CPU Temperature and FAN Speed

[John_Hughen]

I am a system builder and we use Intel desktop boards for our systems. I need to develop software to read the CPU temperature and Fan speed from the Intel Desktop Board. I am running on a Windows platform, I have tried Microsoft's WMI but have only been able to get static information read from SMBIOS at system start. Does Intel have an API or Windows device driver that will give me this information in real time?

[levicki]

Quoting - John Hughen

I am a system builder and we use Intel desktop boards for our systems. I need to develop software to read the CPU temperature and Fan speed from the Intel Desktop Board. I am running on a Windows platform, I have tried Microsoft's WMI but have only been able to get static information read from SMBIOS at system start. Does Intel have an API or Windows device driver that will give me this information in real time?

Short and disappointing answer - No.

Longer answer - you need to read data from the sensor chip. Each board model may have a different chip, and each chip may be configured differently by the BIOS. That means you will have to write a lot of code to support all possible chip/settings combinations. CPU temperature can also be read from the DTS but that requires writing a kernel mode driver to access CPU MSR registers. You will also need a driver for accessing the sensor chip which sits on a SMBus.

[John_Hughen]

Quoting - John Hughen

I am a system builder and we use Intel desktop boards for our systems. I need to develop software to read the CPU temperature and Fan speed from the Intel Desktop Board. I am running on a Windows platform, I have tried Microsoft's WMI but have only been able to get static information read from SMBIOS at system start. Does Intel have an API or Windows device driver that will give me this information in real time?

Intel provides the Intel Desktop Utilities (IDU) for these system boards, these utilities monitor CPU temperature and Fan Speed and will display this to the user in real time (Obviously this means that Intel has the proper windows drivers to talk to the chips and registers on the system board), Does Intel provide a API so that another program can get this information from the Intel Desktop Utilities, or can Intel provide these drivers outside of the Intel Desktop Utilities?

[levicki]

Quoting - John Hughen

Does Intel provide a API so that another program can get this information from the Intel Desktop Utilities, or can Intel provide these drivers outside of the Intel Desktop Utilities?

No and no, sorry.

You can get WinRing0 drivers and API, they are signed, but you still won't be able to figure out the sensor chip without reverse-engineering.

[stev6375]

Quoting - Igor Levicki

No and no, sorry.

You can get WinRing0 drivers and API, they are signed, but you still won't be able to figure out the sensor chip without reverse-engineering.

yes, check out CPUID cpuz website. An SDK is available for developers. Or just use cpuz -txt=mylog.log to get a report