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

Great news Ian!! - now you can sit back and really enjoy your system......

 

anyone try the new precision x from evga yet? other than me that is.

 

Didn't know they had a new version out. I will have to give it a whirl.

Edit 1: I missed the "X" part. It's the combo with droid monitoring/tweaking app you referring to. Will need to scope it out and see if it requires less fussing than the AB droid app. Nice GUI. Good find, Brother John. The Bluetooth definite sounds like it would be better than using the wifi connection that AB does.

Edit 2: Setup is nearly identical to using AB. Seems a lot like the same software other than GUI. Testing now. It's too bad that neither Precision nor AB allow adjustments to P1.

 

bluetooth seems finicky at times for both apps, but when they work...they work.

 

I'm going to insert a post on the first page about your find, Brother John. Works exactly the same as Afterburner for OSD purposes, and the setup process is the same. +1 Rep.

 

Mr. Fox, I tried following this guide for my M14x. Initially I was having a problem where the CPU temp info was sitting on top of and blocking the GPU temp and framerate info in-game, but I didn't mind this too much. However, I came back a few hours later (without having changed anything to my knowledge), and now in game it only shows the info from MSI Afterburner (GPU temp and framerate), nothing from HWiNFO64. I've double checked and I have all the settings exactly as you listed them in your first page post.

Any idea what I've done wrong here? I realize this is a vague, "I did what you said and it doesn't work!" comment, but I was hoping you had some insights about things I might've accidentally changed.

 

The only thing that comes to mind is perhaps something with the HWiNFO64 RivaTuner plugin settings was accidentally overlooked. Look at the series of screen shots attached as thumbnails. Be sure you select different lines for the various types of data to be displayed.

I have CPU core speeds on Core0, Core1 set on line #1, Core2, Core3 set on line #2 and CPU package temps set on line #3. The settings from HWiNFO64 RivaTuner OSD should appear underneath the GPU data in the OSD that is native in Afterburner.

If this is not the problem, then maybe something needs to be configured in the HWiNFO64 settings slightly different for the M14x. I bet it's something simple, but without more info or being able to put my hands on your systems it kind of hard to tell what else might be happening.

 

Hey guys. Is it abnormal that my CPU Temp is higher than my GPU temp during gaming? Here is an SS from HWinfo:

This is while playing WOW on ultra. My GPU is @61ºC average and maxes at 64ºC but my CPU max is at 82ºC.

After I exit the game, the CPU temp went back to 62ºC and GPU stays at 54ºC
I thought I read that when gaming, the GPU temp is normally higher than the CPU.

I am not OC'ing and my spec is in my sig. Thanks.

 

Hi UberJason,

What version of MSI AfterBurner are you using? Is it v2.1.0? If so, you may want to go back to the download page and grab the BETA release instead.
See this post here. Then make sure you have HWiNFO64 setup per Mr. Fox's instructions. I hope this helps.

 

Yep. Make sure you have the beta - 2.2.0 beta 15 from recollection. Also, regards the "overlapping" of the readouts is probably down to having the cpu readouts set to the same line and not independent lines as per above post from Mr. Fox.

 

That's totally normal. My CPU temps have always been higher under load than the GPU temps. This is true with AMD and NVIDIA GPUs. My GTX 580M GPUs never get hot, even when overclocked for benchmark runs.

 

Thanks guys! I was using Afterburner 2.1 instead of 2.2 Beta 15. Now both CPU temp and GPU temp show (I don't want the core usage so I turned those off). Incidentally, it wasn't the line thing - I toyed around with which line was which; it was just Afterburner 2.1 not playing nice with HWiNFO64.

One last question - when I set Afterburner to show FPS in the OSD it shows as "D3D9: 30.0 FPS" (for example), but when I set it not to show FPS, it shows "30.0" at the bottom - in other words, it'll show the FPS just without the label. Do you know if there's a way to make it not show the FPS at all? (It's a minor inconvenience at best; I play Starcraft II most of the time and it has its own built-in FPS counter that I've grown accustomed to glancing at instead of the Afterburner FPS counter.)

