basically you can create a second trigger for HWiNFO in the task scheduler with the basic task you already created and have it launch hwinfo again when the system records a system event of "resuming from sleep mode" based off of the event in event viewer.


-Just did all this and to get it working I have a revision of the above. You must enable "Hybrid Sleep" in the power options under "Sleep"
-instead of making a new event in a new task its best to use the "hwinfo" tak in the task scheduler you just made so re-enter the properties of it and add the above like that here are a few pics to help along the way not in order but should help.

Spoiler

now if you did all that before this type of setup upon sleep and resume the normal sleep wouldnt even wake my system once it did 3 other times i just saw a black screen. so enabling "hybrid sleep" fixes the sleep function and it properly resumes. now with a custom fan control and hwinfo auto launching when i sleep it was still open upon resume HWiNFO that is... but the fans were at 0 dead silence :0 so then adding that event to the task scheduler under HWiNFOs properties in Task Scheduler allowed HWinfo to relaunch upon resume but still not working so I change the option in one of those pics which says in an existing instance is running close that first. this allowed upon resume HWinfo to reinitialize the fans automatically upon resume after relaunching HWiNFO fresh.

 

Thanks RV for the detailed explanation of Compal EC vs Dell EC. Assuming Dell EC is more stable to use, how do you disable the below to avoid DPC Latency? (please forgive my "noobness" regarding HWiNFO!)

Also, how do you make the following changes below?

Somehow, my config page has some differences, namely only one line for cpu when compared to your screenshots for Dell EC from your post on page 2



I am using the following settings (because of stability purposes) and DPC Latency is horrendous....so how do I rectify the latency problem?

 

I don't use the persistent driver option and prefer not to. I use the portable zip version. I can use the settings in my original screen shot (post #1) or the recommended stable settings in the second screen shot (post #2) and do not have any noticeable performance or stability problems either way. This may be because I use the portable version without the persistent driver. Nothing is installed within Windows, but I find HWiNFO64 does anything and everything I want it to.

 

I too am using the portable version Mr. Fox, I also have HWiNFO64 configured exactly like your shot in post #2 but when I run LatencyMon, it goes nuts.....RV mentioned about "disabling fan sensors" rectifying Latency using Dell EC - how? .... if you look at my screenshot above (where I circled) its completely different to RV's Dell EC shot on his post #19 - I only seem to have one line for cpu , for some reason, where RV has two cpu lines and a system/gpu line

 

Brother Steve, try going back to the original HWiNFO64 configuration instead of the alternate configuration shown in post #2. I had been running the configuration noted in the first post (using Compal EC) all along, and doing so without any stability issues or DPC latency. I switched over to the Dell EC configuration as noted in post #2 and found no meaningful difference on my system.

After using the configuration noted in post #2 for a couple of days, I went back to using the Compal EC simply because I like using its monitoring features better and you can use a wider range of fan speeds with custom fan controls. After switching back to the Compal EC everything still worked flawlessly on my system. I have no DPC latency issues on the Compal EC using custom fan controls using the NVIDIA sensors or using the native M18x fan controls.

I have edited post #2 to read " Optional: If you experience stability problems, try this alternative configuration to use the Dell EC:" as it does not appear to be a problematic setup on every system. Rather than taking a one size fits all approach, users should feel free to test both ways and decide which of the two configurations works best on their system.

I am using the GPU12C options with the GTX 580M and find it to work really well for me even though those options are stated to be intended for desktop GPUs. (They may not work as intended with AMD mobile GPUs, so AMD users need to test both configurations to find out.)

 

Thanks Mr. Fox - I still am left wondering why my HWiNFO config page differs from that OF Brother RV's, when using Dell EC. I just rolled back my system to before I started tinkering and have dowloaded HWiNFO again from your CNET link. Having run it under Compal EC settings, under Compal EC in the config window I see two lines - one cpu and one gpu...

 

Maybe having an unlock BIOS has an effect on what is displayed in the sensors window. Not sure, bro. However, if everything works well I would not consider anything to be particularly wrong. If not a difference from the unlocked BIOS, it might just be a random bug with HWiNFO64.

I have attached my HWiNFO64.INI file. This works fine for me using the portable 3.92-1515 version. You might try renaming yours HWiNFO64.INI.old and copy the attached into the same folder, then re-launch HWiNFO64 and see if anything changes. If nothing changes, it might not be worth spending more energy trying to figure out if there are no problems otherwise.

