hardware sensors monitor 4.5.4.2

Overview

If every user had an application that would track several important parameters from his system’s hardware components (temperatures, voltages, etc.) then the number of disasters hitting computers due to hardware issues would drop significantly. Hardware sensors monitor is a program that does exactly this; working in the background, and using very few system resources, it monitors all kinds of information coming from sensors embedded in hardware components, such as CPU temperatures, voltages, cooling fans’ speeds, HDDs’ attributes and others. In addition, it can warn you whenever something goes wrong in those parameters.

Installation

There’s nothing confusing or relatively difficult in the program’s setup procedure. Just follow the steps, make the appropriate settings and let the installer complete the process. When it ends, the program should be launched automatically (unless you unchecked that option throughout the installation procedure).

No viruses, trojans or other 3^rd-party advertised software were found in this application

Supported operating systems are Windows NT4, XP, 2000, 2003, 2008, 2012, Vista, 7, 8 and 10 (32/64-bit).

Interface

The program usually runs in the system tray, but you can restore it to the desktop by clicking on its icon (it has a cool minimize/restore visual effect). In its window, there are several types of parameters displayed: Temperatures, HDD Temperatures, Cooling fans, Voltages, Graphics adapters and Batteries. The first refers to the temperatures of the motherboard and CPUs, the second to the hard disk temperatures, the third to fans’ speeds, the fourth to hardware voltages, the fifth to GPU fan speeds/temperatures/voltages and the last to battery voltages.

You can expand the some of those categories (e.g. Temperatures and Cooling fans) to see a graph of the parameters over time.

Pros

As I mentioned above, the program runs in the background and constantly monitors CPU temperatures, HDD temperatures, cooling fans’ speeds and voltages.

Whenever the values of these parameters are above or below a maximum or minimum value, then a warning is displayed to let the user know of the problem. These thresholds can be manually adjusted if needed, in case a user wants to have more control over the parameter' limits.

Apart from the aforementioned parameters, HSM also picks up other details regarding the system it’s installed in. For example, it can read BIOS info (manufacturer, board model/version, BIOS vendor, BIOS version, release date), CPU info (brand name, CPUID, clock frequencies, …) and other more advanced details.

In addition, it has a Thermocontrol feature that throttles CPU speed when a maximum selected temperature has been reached.

If a parameter’s value is beyond its threshold, then there are various actions that can be performed; for example, a sound file could be played or an application could be executed.

Hardware sensors monitor uses very few system resources.

Cons

No cons were found during our tests.

Alternatives

Some alternatives are SpeedFan (free), Open Hardware Monitor (free), HWMonitor (free), Core Temp (free) and GSmartControl (free), with SpeedFan and HWMonitor being the top ones in this category.

Conclusion

Hardware sensors monitor is an application with a wide range of features and a stable functionality. It is regularly updated to support more hardware models, in order to provide accurate indications to all users.