 

Simply unchecking the box to show Framerate in OSD should turn that off. The other FPS reading may be coming from something else. I'm not sure because I have not noticed that before. (My system does not do what you are describing.)

 

Thanks Mr. Fox! So my max. of 82ºC for CPU is within the acceptable range? What temp for CPU should I start to be worried?

I had the same problem until I saw their replies to your question. Now I can see both

Thanks also guys!

 

It depends on what you're doing. Temps vary based on CPU stress. You shouldn't worry too much about it unless temps start climbing up near the 95ºC range and staying there for a sustained period under a full CPU load.

 

I reached 90ºC earlier when I tried the open beta for Tera MMO but it didn't stay there for long. It's hovering between 83-86º for the CPU. Thanks again btw.

 

For your cpu junction temp is 100ºC so basically everything under this temp is ok, but when it is over 90ºC you should try to clean fan and the rest of cooling stuff. I have same cpu and recently i had real mess in my machine, just vacuuming it lowered the temp from 90 to 70.

 

Hi Janessie Welcome to NBR Forums. We're glad you joined our community.

Good advice on the cleaning. It makes a HUGE difference. My old Sager NP2080 laptop that one of my sons is using recently start having the fans running excessively and overheating to the point of thermal shutdown and that's all it was. A quick cleaning and it was back to normal again.

Anyhow, as soon as you can, update your signature with your machine specs. Are you an Alienware owner?

Click the link at the top of my signature on the left side and you will find an index of helpful threads. At the bottom of that page you will find links to Forum Rules and help with how to search our forums effectively.

Again, welcome to NBR. We're looking forward to hearing more from you.

 

My fans and heat pipes are really clean. Its a new unit, I just got it last week. Then technician replaced the CPU and GPU because Dell gave me the wrong ones so I had the chance to look under the hood. Everything inside is really clean and new.

I installed an SSD last night and re-check the fans etc and there are no dust, dirt or anything. The unit is basically new, even the dust filter doesnt have dust yet.

Due to the CPU temp getting higher, I used manual fan control and it stabilizes at an average of 77-83°C. However, I felt the leftmost part of the palm rest becoming warmer. Is it possible that the fan controlled manually is causing that part of the casing to get warm? I cant specifically pinpoint the exact area but maybe a quarter of the whole area on the left. From keys WASD to the palm rest below.

 

Is that where the HDD is located? The only part of my M18x exterior that ever seems sort of warm was the area around the HDD.

 

Ye below that is the HDD. SHould there be something between the HDD and the palm rest like the part of the mobo? At least it should block the heat right?

 

I don't think there is anything there to shield the heat. It probably would not be good to insulate or trap the heat inside the laptop. A HDD can get very warm when it is in steady use.

 

I see so that must be the HDD. I think you are right, I just realized, I moved that game into the new SSD and that part didnt get that hot the last time I played. Wow! I hope SSD gets more affordable

Thanks again!

 

Great post, I have been looking for a way to show cpu info while in game.

One problem I am having though, everything works, everything starts with windows, but my cpu info (anything from hwinfo basically) won't show in game, unless I quit hwinfo, and restart it.

Anyone seen this or have any idea what is wrong?

 

Afterburner might need to start first then hwinfo or vice versa. If your setting this up for starting with windows and using task scheduler... You can try to make the entry in not the main task scheduler location... but on left so click Microsoft>Windows and add the task here. Make sure you've check "run task with highest priveleges". You can try changing the osd, afterburner and hwinfo properties to run as admin.

Not likely though... Either way maybe it's just the order they are opened. I had similar trouble after reinstalling Skyrim... Witcher was showing fine... I tinkered over and over trying to get Skyrim to show the OSD and eventually it just worked. Later I figured at one point I read of a Skyrim twaek which was wrong and had set it to xp compatibility... Once that was unchecked the OSD started functioning again. Something to keep in mind I guess pehaps some games run in xp compatibility won't show the OSD.

 

You have to start Afterburner first and than hwinfo otherwise it will not work.