 

Thanks for the advice and for the .ini Bro, much appreciated. I probably wont dwell on it too much longer anyway as its no biggie - my inquisitive nature was kicking in and making me question myself as to why my entries were different to RV's, thinking I had maybe missed something.

I know Brother RV said about disabling fan monitoring and I was also curious as to how to do that - only because if I chose to use Dell EC as opposed to Compal EC, I want to eliminate DPC Latency issues which, for me, with settings as per post #2, are crazy high....

Maybe RV can advise/clarify on how to disable whatever needs disabling to eliminate latency using Dell EC settings - then I have the option of Dell or Compal EC....

 

specifically I have seen a few fan rpm readings those are the offending sensors. Start in the HWiNFO sensors window not the config. Identify all the fan speed readings showing rpms even if its only 0rpm. First you guys now how GPUZ has a fan reading for our GPUs yet its not accurate and often says 0rpm? Well HWiNFO with default settings shows one per gpu under the gpu Sensor section in the sensor window. So assuming you have Crossfire or SLI on our M18x's take note of those two names of the fan rpm sensor for the gpus since it may not be a clear name by default. Look now at the DELL EC section in the sensor window. There should be a temp, and two fan rpm readings one claims cpu and the other claims system/gpu and should be showing the rpm readings of your fans. those are the other targeted ones. So that's 4 sensor readings to note name and heading they were listed under. Open the config in the sensors window and hunt down each of those under the right section... if you didn't note the names it would be harder to find because they are not labeled fan speed reading by default at all. Go to the right hand side of the options and disable the sensor reading which will automatically hide and gray out the show sensor checkbox too. Now its not being read and its not just hidden from the sensor window. I had just a version or so back on those pics but it still applies If they are completely not shown and the DPC latency is still showing check for any other rpm readings you may see. If still perhaps we have different setups and something else is causing the issue. Disable wireless network card and possibly any other extra cards just to refine what is running. That's how I knew it was only the settings I was using that showed the dpc latency or not. So just in case that is what was giving dpc issues too adding to what you see in the DPC app.
As per the latest version of HWiNFO I used to only find for the DELL EC autofan profile option the only good sensor to read from was DELL EC - CPU temp reading... now I use one that has appeared recently in the latest HWiNFO version. Its called "Intel CPU#0" and its temp reading is very accurate ranging from min to max temps where I didn't see Dell EC temp reading showing accurate readings comparing it to the Intel Digital Thermal Sensor reading... whereas this IntelCPU#0 reading has been spot on and I've confirmed it to fully work with the custom profile accurately changing fan speed as per your custom temp profile

I spoke to Mumak directly and he is glad to answer as many questions as anyone may have on any matter at all regarding HWiNFO. He is very patient and helpful. He is the creator of HWiNFO and can answer anything HWiNFO related better than anyone else. He said he doesn't mind if anyone asks him directly on any of the matter that's a very kind gesture I do believe He can be contacted as I linked above here :

the noted DPC Latency is even noted right on his own forum issue #3 thats noted
Known Issues

he prefers fan related topics be asked at the above and not as new topics in his own forum thank you for respecting his request

 

Thanks RV. I will do as you advised and see how it goes. I will also read up a bit more on HWiNFO over at the links provided.

Cheers.

 

Perhaps the links were not allowed as per NBR forum rules Stevie so the only link that is okay is the one to HWiNFO's known issues list. Your welcome though and I believe you know where to seek more info. I spoke more to Mumak and as per fan control via Compal and DELL method... there is no clear cut stable for all answer For GT580m and a config like Mr.Fox's computer above may very well be completely stable using the Compal EC There were many reports but there are so many variations of setups nothing is clear cut. There were more reports from AMD users using the Compal EC of issues than the Nvidia users. So Mr.Fox your advice above is sound all of you should test the versions yourself and determine what best suits you. AMD users may want to consider the high reports of issues and use the Dell EC over the Compal EC and Nvidia users the opposite may end up being true although there hadn't been issues on the Dell EC as of yet. So again MR.Fox put it good above please test and use whichever version works best for you. Mumak is glad to assist anyone as I said. Cheers. Stevie I hope I was of assistance. here is updated pic on the Dell EC sensor for latest HWiNFO version since you said they weren't showing I see the names are missing in new version... but those two are still the ones to disable.. the other one is just a temp sensor and causes no latency.

Spoiler

Also to be honest if a user here is just monitoring and not using fan control in HWiNFO one should uncheck all three of these the "SW SMI" in HWiNFO options as well as "LPC & EC Support" and "EC-ACPI Synchronization" so there is no need to worry of any latency or fan control when one didn't plan to use it anyway.