As every summer now explodes with an unbearable hellish heat, one cannot overlook how much the high temperature can affect the performance of the computer, which can also be ruined and damaged if the hardware inside the PC gets too hot. In the silence of every room, at home and in the office, you can hear the noise of the fans running wildly trying to cool the processor and the disk, which are the two most delicate components to control. Since the temperature in the PC is so important, the manufacturers have installed heat sensors for the most sensitive hardware, to make sure that, in the event of excessive heat, the PC detaches everything by switching off before it catches fire or burns some circuits .
To avoid getting to that point, it is worthwhile, especially in summer, especially on very dusty laptops and desktop computers, to check the temperature detected in the PC by sensors on CPU, graphics card (GPU), motherboard and disk, using a dedicated program.
READ ALSO: Manage the PC fans for better cooling and air flow
The best and free programs to control the heat and temperature of the computer on PCs and laptops (also Mac) are:
1) SpeedFan is the most famous program to control the processor temperature, which also allows you to watch the speed of the fans.
It can also be set to control the temperature of the disk and the general internal temperature of the computer (ie the motherboard, the CPU and the CPU video card ).
Although it is a very popular program, it does not work completely on every laptop and laptop model and in some cases some values will not be visible. SpeedFan can be used to detect anomalous overheating and to receive alarms if the temperature becomes too high and also to manually set the fan speed. Although theoretically you can lower the fan speed to reduce energy consumption or reduce noise, better not to touch that configuration if you are not an expert.
2) Core Temp is used to keep the temperature of the Intel and AMD processors under control on Windows 7, 8 and Windows 10. Among the peculiarities, there is the function to save information so that you can make comparisons and detect, over time, if there are unexpected overheating or if everything is regular.
Core Temp is fast and accurate, even if supported by advertisements during installation. Core Temp can be kept running to be able to control temperature and heat in the PC at any time from its icon near the clock, on the desktop.
This program also allows you to receive alarms if the heat detected is higher than a certain temperature.
3) Real Temp, a Windows tool that allows you to control the heating of CPU and GPU . It is a portable program, which does not require installation, good for both fixed PCs and laptops. You can also adjust a maximum temperature and an alarm if it is exceeded.
4) Open Hardware Monitor displays, in its interface, the temperature of the CPU, the graphics card, the hard disk and the motherboard as well as other information on these components. During the real time control of the values, you can compare the current temperatures in degrees centigrade and the maximum peaks and can become an excellent way to find out if the cooling system is sufficient for the time of year and the environment in which it is located the computer.
5) HWMonitor is very similar to Open Hardware Monitor (CPU, GPU, hard disk and motherboard) with the addition of SMART values of the hard disk.
Here too, the temperature of the CPU, hard disk and video card can be checked precisely and reliably with the min and max values displayed alongside the current heat readings of the components.
6) hwinfo32 is one of the best programs ever to get an overview of the hardware information of a computer, also capable of monitoring in real time all the internal temperatures of the PC from the sensors . HWInfo is also excellent for saving reports and graphs. The heating values can be viewed both in degrees Celsius and Fahrenheit.
READ ALSO: programs to measure hardware power and performance
7) Speccy is a program to check the hardware specifications of the computer also capable of showing the temperatures of the CPU, graphics card, hard disk and motherboard.
8) OCCT is a very accurate and powerful program of Core stability tests in the CPU that can be useful to determine if the hardware components are fine when the temperature increases. This is an important tool to use on gaming PCs and when using heavy programs.
9) CrystalDiskInfo is a program specialized in checking the greeting status of the disk and its temperature. With a clear and easy to use interface, there is really no difficulty in finding all the information and monitoring the heating of hard disk or SSD internal to the PC
10) For Macs you can use the free Macs Fan Control program which allows you to control the temperature on both Mac PPC and Intel Macs.
Finally, I remember the program that allows you to control and reduce energy consumption on laptops, of which I wrote some time ago, also excellent for keeping the CPU temperature low.
Keep in mind that, although it is not too common, overheating is one of the causes of damage to the hard drives visible from frequent errors and slow loading. In more frequent cases, high heat can cause computers to shutdown suddenly and prolonged overheating situations can lead to the expensive processor melting. In the case of laptops or netbooks, checking the temperature can also be useful to save the battery and the energy consumption caused by the turning of the fans.
READ ALSO: 8 ways to cool your pc in hot weather