I just found out, that when I run AB + hwinfo it cause to crash whole machine while playing some games - Tribes: Ascend, don´t know if any other game does the same....anybody has similar experience?

Btw. will fix that signature soon. =)

 

If you run into this issue randomly, simply shut down Afterburner and HWiNFO, launch HWiNFO manually followed by Afterburner. I have needed to do that a couple of times.

 

I agree MrFox tends to be just a error that was from the two system sensor softwares clashing to scan sensors at the same time.

When opened with enough time in between there should be no issues. You know in the task scheduler it's very advanced and configurable and is why I like to use it for certain apps at windows start or even just modifying behavior of apps that aren't started with windows.

So if anyone is having issues on how soon hwinfo or afterburner is starting in windows... go back to the Task, edit the properties and add a launch delay of 5 seconds.

But if the bsods don't go away you may need to look into if Afterburner or HWinfo is causing a bsod reading from your gpu (not impossible)

When posting about issues possibly list driver version and computer model and gpu model . I had 5870m who crashed upon launching Afterburner on an older driver and older Afterburner...

 

I used to have issues with MSI Afterburner crashing the OS with 6970M and 6990M video cards, but that was an older version of Afterburner... not sure if there are still issue with the newer versions.

 

yeah not sure either but plenty AMD users are using it error free... I think those errors both of us experienced have been taken care of now.

 

I followed this procedures and its working really great in monitoring both temps. I just have a question about HWInfo64, even if I checked the box for launch at start or start with windows (not sure exactly about the wordings), its not really starting automatically. I always have to run the program manually.
Is it really like that? Thanks!

 

I'm glad to hear you like it, bro.

No, it should start automatically, but it does not on some systems. I'm not sure why, but it's easy enough to address through a workaround.

Go into Administrative Tools and you can set it up to run as a Task at startup. That should work.

 

It really is great. I just have to move the position of the OSD depending on what game I'm playing to avoid covering anything I'll try that one. Thanks again!

 

Hey I've been trying to set up HWinfo and I love the guide, very intuitive. I have one problem though, don't know if I'm just overlooking something or what, I've downloaded the same version of HWinfo the guide is based on and I've gotten to the step of enabling Rivatuner during configuration. the only problem is that I can't. The option is greyed out and stays greyed out. Should I download rivatuner separately? I know the guide says I dont need to, but I don't seem to be able to access it.

 

No need for a seperate download. Make sure you have the HWiNFO configurations set correctly from the first two spoilers in post #1 and then spoiler 3 shows you how to configure Afterburner - you need to have Afterburner configured correctly to enable the OSD. Once you have both configured as per the spoilers, you can simply launch the Rivatuner aspect by right clicking the jet with the pink numbers on it in the tray area and make the relevant changes.

Configure that as shown and you should be golden.

 

Media... If that hasn't helped your issue may just be the order in which your opening the two programs. The afterburner OSD app needs to be open ahead of HWiNFO to allow the communication of HWiNFO to the Afterburner OSD (RTSS (rivatuner statistic server))

 

Thank you Mr. Fox for bringing this post to us!
I'm currently using the HWInfo of version: 395_1625
GPU info is displayed as expected
But seems unable to link the CPU info to Riva tuner (set done as the post shows), there's no CPU info like temp, frequency displayed.
anyone know how to fix this?

One thing I want to mention is that in the latest version of HWInfo, seems there is no option of "CPU package". Is this may be the reason?

 

I think this is down just to the order that the utilities are opened. If you look at Residual Voltage's post above, try that and see if you get all the info displayed.

 

I am not able to answer that question because I am not using the latest version of HWiNFO64. You can use another sensor if "CPU Package" is no longer available. For example, select the CPU under Dell EC or Compal EC for the average CPU temperature reading among all cores.

You can close and reopen HWiNFO64 to get the RivaTuner sensors for the CPU to show up in Afterburner. That happens now and then. As previously posted, an alternative is to launch HWiNFO64 as a Windows Task and you can delay the task long enough to ensure that Afterburner is always running first.

