CPU temperature monitoring

Question

For a programming project I would like to access the temperature readings from my CPU and GPUs. I will be using C#. From various forums I get the impression that there is specific information and developer resources you need in order to access that information for various boards. I have a MSI NF750-G55 board. MSI's website does not have any of the information I am looking for. I tried their tech support and the rep I spoke with stated they do not have any such information. There must be a way to obtain that info.

Any thoughts?

Answer 1

For at least the CPU side of things, you could use WMI.

The namespace\object is root\WMI, MSAcpi_ThermalZoneTemperature

Sample Code:

ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = 
    new ManagementObjectSearcher("root\\WMI",
                                 "SELECT * FROM MSAcpi_ThermalZoneTemperature");

ManagementObjectCollection collection = 
    searcher.Get();

foreach(ManagementBaseObject tempObject in collection)
{
    Console.WriteLine(tempObject["CurrentTemperature"].ToString());
}

That will give you the temperature in a raw format. You have to convert from there:

kelvin = raw / 10;

celsius = (raw / 10) - 273.15;

fahrenheit = ((raw / 10) - 273.15) * 9 / 5 + 32;

Answer 2

Actually the best way do to any hardware related coding using WMI is best done through using this WMI Code Creator tool from Microsoft the tool will create the code for you based on what you are looking for and what .Net language you want to use.

The supported langauges currently are: C#, Visual Basic, VB Script.

Answer 3

Note that MSAcpi_ThermalZoneTemperature does not give you the temperature of the CPU but rather the temperature of the motherboard. Also, note that most motherboards do not implement this via WMI.

You can give the Open Hardware Monitor a go, although it lacks support for the latest processors.

internal sealed class CpuTemperatureReader : IDisposable
{
    private readonly Computer _computer;

    public CpuTemperatureReader()
    {
        _computer = new Computer { CPUEnabled = true };
        _computer.Open();
    }

    public IReadOnlyDictionary<string, float> GetTemperaturesInCelsius()
    {
        var coreAndTemperature = new Dictionary<string, float>();

        foreach (var hardware in _computer.Hardware)
        {
            hardware.Update(); //use hardware.Name to get CPU model
            foreach (var sensor in hardware.Sensors)
            {
                if (sensor.SensorType == SensorType.Temperature && sensor.Value.HasValue)
                    coreAndTemperature.Add(sensor.Name, sensor.Value.Value);
            }
        }

        return coreAndTemperature;
    }

    public void Dispose()
    {
        try
        {
            _computer.Close();
        }
        catch (Exception)
        {
            //ignore closing errors
        }
    }
}

Download the zip from the official source, extract and add a reference to OpenHardwareMonitorLib.dll in your project.