Hardware monitor program?

I'm still trying to track down the source of the intermittent lockups
in my computer and thinking that it might be helpful to monitor
temperatures and voltages over time and see if there's any correlation
between the sensor readings and the lockups.

I'd like to find a program (free is nice but I'm willing to pay for a
good one) that can sense temperature and voltage readings and record
them to a file. Because my problem is so intermittent, I can't count
on being there at the time of the failure, and I want to record them
so I can look back after the fact.

Can anybody recommand such an app? I've Googled around and tried
several and found them all lacking in one repect or another, mostly in
an inability to record.

John

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John writes:

Can anybody recommand such an app? I've Googled around and tried
several and found them all lacking in one repect or another, mostly in
an inability to record.

It would help if you said what you tried already. I think speedfan is
common, but I have no idea about logging. Not big on Windows. Should
be easy to find a program that loads your system and causes heating,
if that's the problem.

If you can't find a suitable tool, hardware diagnostics for a PC is
pretty straightforward. Let's see, three steps?

Step 1. Test RAM (real test, meaning memtest86 or memtest86+,
whichever is current at the time, or both).

Step 2. Remove all non-essential components. Any extra cards, USB
devices, RAM, disks, other storage and see if that helps. If not, then

Step 3. Start swapping components, first PSU, then motherboard.

On Sat, 29 May 2010 22:24:19 +0300, Anssi Saari wrote:

It would help if you said what you tried already. I think speedfan is
common, but I have no idea about logging. Not big on Windows. Should
be easy to find a program that loads your system and causes heating,
if that's the problem.

Speedfan, as far as I can see, has no ability to log its readings.

I'm not interested in stressing the system, I've done that already and
found the the failures seem unrelated to load. I'm interested in
monitoring its behavior; that's why I was inquiring about a monitor
app.

If you can't find a suitable tool, hardware diagnostics for a PC is
pretty straightforward. Let's see, three steps?
Step 1. Test RAM (real test, meaning memtest86 or memtest86+,
whichever is current at the time, or both).

Yeah, BTDT. Ran about 9 hours of memory checks with MS Memory Test
amd memtest86+. No errors.


Step 2. Remove all non-essential components. Any extra cards, USB
devices, RAM, disks, other storage and see if that helps. If not, then

Given the intermittent nature of the problem (the system can run for
days or even a week or more without failure) this approach isn't very
practical.


Step 3. Start swapping components, first PSU, then motherboard.

.... or RAM ... or video card ... or ?

Straightforward? perhaps, but time-consuming and expensive. That's
why I was hoping to find a monitor app that would allow me to get some
idea of where the problem might lie before I just started throwing
parts at it.

Thanks for the thoughts.

John

Reply-to address is real

On Sat, 29 May 2010 14:17:54 -0400, John wrote:


I'm still trying to track down the source of the intermittent lockups
in my computer and thinking that it might be helpful to monitor
temperatures and voltages over time and see if there's any correlation
between the sensor readings and the lockups.

I'd like to find a program (free is nice but I'm willing to pay for a
good one) that can sense temperature and voltage readings and record
them to a file. Because my problem is so intermittent, I can't count
on being there at the time of the failure, and I want to record them
so I can look back after the fact.

Can anybody recommand such an app? I've Googled around and tried
several and found them all lacking in one repect or another, mostly in
an inability to record.

John

Reply-to address is real

Everest Ultimate isn't free ($30 US) but does provide logging capability.
You can install it on up to three machines, which is nice.

On Sun, 30 May 2010 22:08:03 -0400, John
wrote:

On Sat, 29 May 2010 22:24:19 +0300, Anssi Saari wrote:

It would help if you said what you tried already. I think speedfan is
common, but I have no idea about logging. Not big on Windows. Should
be easy to find a program that loads your system and causes heating,
if that's the problem.

Speedfan, as far as I can see, has no ability to log its readings.

I'm not interested in stressing the system, I've done that already and
found the the failures seem unrelated to load. I'm interested in
monitoring its behavior; that's why I was inquiring about a monitor
app.

If you can't find a suitable tool, hardware diagnostics for a PC is
pretty straightforward. Let's see, three steps?
Step 1. Test RAM (real test, meaning memtest86 or memtest86+,
whichever is current at the time, or both).

Yeah, BTDT. Ran about 9 hours of memory checks with MS Memory Test
amd memtest86+. No errors.


Step 2. Remove all non-essential components. Any extra cards, USB
devices, RAM, disks, other storage and see if that helps. If not, then

Given the intermittent nature of the problem (the system can run for
days or even a week or more without failure) this approach isn't very
practical.


Step 3. Start swapping components, first PSU, then motherboard.

... or RAM ... or video card ... or ?

Straightforward? perhaps, but time-consuming and expensive. That's
why I was hoping to find a monitor app that would allow me to get some
idea of where the problem might lie before I just started throwing
parts at it.

Thanks for the thoughts.

John

Reply-to address is real

if ur running windows .. is there any useful info in the event logs ?

On Tue, 01 Jun 2010 16:17:11 +1000, Jack Simms
wrote:

Reply-to address is real

if ur running windows .. is there any useful info in the event logs ?

No. A few warnings and errors relaing to DHCP and expired leases, but
nothing more ominous than that. And nothing that correlates in time
with any of the failures whose times I know.

John

Reply-to address is real

On 31 May 2010 15:47:02 -0500, Foke wrote:


Everest Ultimate isn't free ($30 US) but does provide logging capability.
You can install it on up to three machines, which is nice.

Thanks. I'll have a look.

John

Reply-to address is real