Another thing to point out is that you can make your own label or heading for the HWiNFO64 sensors. This will show up in the HWiNFO monitoring window as well as in Afterburner's OSD. Look at the difference between the Vantage and New Calico runs and you will see what I am referring to. (Look at the last line showing the CPU Package temperature.)

Question: Other than resorting to using an external video camera, has anyone found a screen capture utility that will capture at full frame rate?

<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/J7ulVWxJ1RQ?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/J7ulVWxJ1RQ?version=3&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width='700' height="500" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>

 

Afterburner will not capture at full frame rate Mr Fox?

 

Yes, it does but my question was not worded properly. It captures whatever is there to be captured. What I meant was "without reducing framerate." For the sake of example, suppose while not capturing video output, the FPS might be 110, but during capture it drops to say 55 or 65 FPS, somewhere around 50% of what the max FPS performance would be while not capturing video.

I suspect this is due to additional load on the CPU and GPU for the rendering, but I thought maybe there was something out there that causes very little overhead.

 

Will FRAPS work? - I have never tried it but it says on the site (and I quote) :

Realtime Video Capture Software - Have you ever wanted to record video while playing your favourite game? Come join the Machinima revolution! Throw away the VCR, forget about using a DV cam, game recording has never been this easy! Fraps can capture audio and video up to 2560x1600 with custom frame rates from 1 to 120 frames per second!

 

I'm not sure. It's not free, so I haven't tried it. I hear it works great.

 

Ahhhhh - didn't spot that it is only available if you buy the full version - I know we've used the free version before to monitor framerates but its now redundant for that purpose - thanks to this great thread!

 

Yes, the Afterburner screen capture (video and stills) works excellent. Free is a great price and I don't see any point in paying for something like FRAPS. The only thing I don't care for is the reduced FPS give a false impression of diminished performance while capturing video.

Edit: I re-posted the Vantage video after running with PPU enabled. The FPS with PPU enabled during video capture are about the same FPS as running without video capture.

 

Apologies if this is somewhat OT...

... but Mr. Fox, how the heck did you get your i7 2920XM to run @that insane clock?

 

Hi Wonderpookie. It's just a matter of changing a number of settings. Because it's an XM, the multipliers can be changed. With Intel XTU, you can set the multipliers higher than the BIOS will allow. I can overclock to 4.9GHz through a combination of BCLK and multipliers. (ResidualVoltage and Johnksss have actually broken the 5GBhz barrier.) Most of the settings, unlocked multipliers excluded, can be implemented with a non-XM CPU with an unlocked BIOS.

Here is a link to my normal everyday use settings: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-overclocking-discussion-103.html#post8398649.

(Edit: just noticed you have an M17x R2. I have not tried tweaking my R2 like this. The BIOS is totally different, so the screen shots in the link above may not be useful for your system. I do not believe XTU will work with the M17x R2.)

 

Another question: the monitoring doesn't support 3d mark 11?
I've get the display run perfectly, but seems only in 11, it shows nothing.

 

Oh wow, that's awesome. I'm going to assume though that heat is a real issue, so how are you cooling it all?

 

I think that was already posted early in the thread. 3DMark11 is a native 64bit application and 64bit is not supported for OSD. However, look in your installation folder and you may find the 32bit version of 3DMark11. (I don't know if it comes with the freeware version, but I have it with my retail version. It does work with the 32bit version.)

Actually, heat is never an issue with normal use and gaming. I'm always 90°C or less, with the exception of 3DMark11 and Vantage CPU tests. I can normally complete a 3DMark11 CPU run, but AC cooling is required to avoid thermal shutdown with Vantage because both of the CPU tests run for way too long. The CPU tests with both of these benchmarks are extremely taxing and far exceed what I have ever encountered in normal use or gaming.

I just posted a Batman: Arkham Asylum benchmark in the M18x benchmark thread with the CPU running at 4.5GHz and temps were not an issue. Running Crysis, Crysis 2 and Metro 2033 also poses no problems with temps.